These stats assume no changes in climate, sociology, or economics. Kinda foolish to extrapolate the younger ages-and-old folks could be "rationed" away.
All that I dreamed of, CR. After the comments we exchanged last time, I thought that identifying the higher health costs graphically by age group would be really helpful. This is great. Thanks!
thanks. lol, just googled "pig and python," and apparently it's a title of a book on profiting on the baby boom generation. makes sense, probably where i heard it without being aware of it.
i recently heard that there is a strong co-relation between swine flu mortality and obesity- deaths are more common among the obese. Apparently the breathing patterns of obese folks is such that it makes catching swine flu easier. Since predisposition to putting on weight was an evolutionary advantage during periods of food shortage (most of pre 20th century human existence) if this is in fact correct than this predisposition may be this evolutions hand at work in other words we can only project what we know - which is very little.
Mel, yes - these are the Census Bureau projections. No Logan's Run for those over 65 assumed either.
patientrenter, thanks. I was looking for heath care costs by age group (I'm sure being in the 50s is much higher than 40s, etc.) But at least this gives us an idea.
It seems the Census Bureau site has slowed down ... hmmm.
Looking at the population distribution move, it becomes very clear how the increased cost of retirees (represented by the last 4-5 bars in the chart) just begins to grow in 2011 or so, and takes quite a long time to grow. We won't suddenly go from the current ratio between working people and retirees to a much lower ratio overnight as the boomers retire. It will be a slow grind over many decades.
Pig's roughly 15 years apart. More evidence that demographics, especially inter-generational capital flows, is the common link between Japan and Japan 2.0.
I'll just clarify...you could consider 7-8% increases per year to be "sharp."
But I don't think that's CR's drift. I think he is saying the big one-time surge of Baby Boomer population hitting 65 will cause the future rates of increase to be a lot greater than historic. It isn't supported by most data. It's a more complex formula than meets the eye.
Population growth rates were a driving force behind the Housing Bubble aka the Ownership Society, because every city around the globe thought they would get this tsunami of population growth, as in 10%+, when in fact the growth rate was spread very even, as usual, and all the communities bought into the growth bullshit and planned for massive waves of tax paying citizens -- who never showed up and then reality set in, and most cities have about 20% too much inventory! The end...
"More evidence that demographics, especially inter-generational capital flows, is the common link between Japan and Japan 2.0."
Most people don't realize that the intergenerational capital flows within the US, even just the net debt owed by post baby boomers to baby boomers, dwarfs our debt to China (important as that debt is). I am getting more and more comfortable using the demographics as a predictor of long term (meaning multi-decade) future asset prices and other trends.
While I can't give a specific reference, my understanding from reading history is that the lifespan typically declines during periods of significant social stress. Think the russian lifespan after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Experts at the Department of Health and Human Services say 45-million doses of the H1N1 vaccine will be ready in October, rather than the 120 million doses expected.
That's what I'm thinking too, homedad. Plus recent advances in medical care have served better to preserve carcasses than to increase worthwhile lifespan. That may come in for a bit of re-evaluating.
"I'll give you my gun when you take it from my cold, dead hands!" is a slogan popularized by the National Rifle Association (NRA) on a series of bumper stickers.
Spengler has done fantastic work on the demographics question and it so happens he was a research head at one of the big banks in past life. That is spengler of asia times.
As for markets Japan rallying on that stellar GDP data. Curious that Japan and the UK are buying is debt per the tic data. That chart of eur yen cross vs the sox is worth a careful look. There is simply no wa tomorrow is a down day bank on it literally
Seems to be a pessimitic view on the future, in this post.
Does it matter if life is old or young? Life is life!
I'm hoping for Senior Olympics. Wouldn't that be cool?
We could see Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert battle it out again as 60+ year olds! I kinda miss them. :?
I went on a hike a month or so ago, and there was a guy who was 89 years old. He was jumping around, totally spry, after a seven-mile hike, at 5000 to 6000 ft in 90+ degrees fahrenheit weather! What an inspiration!
Last week, during Obama's health care town hall in Portsmouth, N.H., a man carrying a sign reading "It is time to water the tree of liberty" stood outside with a pistol strapped to his leg.
I hadn't heard that part before. Hilarious. Probably Market Ticker gold members.
After Roth discovers that Soylent wafers are made from human flesh, and decides to end the horror by signing up for government-assisted suicide, he is shown a montage of beautiful natural images in the death chamber: flowers, deer, mountains, and rivers. When Thorn rushes to the active, voluntary euthanasia clinic to try to stop Roth, he is too late to save his friend, but he is able to share Roth's final moments. In Roth's last minutes alive, "Thorn shares Sol’s nostalgic moment" as Sol asks “Can you see it?” and “Isn’t it beautiful?”, which helps Thorn to realize "what he and the rest of the world has lost."
The closest parallels in real life to the recycling concepts in 'Soylent Green' are :
L-cysteine produced from human hair, often used in bread products Soylent Green - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The world’s biggest pension funds lost confidence in stocks as the best long-term investment, cutting holdings or leaving them unchanged during the steepest rally since the 1930s.
CR, do you know if payment of health insurance premiums & co-pays included in the definition of "medical expenses" ? Are dental expenses? Just paying health insurance premiums could put you over the median for expenses for those under 65.
Anecdotal evidence only, but in my area, the obits are about 50-50, people 50 & under (mostly 49 to 55, a couple of people in their 20's & 30's) and the rest people in their 70's & 80's. The county has a significantly higher than average (in the state) number of retired people or "seniors." Not everyone that dies gets an obit in one of the local papers, but it's still interesting to see what seems to be quite a few people dying in their late 40's, early to mid-50's.
Boomers are the first generation to have lifetime or close to lifetime exposure to toxics like PCBs, TCDD, bisphenol, etc. That may have an eventual effect on life expectancy.
azurite, the US Census Bureau keeps good statistics that beat anecdotal impressions. US population mortality has been improving for a long time, and it still is. The Census Bureau (and CDC's NCHS, and the Social Security Adminstration's Office of the Chief Actuary) can provide you with lots of real data.
The younger folks are more of a surprise passing and people tend to want to memorialize the one who has passed untimely, many older folks don't want an obit- and since the family has to pay, they often save the money and use it for the funeral or burial.
The one thing is that the boomer are already starting to die, mortality starts going after 50- and the first boomers are 63.
The toxic load might account for some of the mortality, but I disagree about how they will in aggregate live shorter lives on an actuarial basis. Industrial exposure to coal, asbestos, and many other industrial processes significantly lowered life expectancy- the best example is the ladies that used to paint radium and tritium on watch dials.
"He now runs his own news site at Breitbart.com, with the motto "Just The News." The site is frequently linked to by the Drudge Report and independently run websites. It features wire stories from the Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France-Presse, Fox News, PR Newswire, U.S. Newswire, as well as direct links to a number of major international newspapers. Its Blog & "Network" links, however, tend to represent almost solely a US right-wing point of view, such as National Review, Instapundit, and Townhall.com."
Ease in getting Medicaid depends partly on the state you live in, whether or not the state supplements the SSI benefit. Medicaid goes w/SSI, Medicare w/SSDI & SS retirement benefits. The federal SSI benefit (base) is pretty low, although it's true you can own your home (whatever it's valued at) & be eligible for SSI benefits. Of course, the state or the feds will take your home after you die (unless your spouse is still living in it), unless you sell it or meet other requirements outside of what I think is still the 3 year "look back" rule. Meaning you've got to get rid of the house in a Medicaid approved way or else it will be included in your estate for the purpose of the feds/state getting back some of what they've paid out on your behalf for medical/nursing home expenses, etc.
In OR (maybe in other states), the state will do a Medicare "buy-in"--if you're entitled to SSI benefits, the state will pay your Medicare premiums--cuts down on the state contribution to your med expenses via OHP/Medicaid.
Well, I love discussing the demographics, and think this is how anyone here can gain valuable insight into the long term future, but I must say g'night.
You have a point regarding industrial exposure. A friend died last year of a cancerous tumor--he'd been a painter (house) most of his working career, had used oil based paints fairly often, the solvents that go along with that, and I don't think respirators were required or used much then. He smoked too. He was 50 when he died. I was glad that at least if he had to go, he went fast. He went into a coma the second time the MDs tried to confirm the diagnosis via lung biopsy, that was pretty much it.
It's difficult to know how much life expectancy overall will be affected. Vets exposed to Agent Orange have a statistically significant higher rate of diabetes, and I believe (not sure, no links to numbers) that diabetes shortens life expectancy. Or at least a friend's husband couldn't buy any more life insurance as soon as he was diagnosed in his 30's w/diabetes (not overweight, no family history).
Was buying tickets to see my beloved Cubs play the Dodgers this Sunday. Went to Stub Hub, literally thousands of tickets for below face value. Bought 4 tickets with face value of $100 (prolly $125 with the ticketbastard charges) for $45 including the stub hub charges. Just plain wow.
Plus recent advances in medical care have served better to preserve carcasses than to increase worthwhile lifespan.
Absolutely not. Most of the areas producing big cost increases - like cardiac care, joint replacement, aggressive cancer treatment, and transplants - are pursued largely because when they work, the patients are generally returned to good health. Sometimes better (e.g., with my mom's 15 year old titanium hips).
30s is quite early for diabetes, and they were most likely afraid of pancreatic cancer (of which idiopathic diabetes is an early sign) and a large fast payout.
You friend most likely died of extensive exposure to the solvents in paint. The newer paints are not too bad, but the older paints were a toxic stew. If he worked much in the 70s he was further exposed to asbestos.
Similar story in Pittsburgh. In early 60's it was disclosed that the top floor of a building that I walked past twice a day to/from school had just been unsealed after 50 years. It had been used for the same purpose.
Was going to post this prior thread, but the sitcom was too good to interrupt.
I was checking comments from today's earlier threads and noted the CC delinquency rates of ~7%. Sounds catastrophic but...all the CC accounts that I'm aware of (some paid off monthly and some paid barely over the minimum amt due) have seen interest rates rise to the point that 7% amounts to 4-months of interest. (And of course the banks are borrrowing at ~0% p.a..)
We have ourselves a cycle, whether it's virtuous or viscious depends on where you're sitting. The more the rate goes up, the more incentive the borrower has to ditch it all, subject to consequences.
I assist a retiree with a $6k balance and no assets/income that could be grabbed; and his interest recently went from $75/mo to $130/mo (and just got notice that it will be going to $150/mo.) It will be in his financial interest to diss the CC and work off his debit card, saving $150/mo and quickly building up the cushion that the CC had provided. BTW - That cushion was recently reduced from $1200 to $300 by the bank lowering his credit limit, so the "cushion" isn't really there.
The CC co's are playing a game of chicken, assuming that enough borrowers are so dependent on their cards and their credit score that they'll pay the higher interest rates, and maybe even pay the cards down. They're walking a tightrope, and furthermore anyone using cash to pay down their CC balance isn't spending it in the marketplace.
There is a competition for consumers' dollars and if the banks win, retail will suffer. However, if the banks lose, retail will ALSO suffer due to non-availability of financing.
I remember reading about the radium girls when I was younger but thanks for refreshing my memory. If I remember correctly, Marie Curie suffered from radium poisoning too because she worked so much with pitchblende, the ore that radium & uranium are extracted/refined from as well as radium itself.
And I still remember some of the horrible workplace injuries/practices that Upton Sinclair described in "The Jungle" which I read when I was around 12 or 13.
"We won't suddenly go from the current ratio between working people and retirees to a much lower ratio overnight as the boomers retire. It will be a slow grind over many decades."
wow, you could work for the government. :0-)
you realize you are assuming the job market will not suffer long term high unemployment and that the labor force is not going to decline? highly educated married women in high cost of living areas are dropping as we speak...
this is flippin sweet! all we have to do is print some symbols on some worthelss paper and other people will give us REAL GOODS for it! check this out:
Citizen AllenM - dont disagree w/ the notion we sould consider the pop. changes...My only concern is tomorrow and the dollar I can trun. (er, sorry for the crass nature!)
I say it again - tomatos!
How are the futures holding. I might have thought CR would be monitoring these..
for those of us that are young, wouldn't be more profitable to plant fruit trees, live as healthy as possible and drop health insurance than being a wage slave with the threat of doubling FICA taxes and even more expensive healthcare down the road?
Let's get some laws on the books against older drivers, stat! Who cares if you are living healthy when the road will be backed with gray-heads slamming into everyone, and taking out every store-front. Well, at least we know where the green-shoots construction work will come from! That Starbucks just got hit for the third time this month!
"that time is coming. people in their 40s, 50s, and 60s who think their health care is paid for are deluding themselves."
totally agree. i'm speaking for myself, but sorry old folks, i'm 100% sure i'm not willing to ponny up. what do you give me in return?
a housing bubble? hyper expensive education for my kids? the possibility of continuing hte ponzi scheme hurting them? sorry, i pass. i'll get my food from a farm i'll move into, till you old folks show some respect towards future generations.
"think about it - if you can feed yourself, house yourself, supply yourself water... you don't need your boss. medicine on the other hand. "
prefer to pay out of pocket. i plan to keep on avoiding obesity and the like. even if i get an ugly disease i'm the cheap type of consumer. don't like the idea of spending millions on myself when others die for not having a $2 vaccine anyway.
Glad to see CR finally adopt my favorite meme. However, there's a glaring error - the assumption of longer life expectancy isn't just a bad one, the opposite could well take place.
right. and, as a young person, you're basically surrendering your freedom and your dignity in exchange for protection against the POSSIBILITY that something could go wrong that requires expensive medicines.
perhaps i'm talking myself out a life of being a wage slave, here.
it is our complete ineptitude... our helplessness, that makes us supplicant to society. hmmm... so much time wasted learning things that just aren't useful.
(1) A financial planner has opened an office nearby in the last month. Started with a cute little personalized card in the mail, now calling twice a day. Desperate for clients. I don't have the heart to tell her who I am
(2) If you want to get the pulse of your local area, try phoning Sears and inquiring about Fridge/Stove repair. Wait times of over a month where they used to be next morning service. You can also ask your local tailor/seamstress, have to be upfront because they'll just work longer hours while they can. I don't think cobblers are tapped into this thrifty vein because a lot of shoes today are not suitable for repair.
(3) I feel comfortable at this time in claiming my prize of predicting the peak of the recent bear market rally down to the specific week. The market is at the crossing the event horizon of back to school sales period. That makes 2 peaks and 1 bottoms called bullseye on the pricing since last September. I missed calling the March bottom, I was bearish but completely on the sidelines. Please do call me out on mistakes and overstoked ego when you feel like it, or my head will swell up until it fills up the whole cr comments
(4) Anecdotally, there are a lot of people in Vancouver who have some time to kill. From 1 to 9pm they offered free rides and had free stuff for the opening of the new metro line. 100,000 person capacity with the 40 current trains and lineups of 1.5 - 2.5 hours at half of the stations at least after work was out. Takes 30mins to ride the entire length in one direction. 43k separate trips in first 4 hours. I'd guess 150k-200k showed up. No more than a million total live in the area .
(5) Real estate here will be waiting for the Olympics to crash, I would not write off hitting peak prices again for a brief time.
`
listening to: Phil Collins - Another Day in Paradise
" right. and, as a young person, you're basically surrendering your freedom and your dignity in exchange for protection against the POSSIBILITY that something could go wrong that requires expensive medicines.
perhaps i'm talking myself out a life of being a wage slave, here"
i think you are. horrible accidents can still happen, that's life. the thought that we can control every fucking detail to make sure we can reach 85-90 makes me sick.
how much of my life is being wasted on a desk to pay for a system that makes sure i can keep on sitting at that desk?
why cannot i make a decision of how much wage slavery i can tolerate? it looks to me that either you agree to be a wage slave or you are a total pariah. why not something in between?
for those of us that are young, wouldn't be more profitable to plant fruit trees, live as healthy as possible and drop health insurance than being a wage slave with the threat of doubling FICA taxes and even more expensive healthcare down the road?
You ask a very interesting question. I have to guess that you were in school not all that long ago. Apologies if I'm mistaken.
What you propose is in fact a gamble. If you turn out to be healthy, you win. If you turn out to have one of the many diseases that medical science has no cure, then you are screwed.
Here's an example that I know about: Normal healthy woman, age 32 capable of biking 60 miles in one day starts complaining about pain in her knee. Long story short: She turns out to have an inflammatory arthritis, and it turns out that this version is diagnosed by trial and error. She ends up with surgeries and expensive medicines, which she will most likely be on for the rest of her life.
At this point: She has enriched many rheumatologists, dermatologists and surgeons, none of whom have provided any real relief. And it is not in the financial interest of the big pharma to find a cure, because the lifelong treatment is very profitable. So while these people are not curing anything, and are not paid for performance (like the rest of us), she suffers and goes quietly bankrupt.
So you can take the gamble, but be warned: If you draw a unlucky card, there are going to be a lot of people living very well while you go bankrupt.
renter, you can walk away. Assuming you have some savings, and somewhere to live. Get a really low burn rate, decide you've bought your last consumer good, and stop spending.
Now find a easy way to earn >= burn rate. Laugh, but painting house numbers is $10 a shot.
Ehp - not to worry. I'm quite sure that if you scrolled back through the thousands of RD posts, you would find he has anticipated you by months, if not years.
"If you turn out to have one of the many diseases that medical science has no cure, then you are screwed."
bet in many 3rd world countries they deal with this with less non-sense than here. don't imagine myself putting up with 15 pills either. you are right, but as i see it, there's a total lack of common sense in usa (more than 1/2 of people are fat and that's a non issue for the government). we are just depositories of pills and procedures.
racial
The sad thing is from one brief conversation I had with her, she really wasn't up to scratch on current events. So the business model is to take a course, take out a loan to start a franchise, get clients, use their software, enter in $ amount, enter in risk on scale from 1 to 5, invest in the given 'diversified' portfolio.
I've known 2 other people from wildly different backgrounds who got into the same racket around 2003. They did well and certainly made more money than they earned. I know of another guy through a friend, who is just out of an ivy league and is now considering a pure commission boutique investment sales job because there's not much else other than seasonal service sector work.
Still seeing a lot of old people definitely outliving their pensions in style while it lasts with fancy new cars, new clothing, vacations, etc. They're probably the loud minority though. The majority do live normal lives, but are dependent on housing values to fund part of their retirement.
don't imagine myself putting up with 15 pills either.
That's only because you have not had to make those choices yet.
you are right, but as i see it, there's a total lack of common sense in usa (more than 1/2 of people are fat and that's a non issue for the government). we are just depositories of pills and procedures.
I should have stated another assumption: That you are going to maintain your health in the most anal-compulsive way possible. No crap foods, good varied exercise. Cheap health clubs for an entire year are equal to one month of medical premiums.
Absolutely get yourself disaster-like insurance. By this I mean: The insurance with the highest deductible (probably $100/mon) The other benefit of that insurance: Even when you pay out of pocket, you pay the insurance-company negotiated rate. That saves a TON of money because they have bargaining power, you do not.
"Absolutely have disaster-like insurance. By this I mean: The insurance with the highest deductible (probably $100/mon) The other benefit of that insurance: Even when you pay out of pocket, you pay the insurance-company negotiated rate. That saves a TON of money because they have bargaining power, you do not. "
yep, i wish i could buy that type. but here in nyc with mandates and community rating those are unaffordable too. there's no cheap option like that for a young healthy person (unlike other states).
barfly
I know you're trying to steer things back on course with some humor, but do you know when and where you saw the treasury yield curve invert? I actually have a vivid memory about it. Grabbed my housemate who was studying economics and told her about it, got a funny look. Also remember learning about options from a teacher during some free time back in high school back in the fall of '02. Told him AMD was a screaming buy -- disastrous financials and all -- stuck to my guns. Haven't seen him since the spring of '03, but I'm sure he remembers me.
I worded that badly: The insurance with the highest deductible. It will probably cost $100/mon, the deductible will be about $5K.
but here in nyc with mandates and community rating those are unaffordable too. there's no cheap option like that for a young healthy person (unlike other states).
Don't know that I can help... but What do you do for a living?
EHP - my respect for your intelligence could not possibly be any higher. I mean that. I just wish you were more representative of your generation, rather than the exception to the rule. More power to you, young man.
"I worded that badly: The insurance with the highest deductible. It will probably cost $100/mon, the deductible will be about $5K."
yes, i got it. here believe it or not, the premiums are HIGHER than for non-high deductibles. i looked into it cause i wanted to open a HSA. NOT IN NYC. fucking joke.
let's not get depressed by what i do for living... soon enough i'll move to a cheap state, into a farm (good internet is one of the very few of my non-discretionary items).
Anyway, since you're moving soon, there's nothing to do but wish you luck in your next location. And sorry that your living causes you something less than joy, may that change in your new place too.
Take a name asswipe,
I'm still half waiting for some kind of surge up, but at this point I'm not worried about holding short through it. As for how far it goes. I haven't called that, risk management for making an ass out of myself. I've got a mark for fair value. I've got a mark for duration. To be blunt though, it's not worth the gamble to pick an exit from here. There hasn't been a rally in either direction less than 20% yet. That is some fat money, no need to be greedy when you're playing in this zone where the market can temporarily go up or down without justification. I'll probably make a call when the time comes, or admit when it has passed me by, either way. But I would rather withhold my bet as I get free increases in information and context while the value of a long bet will increase until such a turning point.
`
In the interim I'll make stupid bets on smaller things. I was pretty impressed with how oil stayed near $70. I've hit non-farm payrolls exactly. I don't know anyone else who came close to me in getting auto sales so right and early. I've done all kinds of currency calls for fun, like long GBPEUR earlier in the year just to live dangerously. I'm pretty sure I've already put oil in the $20s per barrel out there for now. You can never be sure if it's just my delusions, or I'm just selecting the winners. But trust me, they're all legit
I was trying to buy a machete today, and our local hardware stores are full of hippies, so I had to call the army navy surplus store in the county seat the next town over to find out when they opened. I dialed it up and boop boop beep the number has been disconnected. So I figure google has an outdated number for them, hop onto google maps, and find the name of the business next to them (the AN Surplus store is a corner store) look up their number and call. Boop boop beep. Disconnected. I try the business next over. Boop boop beep. Disconnected. I keep going, with increasing disbelief. Boop boop beep. Disconnected. Boop boop beep. Disconnected. I'm starting to think I'm in the twilight zone, until I hit a bar called "The Stag," second to last business on the block. They pick up, and I ask them if the AN surplus store is still in business. They say no. I ask them why they're the only business on the block to pick up their phone. They say they're the last business on the block still IN business. It's main street, Woodland, California, the county seat, in the middle of downtown. An entire block of businesses, out of business.
Once had a conversation on here about the impact of stress from the economy on personal health. For instance heart attacks are strongly correlated to stressful events in someone's life. Morbidly, there has been an increase in suicide which is also significantly higher in those soon to be or recently laid off. Lower incomes households consume more processed foods and suffer consequences in health. From the retirees I know, keeping busy does more than just to confirm you are still alive. Lower account balances do have a way of turning people into shut-ins (remember the man who froze to death this past winter but had significant savings?). Biggest health impact could come from expected the new norm of people working longer.
EHP, they found that the incidence of fractured molars increases stupendously during recessions. All that jaw clenching from extra stress shatters them.
Hoopajoops LTD
You can order a sample batch (~10 or 20) of Machetes from China. You'll spend more in shipping than on the product. Give the extras away as party favors
"Once had a conversation on here about the impact of stress from the economy on personal health. For instance heart attacks are strongly correlated to stressful events in someone's life."
there were 50k more deaths from heart attacks in buenos aires on the weeks following the default than during normal times. most people over 60. stress is a killer.
You can order a sample batch (~10 or 20) of Machetes from China.
I bought a chinese machete -- they're all the local stores are selling. It was made of simple sheet metal, and could be bent into strange shapes quite easily with my index and pinky fingers. Far too dangerous to use such a thing.
If I may make the assumption, at least we here don't have the worries of India and its 'family planning'. Lot of dark history, lot of legitimate but taboo problems, lot of uncertainty going forward. For comparison, China is accelerating the unwind of what is known as the one child policy
You Americans are so silly with your Kenyan birth certificates and Dead Steven Hawkings. I wouldn't mind Canada not being dragged into a fight about healthcare it has no part in all the time. Why can't the networks start talking about the 2010 Olympic Hockey already. It would be much more enjoyable and fill a gap in their coverage
`
What about that upcoming G20 summit in Pittsburgh (Sept). Will they have all the tax treaties completed in time? Will Obama put in a special word for Chicago's olympic bid (Oct.)? Will Pet Rock make a huge comeback to be the #1 Christmas gift this year (Dec.)? Will the Shanghai 2010 World Expo even be in the same league as the 2008 Beijing Olympics (2010)?
"renter in NYC says, "i'll get my food from a farm i'll move into, till you old folks show some respect towards future generations."
......renter in NYC must be very young. Hope he's able to grow enough food to exist before he dies of starvation in the first few weeks. Were these "old folks" that probably own this "undefined farm" allowing him to move back into his old bedroom perhaps?
Further anecdote:
About the new metro line. They did a really spiffy job of hyping it up, top notch media relations. It started a conversation nationally, and there is big support for investments in rail. Wouldn't be surprised to see this manifest in some kind of key government platform soon, Canada is probably heading into an election in the next 6 months.
Oh, additional anecdotal point - I went to three or four shops which sold inferior machetes, and at each one the employee asked me whether I was buying them to fight zombies when I asked for them.
Is there some kind of zombie-machete connection I'm missing here? Wouldn't it just get lodged harmlessly in their fore-skull?
Check out this EXCELLENT Video. The Website name is a little wacky, but this video, a talk by Professor William Black is amazing.... really worth watching. Very intelligent speaker, with all kinds of S&L scandal experience.
GDD9000
Quality article there, in the sense that I have not been directly associating the banks who are not paying taxes on their property with the banks buying the tax liens. Incestuous
Black Star Ranch zombies I'm talking about
They were clearly distinct from the goths attending the Vans Warped Tour and the kids on the Twilight pilgrimage
Just happened to be browsing ancient Congressional records, came upon this:
The, President pro tempore laid before the Senate a letter of the Secretary of War, recommending that the value of a lot of animals stolen from the Government corral at San Antonio, Texas, by Comanche Indians, may be deducted from the appropriation heretofore made for those Indians, and transferred to the appropriation for the pay and subsistence of the Army.
Wonder how that idea would fly now; whatever damage the insurgencies cause in Iraq/Afghanistan, we deduct from aid to those countries and pay for our armies.
If this picture were a movie, it would be Rated R. If you're an adult at home, you have no reason not to look at it. Artistic Bernanke via Jr Deputy Accountant
Is there some kind of zombie-machete connection I'm missing here?
I read "The Serpent and the Rainbow" about the chemical concoction to turn people into "zombies". Turns out they're not really zombies, they're actually solvent, it's an accounting trick.
She ends up with surgeries and expensive medicines, which she will most likely be on for the rest of her life.
she suffers and goes quietly bankrupt.
Errrr, isn't that also an argument for just trying to live healthy? She's screwed either way, working to pay health insurance isn't going to lessen her pain as much as one hit.
Thanks picosec, but to tell the truth it's getting old. I'm a tail end baby boomer (1963) which means I was part of the first generation to be bitter about the baby boomers. I'm seriously considering leaving my current job because with the financially disappointed baby boomers sucking up all the surplus, there are going to be very few new equity partners for the next ten years. It really doesn't look like it's ever going to end.
Oh well, I thought we were all going to die in a nuclear war when Reagan got elected, so I'm living on bonus time anyway.
Well, if we don't live happily ever after, it still going to be better than living in Somalia, Cambodia, etc. For all the griping about the welfare state, no one here seems to envy it enough to accept it as a retirement fate. And all those who dream about moving to New Zealand to poison the waters there for the locals,...
Joint replacements should be getting cheaper. Joints are almost fungible(in price, not quality), surgical glues have cut post op time in hospital by half: so if pricier it's because of doctors fees or bloated overhead. I'll take the latter.
Shenzhen Exchange Records Largest Net Outflow in July
More than 15.5 billion yuan flowed out of the Shenzhen stock market in July as major institutional investors reduced holdings, the Shenzhen Stock Exchange said recently.
Though the exchange did not release other figures, it said the July net capital outflow was the largest for any month so far this year]
Andy was a commenter here a couple of years ago who ran into some employment problems (and he was a new father.) As a member of the insomniac crew here in the US, I told him I wouldn't forget him. Just hoping things have gone okay for him.
EHP, institutional investment exiting the market usually precedes the down turn, but are we now seeing that Asian exchanges are moving the rest of the world rather then the NYSE?
How are the tropical fish?
Great! It's a good time to be in the hobby, new species being discovered; better understanding of the care and husbandry; and my daughter is finally old enough that I can devote more time to it.
Only downside currently: raccoon wandered in downstairs and made a meal of a few. Gotta keep that door closed.
shallow-water, hence well-documented. No?
Shallow water yes, well documented, no. Not important food sources and from little visited (by western cultures) streams, creeks, ponds. Most collections were by sailors on leave who took stuff back in formalin to ichthyologist friends,...no money for funding research into non-commercial species. They missed a lot. New Guinea alone in the last decade or so has contributed a lot of new species to the hobby,... and there's bound to be more in the back areas where it's so difficult to get to.
yes and if an uninsured motorist hit and runs you, or you randomly come down with cancer, or you suddenly become schizophrenic like my brother, or you get shot at in a drive by... etc....
according to CR's second graph Elvis Costello needs to change the words
of Pidgin English around the year 2046 (alert! film reference)
FROM: There's a young girl with her old man who's too sick to mention
She'll be turning twenty seven as she draws her widow's pension
But he couldn't catch a common cold he couldn't get arrested
Too terrified to answer back
Too tired to have resisted
TO: There's a young boy with his old bag who's too sick to mention
He'll be turning twenty seven as he draws his widower's pension
But she couldn't catch a common cold she couldn't get arrested
Too terrified to answer back
Too tired to have resisted
Did anyone link to the John Hussman post yesterday? Probably.
He looks at the broad economy, going forward, based on U.S. Department of Commerce 10-year projected growth/potential real GDP - an analysis I hadn't seen performed previously.
It's simplistic to look at U.S.health care spending as being mainly age-driven, with younger people spending little and effectively subsidizing older people.
Health care-spending is also disability-driven. People who have serious illnesses or disabilities tend to cost vastly more, at all ages.
It's also event-driven. Pregnancies and deliveries are drivers of health care costs, and of course these costs are focused mostly on younger and middle-age families.
A hundred years ago, the U.S. didn't spend nearly as much on lifetime disabilities, and more people with disabilities died younger or led miserable lives.
Likewise, many babies were born at home or by midwives, and there were more delivery deaths.
The fact that young people feel so threatened by health care costs shows you how broken the U.S. system is. Of course, it is true that if nothing changes, young people in the U.S. will get crushed by ever-rising health care costs as they get older.
Young people in Canada and France don't feel so threatened.
This population aging has GOT to happen. We cannot continue to strip this planet bare of resources - and the idea of crowding out all the creatures with which we share it seems horrible to me. I do not want to live in a world of mega cities with industrial agriculture supporting them. Children these days demand so much in terms of resources, parental time, and lifetime support that it's a very realistic option not to have them. Many of us interested in the environment did not, and, so far, so good. I don't know of anyone who regrets the decision, and, far from leading to selfishness, most of us are focused on doing some good for the planet at large, not promoting our own offspring over those of our neighbors. Hope I don't sound like I'm ranting ... I just think the advertising and culture promoting parenthood is totally out of balance with what this planet needs right now. I don't want to criticize parents, it's just that the culture overwhelms those of us advocating for a smaller population in order to make this a more beautiful and enjoyable world. I'm conscious that I don't have children to fall back on, so I'm working to keep myself from being a burden.
this is not my game but perhaps one of you 'boy/girl geniuses' out there might know the answer:
a dear friend writes -
"Am seeing a price of USD80.20 for June '10 puts on S&P at strike 950, (so one contract costs you about USD8,020 right now).
Open interest already 17,886 so the contract already seems fairly "liquid".
What do you reckon ?...
any thoughts?
Morning all. What madness walked the earth while sensible people slept?
Nikki got a shot in the arm at 2pm local, could have been another days of big sads but ended just in kermit territory. Most Asia stocks declined, only slight edging higher in Shanghai, Korea. Taiex still battered. USD wobbling against locals.
Clearly just an unfortunate misunderstanding in Yerp and US stocks since futures for both now shaking hands with kermit. Fun ratio for yesterday, DAX was off 2%, but VDAX volatility spiked almost 15%.
Duke of Con: Well, being a mid Atlanticer from Indiana, you certainly know how to listen politely then say something like, " Thanks so much for the opportunity to which I will devote a lot of thought." Then buy more gold or silver.
Based on the other chart that CR put up since we can no longer borrow our higher level of consumption the next step will be to see consumption ex health care decline to make room for health care spending.
When any discussion on cost effective medicine is reduced to "killing granny" or "rationing care". We in the US deserve to be and will be crushed by rising health care costs.
Actually, this is just the same as they do it in Miami-Dade County, and always have. The investers bid at a reverse
auction. The County sets the fees. They are remorseless.
There was a nutso guy who owned his house free and clear and it was sold for taxes after his caretaker died. His
friends tried to help and it took a huge court battle to get the property back for him. Actually, what he forgot to do, wasn't even pay--totally disabled, no taxes--but to file a form saying he was disabled.
Again, with trepidation, I'll ask a question about health care costs... Has anyone seen data or modeling on industry concentration, and the extent to which anti-trust action might be warranted at either the provider or insurer level for collusion, price-fixing, infrastructure/construction bid-rigging etc?
The reason to ask is the explicit assumption that health care costs will always rise. That very well might happen. But it seems more likely if there are oligopolistic conditions, including the structural drive to turn primary health care solutions into tertiary goods, services and fee structures - the sprained ankle diagnosed with the MRI is a good example. This goes hand in hand with marketing which tells the consumer that their demand may remain highly inelastic; there is nothing you can't have, and nothing that can't be treated.
Just seems to me that if price outstrips capacity to pay (and it has, it will, for ages, given recession and unemployment), and stays there, something should give: market settles on new (lower) price, or government intervenes to ameliorate market failure.
I'm not proposing solutions, just having grown up in a mixed public/private system it just seems some of the assumptions imbedded in the debate could be questioned. So, flame away...!
Seems you figure how much money you want to spend
and divvy it up paying for prevention, health (veggie and
fruit coupons), and the least expensive treatments that do
the best job. Have money left over? Do medium expensive
treatments that do a good or medium job.
People who need heart transplants will have to buy catastrophe
insurance, or raise the funds themselves. Or, die. We all
do you know.
I'm reminded of that gizmo wielded by McCoy (looked like a clamshell phone come to think of it) that could diagnose about anything. McCoy had one at the ready for every crew member.
Question for the folks back home may have been how do I get a berth on a starship?
Also, none of the media, including NPR, has broken out the various alternatives
and explained what they are, how much they cost or how it would affect what we have
today. Just focussing on the political fight, which I find profoundly boring.
Children these days demand so much in terms of resources, parental time, and lifetime support that it's a very realistic option not to have them. Many of us interested in the environment did not, and, so far, so good. I don't know of anyone who regrets the decision, and
I commend you for your decision but I sure hope you don't use the services of anybody from a younger generation as you get older and require help.
For the umteenth time, here's the Wells and Krugman article on comparative health care systems in Britain, France, Canada and America. It's in the New York Review of Books which I believe is print media. It's a half hour read. There's lots there to attack, if you have the information.
Birth rate was down 2.6% in california in 2008 versus 2007. Down 3.2% among hispanics - 66% of all california births.
Looks like birth decline is accelerating in 2009 because the births were lower later in 2008 than earlier.
In Arizona for the first 6 months of 2009 births are down 7% versus 2008. Thats huge for a state that yearly posted 5-7% birth growth rates for a decade or so.
If you look at negative equity, about 40mn mortgages homes will be negative equity in the next year (where it pays to walk away). Given the economy and not only the high but enduring unemployment with no real bright spots in the Philly Fed index... and the negative equity, the 2 biggest factors, don't be surprised if half of those people deta.
1?
the population bulge reminds of that strange expression, goat through the belly of the python or something of that sort?
Pig through the Python
Edit: Book review on Amazon Pig and the Python: How to Prosper From The Aging Baby Boom
Since when did we stop looking farther than quarterly profits?
to all the accidental landlords out there a perfect cartoon for you
YouTube - THE CAT CAME BACK
These stats assume no changes in climate, sociology, or economics. Kinda foolish to extrapolate the younger ages-and-old folks could be "rationed" away.
I wonder if the assumption of a long life span for the boomers will prove correct in our brave new world.
All that I dreamed of, CR. After the comments we exchanged last time, I thought that identifying the higher health costs graphically by age group would be really helpful. This is great. Thanks!
sm_landlord:
thanks. lol, just googled "pig and python," and apparently it's a title of a book on profiting on the baby boom generation. makes sense, probably where i heard it without being aware of it.
Does this take into effect about a 2$ annual growth rate/
i recently heard that there is a strong co-relation between swine flu mortality and obesity- deaths are more common among the obese. Apparently the breathing patterns of obese folks is such that it makes catching swine flu easier. Since predisposition to putting on weight was an evolutionary advantage during periods of food shortage (most of pre 20th century human existence) if this is in fact correct than this predisposition may be this evolutions hand at work in other words we can only project what we know - which is very little.
Mel, yes - these are the Census Bureau projections. No Logan's Run for those over 65 assumed either.
patientrenter, thanks. I was looking for heath care costs by age group (I'm sure being in the 50s is much higher than 40s, etc.) But at least this gives us an idea.
It seems the Census Bureau site has slowed down ... hmmm.
best to all
There have been some pretty detailed models of future health care spending built, and they include demographics.
They vary somewhat. But they show U.S. health care costs projected to rise by about 7-8% per year over the next decade or so.
That's about 1% higher than they have actually increased over the past decade.
So, according to consensus model builders, demographers and statisticians, not true that U.S. health care costs will rise "sharply." Just a bit.
Looking at the population distribution move, it becomes very clear how the increased cost of retirees (represented by the last 4-5 bars in the chart) just begins to grow in 2011 or so, and takes quite a long time to grow. We won't suddenly go from the current ratio between working people and retirees to a much lower ratio overnight as the boomers retire. It will be a slow grind over many decades.
"It seems the Census Bureau site has slowed down ... hmmm."
So the new Slashdot Effect is the CR Effect?
Japan's age distribution:
NationMaster - Japanese Population pyramids
US age distribution:
NationMaster - American Population pyramids
Pig's roughly 15 years apart. More evidence that demographics, especially inter-generational capital flows, is the common link between Japan and Japan 2.0.
I'll just clarify...you could consider 7-8% increases per year to be "sharp."
But I don't think that's CR's drift. I think he is saying the big one-time surge of Baby Boomer population hitting 65 will cause the future rates of increase to be a lot greater than historic. It isn't supported by most data. It's a more complex formula than meets the eye.
Population growth rates were a driving force behind the Housing Bubble aka the Ownership Society, because every city around the globe thought they would get this tsunami of population growth, as in 10%+, when in fact the growth rate was spread very even, as usual, and all the communities bought into the growth bullshit and planned for massive waves of tax paying citizens -- who never showed up and then reality set in, and most cities have about 20% too much inventory! The end...
Nice graphing, CR.
With all of the animation, have you thought of going into economic Manga?
Extra points for the Harold/Maude comment at the end. MILFs will rule in 2050, baby.
"More evidence that demographics, especially inter-generational capital flows, is the common link between Japan and Japan 2.0."
Most people don't realize that the intergenerational capital flows within the US, even just the net debt owed by post baby boomers to baby boomers, dwarfs our debt to China (important as that debt is). I am getting more and more comfortable using the demographics as a predictor of long term (meaning multi-decade) future asset prices and other trends.
For you Harold and Maude fans...
I just threw up a little in my mouth....
"It isn't supported by most data. It's a more complex formula than meets the eye."
rich, can you enlighten us?
Flavinia:
While I can't give a specific reference, my understanding from reading history is that the lifespan typically declines during periods of significant social stress. Think the russian lifespan after the fall of the Soviet Union.
"I'm waiting for the handyman to lose it, forget he's on a show and start cutting throats"
ha! yeah, I was just wondering what would happen if one of them found a gun, would a jury find them guilty?
economic Manga:
I just kidnapped this (like a Somali Pirate):
┏┫ ┏┓ ┏┓ ┣┓ ┃┃
┗┫ ┃ ┣┛ ┏━━┻┃
┃ ┗━━━┛ ┃ ┣━━ ┃
┗━━━┳━━━┛ ┣━━ ┃
┏━━▇▇▇━━━━━┻━━━┛
From: Johnny Bunko trailer:
YouTube - Johnny Bunko trailer
Italy is notoriously one of the worst countries in Europe for its lack of fecundity. Check out their 2050 projection . . . .
NationMaster - Italian Population pyramids
"Think the russian lifespan after the fall of the Soviet Union. "
Can you buy vodka with food stamps?
We can all drink ourselves to death. Problem solved.
Shanghei down another 1%
Speaking of population and statistics, in terms of death/birth rate:
Swine flu vaccines delayed | BartlesvilleLIVE
he swine flu vaccine supply may be less than half of what the government was expecting this October, according to officials.
Experts at the Department of Health and Human Services say 45-million doses of the H1N1 vaccine will be ready in October, rather than the 120 million doses expected.
Homer Simpson - Doh!
YouTube - Homer Simpson - Doh!
That's what I'm thinking too, homedad. Plus recent advances in medical care have served better to preserve carcasses than to increase worthwhile lifespan. That may come in for a bit of re-evaluating.
Well, they do make one nasty looking flame thrower. I'll be disappointed if someone doesn't get flambéd.
huh. who was it among you who said violence would come?
Man carrying assault weapon attends Obama protest
Woah..I just about had a seizure watching that census chart
i think discovery is running episode, now. i'm just getting started. this show is great.
IT'S NRA PEOPLE!
YouTube - IT'S PEOPLE!
"I'll give you my gun when you take it from my cold, dead hands!" is a slogan popularized by the National Rifle Association (NRA) on a series of bumper stickers.
Spengler has done fantastic work on the demographics question and it so happens he was a research head at one of the big banks in past life. That is spengler of asia times.
As for markets Japan rallying on that stellar GDP data. Curious that Japan and the UK are buying is debt per the tic data. That chart of eur yen cross vs the sox is worth a careful look. There is simply no wa tomorrow is a down day bank on it literally
i guess we'll be needing those death panels in 2050 when we cannot afford care!.... SARAH PALIN is a prophet.
Seems to be a pessimitic view on the future, in this post.
Does it matter if life is old or young? Life is life!
I'm hoping for Senior Olympics. Wouldn't that be cool?
We could see Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert battle it out again as 60+ year olds! I kinda miss them. :?
I went on a hike a month or so ago, and there was a guy who was 89 years old. He was jumping around, totally spry, after a seven-mile hike, at 5000 to 6000 ft in 90+ degrees fahrenheit weather! What an inspiration!
Last week, during Obama's health care town hall in Portsmouth, N.H., a man carrying a sign reading "It is time to water the tree of liberty" stood outside with a pistol strapped to his leg.
I hadn't heard that part before. Hilarious. Probably Market Ticker gold members.
Look at the chart-
Demography is destiny.
I said it before, I say it again.
Now, where are all the bedpan changers going to come from?
The Gray Panthers are coming!!!
Now for investment, well, the answer will be anywhere but here.
We will be spending capital keeping the bedpans changed for three decades.
This should make anyone think we are returning to the economy of the last two decades rethink their assumptions.
America is going gray- now we have to act like it!!
Someday this war's gonna end...no more culture of youth and growth!!!
Phil Hartman as Charlton Heston!
Phil Hartman as Charlton Heston! Video
racial +1
After Roth discovers that Soylent wafers are made from human flesh, and decides to end the horror by signing up for government-assisted suicide, he is shown a montage of beautiful natural images in the death chamber: flowers, deer, mountains, and rivers. When Thorn rushes to the active, voluntary euthanasia clinic to try to stop Roth, he is too late to save his friend, but he is able to share Roth's final moments. In Roth's last minutes alive, "Thorn shares Sol’s nostalgic moment" as Sol asks “Can you see it?” and “Isn’t it beautiful?”, which helps Thorn to realize "what he and the rest of the world has lost."
The closest parallels in real life to the recycling concepts in 'Soylent Green' are :
L-cysteine produced from human hair, often used in bread products
Soylent Green - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ha! If things keep going as they are going, starvation, suicide and environmental destruction will kill the boomers before they make it to 2050.
OT: Pension Funds Pare Stocks, Ignoring Economic Rebound (systemic fraud)
Pension Funds Pare Stocks, Ignoring Economic Rebound (Update2) - Bloomberg.com
The world’s biggest pension funds lost confidence in stocks as the best long-term investment, cutting holdings or leaving them unchanged during the steepest rally since the 1930s.
CR, do you know if payment of health insurance premiums & co-pays included in the definition of "medical expenses" ? Are dental expenses? Just paying health insurance premiums could put you over the median for expenses for those under 65.
Anecdotal evidence only, but in my area, the obits are about 50-50, people 50 & under (mostly 49 to 55, a couple of people in their 20's & 30's) and the rest people in their 70's & 80's. The county has a significantly higher than average (in the state) number of retired people or "seniors." Not everyone that dies gets an obit in one of the local papers, but it's still interesting to see what seems to be quite a few people dying in their late 40's, early to mid-50's.
Boomers are the first generation to have lifetime or close to lifetime exposure to toxics like PCBs, TCDD, bisphenol, etc. That may have an eventual effect on life expectancy.
Its pretty easy to get Medicaid when you are older than 65 and not working. Unless you have a large pension. Million dollar home? No problem .
Those demographics assume that birth rate doesn't decline in the "new normal" economy
azurite, the US Census Bureau keeps good statistics that beat anecdotal impressions. US population mortality has been improving for a long time, and it still is. The Census Bureau (and CDC's NCHS, and the Social Security Adminstration's Office of the Chief Actuary) can provide you with lots of real data.
uh oh.
hello,
The younger folks are more of a surprise passing and people tend to want to memorialize the one who has passed untimely, many older folks don't want an obit- and since the family has to pay, they often save the money and use it for the funeral or burial.
The one thing is that the boomer are already starting to die, mortality starts going after 50- and the first boomers are 63.
The toxic load might account for some of the mortality, but I disagree about how they will in aggregate live shorter lives on an actuarial basis. Industrial exposure to coal, asbestos, and many other industrial processes significantly lowered life expectancy- the best example is the ladies that used to paint radium and tritium on watch dials.
Someday this war's gonna end...
"He now runs his own news site at Breitbart.com, with the motto "Just The News." The site is frequently linked to by the Drudge Report and independently run websites. It features wire stories from the Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France-Presse, Fox News, PR Newswire, U.S. Newswire, as well as direct links to a number of major international newspapers. Its Blog & "Network" links, however, tend to represent almost solely a US right-wing point of view, such as National Review, Instapundit, and Townhall.com."
Andrew Breitbart - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ease in getting Medicaid depends partly on the state you live in, whether or not the state supplements the SSI benefit. Medicaid goes w/SSI, Medicare w/SSDI & SS retirement benefits. The federal SSI benefit (base) is pretty low, although it's true you can own your home (whatever it's valued at) & be eligible for SSI benefits. Of course, the state or the feds will take your home after you die (unless your spouse is still living in it), unless you sell it or meet other requirements outside of what I think is still the 3 year "look back" rule. Meaning you've got to get rid of the house in a Medicaid approved way or else it will be included in your estate for the purpose of the feds/state getting back some of what they've paid out on your behalf for medical/nursing home expenses, etc.
In OR (maybe in other states), the state will do a Medicare "buy-in"--if you're entitled to SSI benefits, the state will pay your Medicare premiums--cuts down on the state contribution to your med expenses via OHP/Medicaid.
Well, I love discussing the demographics, and think this is how anyone here can gain valuable insight into the long term future, but I must say g'night.
azurite
thanks for the explanation.
CR - that graph is a fine piece of agitprop - a factoid certain to agitate all ideological bents!
Do you... enjoy.... falling knives?
You have a point regarding industrial exposure. A friend died last year of a cancerous tumor--he'd been a painter (house) most of his working career, had used oil based paints fairly often, the solvents that go along with that, and I don't think respirators were required or used much then. He smoked too. He was 50 when he died. I was glad that at least if he had to go, he went fast. He went into a coma the second time the MDs tried to confirm the diagnosis via lung biopsy, that was pretty much it.
It's difficult to know how much life expectancy overall will be affected. Vets exposed to Agent Orange have a statistically significant higher rate of diabetes, and I believe (not sure, no links to numbers) that diabetes shortens life expectancy. Or at least a friend's husband couldn't buy any more life insurance as soon as he was diagnosed in his 30's w/diabetes (not overweight, no family history).
OT sign of the depression:
Was buying tickets to see my beloved Cubs play the Dodgers this Sunday. Went to Stub Hub, literally thousands of tickets for below face value. Bought 4 tickets with face value of $100 (prolly $125 with the ticketbastard charges) for $45 including the stub hub charges. Just plain wow.
Plus recent advances in medical care have served better to preserve carcasses than to increase worthwhile lifespan.
Absolutely not. Most of the areas producing big cost increases - like cardiac care, joint replacement, aggressive cancer treatment, and transplants - are pursued largely because when they work, the patients are generally returned to good health. Sometimes better (e.g., with my mom's 15 year old titanium hips).
Here is a classic story from wiki about cavalier attitudes in the old days:
Radium Girls - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
30s is quite early for diabetes, and they were most likely afraid of pancreatic cancer (of which idiopathic diabetes is an early sign) and a large fast payout.
You friend most likely died of extensive exposure to the solvents in paint. The newer paints are not too bad, but the older paints were a toxic stew. If he worked much in the 70s he was further exposed to asbestos.
Someday this war's gonna end...
Radium girls...
Similar story in Pittsburgh. In early 60's it was disclosed that the top floor of a building that I walked past twice a day to/from school had just been unsealed after 50 years. It had been used for the same purpose.
nikkei
Was going to post this prior thread, but the sitcom was too good to interrupt.
I was checking comments from today's earlier threads and noted the CC delinquency rates of ~7%. Sounds catastrophic but...all the CC accounts that I'm aware of (some paid off monthly and some paid barely over the minimum amt due) have seen interest rates rise to the point that 7% amounts to 4-months of interest. (And of course the banks are borrrowing at ~0% p.a..)
We have ourselves a cycle, whether it's virtuous or viscious depends on where you're sitting. The more the rate goes up, the more incentive the borrower has to ditch it all, subject to consequences.
I assist a retiree with a $6k balance and no assets/income that could be grabbed; and his interest recently went from $75/mo to $130/mo (and just got notice that it will be going to $150/mo.) It will be in his financial interest to diss the CC and work off his debit card, saving $150/mo and quickly building up the cushion that the CC had provided. BTW - That cushion was recently reduced from $1200 to $300 by the bank lowering his credit limit, so the "cushion" isn't really there.
The CC co's are playing a game of chicken, assuming that enough borrowers are so dependent on their cards and their credit score that they'll pay the higher interest rates, and maybe even pay the cards down. They're walking a tightrope, and furthermore anyone using cash to pay down their CC balance isn't spending it in the marketplace.
There is a competition for consumers' dollars and if the banks win, retail will suffer. However, if the banks lose, retail will ALSO suffer due to non-availability of financing.
Now back to my bear den.
I remember reading about the radium girls when I was younger but thanks for refreshing my memory. If I remember correctly, Marie Curie suffered from radium poisoning too because she worked so much with pitchblende, the ore that radium & uranium are extracted/refined from as well as radium itself.
And I still remember some of the horrible workplace injuries/practices that Upton Sinclair described in "The Jungle" which I read when I was around 12 or 13.
Horrible workplace injuries happen every day.
"We won't suddenly go from the current ratio between working people and retirees to a much lower ratio overnight as the boomers retire. It will be a slow grind over many decades."
wow, you could work for the government. :0-)
you realize you are assuming the job market will not suffer long term high unemployment and that the labor force is not going to decline? highly educated married women in high cost of living areas are dropping as we speak...
this is flippin sweet! all we have to do is print some symbols on some worthelss paper and other people will give us REAL GOODS for it! check this out:
China Buys Treasuries, Proving Dollar Demise Overdone (Update3) - Bloomberg.com
why work? print paper.
"titanium hips"
the cemetery guys will have a feast, from tiny gold rings to titanium hips!
Citizen AllenM - dont disagree w/ the notion we sould consider the pop. changes...My only concern is tomorrow and the dollar I can trun. (er, sorry for the crass nature!)
I say it again - tomatos!
How are the futures holding. I might have thought CR would be monitoring these..
for those of us that are young, wouldn't be more profitable to plant fruit trees, live as healthy as possible and drop health insurance than being a wage slave with the threat of doubling FICA taxes and even more expensive healthcare down the road?
CR - Quick question...I would like to use this graph in a presentation in a few weeks...Can I steal it somehow?
I believe it really is going to be a race for the last consumer dollar...which is closer than we think!
that time is coming. people in their 40s, 50s, and 60s who think their health care is paid for are deluding themselves.
Let's get some laws on the books against older drivers, stat! Who cares if you are living healthy when the road will be backed with gray-heads slamming into everyone, and taking out every store-front. Well, at least we know where the green-shoots construction work will come from! That Starbucks just got hit for the third time this month!
think about it - if you can feed yourself, house yourself, supply yourself water... you don't need your boss. medicine on the other hand.
"that time is coming. people in their 40s, 50s, and 60s who think their health care is paid for are deluding themselves."
totally agree. i'm speaking for myself, but sorry old folks, i'm 100% sure i'm not willing to ponny up. what do you give me in return?
a housing bubble? hyper expensive education for my kids? the possibility of continuing hte ponzi scheme hurting them? sorry, i pass. i'll get my food from a farm i'll move into, till you old folks show some respect towards future generations.
when I was 12 we used to play chicken on our bikes with an elderly lady who was so short she looked through the steering wheel while driving.
Paging YTL. Paging YTL.
"think about it - if you can feed yourself, house yourself, supply yourself water... you don't need your boss. medicine on the other hand. "
prefer to pay out of pocket. i plan to keep on avoiding obesity and the like. even if i get an ugly disease i'm the cheap type of consumer. don't like the idea of spending millions on myself when others die for not having a $2 vaccine anyway.
what about a Wal-Mart of medicine for us cheapskates?
Glad to see CR finally adopt my favorite meme. However, there's a glaring error - the assumption of longer life expectancy isn't just a bad one, the opposite could well take place.
Carry on!
"Let's get some laws on the books against older drivers"
it could also be a young one high and drunk driving the other way on a highway
right. and, as a young person, you're basically surrendering your freedom and your dignity in exchange for protection against the POSSIBILITY that something could go wrong that requires expensive medicines.
perhaps i'm talking myself out a life of being a wage slave, here.
"what about a Wal-Mart of medicine for us cheapskates?"
i'm ok with any bare bones catastrophic insurance. other than that, i prefer paying out of pocket.
it is our complete ineptitude... our helplessness, that makes us supplicant to society. hmmm... so much time wasted learning things that just aren't useful.
(1) A financial planner has opened an office nearby in the last month. Started with a cute little personalized card in the mail, now calling twice a day. Desperate for clients. I don't have the heart to tell her who I am
(2) If you want to get the pulse of your local area, try phoning Sears and inquiring about Fridge/Stove repair. Wait times of over a month where they used to be next morning service. You can also ask your local tailor/seamstress, have to be upfront because they'll just work longer hours while they can. I don't think cobblers are tapped into this thrifty vein because a lot of shoes today are not suitable for repair.
(3) I feel comfortable at this time in claiming my prize of predicting the peak of the recent bear market rally down to the specific week. The market is at the crossing the event horizon of back to school sales period. That makes 2 peaks and 1 bottoms called bullseye on the pricing since last September. I missed calling the March bottom, I was bearish but completely on the sidelines. Please do call me out on mistakes and overstoked ego when you feel like it, or my head will swell up until it fills up the whole cr comments
(4) Anecdotally, there are a lot of people in Vancouver who have some time to kill. From 1 to 9pm they offered free rides and had free stuff for the opening of the new metro line. 100,000 person capacity with the 40 current trains and lineups of 1.5 - 2.5 hours at half of the stations at least after work was out. Takes 30mins to ride the entire length in one direction. 43k separate trips in first 4 hours. I'd guess 150k-200k showed up. No more than a million total live in the area .
(5) Real estate here will be waiting for the Olympics to crash, I would not write off hitting peak prices again for a brief time.
`
listening to: Phil Collins - Another Day in Paradise
EHP; this market top is too damn obvious... I'm not buying it...
i'm ok with any bare bones catastrophic insurance. other than that, i prefer paying out of pocket.
Same here. Just wish I could find something with at least a $10K deductible.
"I don't have the heart to tell her who I am"
would she know if you told her? would we?
would she know if you told her? would we?
If he answered the phone "Evil Henry Paulson", I'm pretty sure she'd go away.
in the bill I read online you would have to pay 2.5% tax for your desire to pay for your own healthcare
On the other hand, some girls like evil guys...
haha!
You have a point. EHP, it's a win win.
" right. and, as a young person, you're basically surrendering your freedom and your dignity in exchange for protection against the POSSIBILITY that something could go wrong that requires expensive medicines.
perhaps i'm talking myself out a life of being a wage slave, here"
i think you are. horrible accidents can still happen, that's life. the thought that we can control every fucking detail to make sure we can reach 85-90 makes me sick.
how much of my life is being wasted on a desk to pay for a system that makes sure i can keep on sitting at that desk?
this thing could breaker higher. no doubt. logic and reason were passed up about 750 pts ago.
The Onion had some great stuff today, here are 2 Economy/RE related ones:
(video)
White House Reveals Obama Is Bipolar, Has Entered Depressive Phase
Moving On Up…To The Cheap Side!
why cannot i make a decision of how much wage slavery i can tolerate? it looks to me that either you agree to be a wage slave or you are a total pariah. why not something in between?
for those of us that are young, wouldn't be more profitable to plant fruit trees, live as healthy as possible and drop health insurance than being a wage slave with the threat of doubling FICA taxes and even more expensive healthcare down the road?
You ask a very interesting question. I have to guess that you were in school not all that long ago. Apologies if I'm mistaken.
What you propose is in fact a gamble. If you turn out to be healthy, you win. If you turn out to have one of the many diseases that medical science has no cure, then you are screwed.
Here's an example that I know about: Normal healthy woman, age 32 capable of biking 60 miles in one day starts complaining about pain in her knee. Long story short: She turns out to have an inflammatory arthritis, and it turns out that this version is diagnosed by trial and error. She ends up with surgeries and expensive medicines, which she will most likely be on for the rest of her life.
At this point: She has enriched many rheumatologists, dermatologists and surgeons, none of whom have provided any real relief. And it is not in the financial interest of the big pharma to find a cure, because the lifelong treatment is very profitable. So while these people are not curing anything, and are not paid for performance (like the rest of us), she suffers and goes quietly bankrupt.
So you can take the gamble, but be warned: If you draw a unlucky card, there are going to be a lot of people living very well while you go bankrupt.
Ken,
I tried all the likely word combinations. Give us a hint.
:falling knives:
:knife:
I got
I dug aound the site that CR got his second graph and found data that breaks medical expenses into finer age groups. See this.
renter, you can walk away. Assuming you have some savings, and somewhere to live. Get a really low burn rate, decide you've bought your last consumer good, and stop spending.
Now find a easy way to earn >= burn rate. Laugh, but painting house numbers is $10 a shot.
Ehp - not to worry. I'm quite sure that if you scrolled back through the thousands of RD posts, you would find he has anticipated you by months, if not years.
"If you turn out to have one of the many diseases that medical science has no cure, then you are screwed."
bet in many 3rd world countries they deal with this with less non-sense than here. don't imagine myself putting up with 15 pills either. you are right, but as i see it, there's a total lack of common sense in usa (more than 1/2 of people are fat and that's a non issue for the government). we are just depositories of pills and procedures.
:bare bodkin:
racial
The sad thing is from one brief conversation I had with her, she really wasn't up to scratch on current events. So the business model is to take a course, take out a loan to start a franchise, get clients, use their software, enter in $ amount, enter in risk on scale from 1 to 5, invest in the given 'diversified' portfolio.
I've known 2 other people from wildly different backgrounds who got into the same racket around 2003. They did well and certainly made more money than they earned. I know of another guy through a friend, who is just out of an ivy league and is now considering a pure commission boutique investment sales job because there's not much else other than seasonal service sector work.
Still seeing a lot of old people definitely outliving their pensions in style while it lasts with fancy new cars, new clothing, vacations, etc. They're probably the loud minority though. The majority do live normal lives, but are dependent on housing values to fund part of their retirement.
don't imagine myself putting up with 15 pills either.
That's only because you have not had to make those choices yet.
you are right, but as i see it, there's a total lack of common sense in usa (more than 1/2 of people are fat and that's a non issue for the government). we are just depositories of pills and procedures.
I should have stated another assumption: That you are going to maintain your health in the most anal-compulsive way possible. No crap foods, good varied exercise. Cheap health clubs for an entire year are equal to one month of medical premiums.
Absolutely get yourself disaster-like insurance. By this I mean: The insurance with the highest deductible (probably $100/mon) The other benefit of that insurance: Even when you pay out of pocket, you pay the insurance-company negotiated rate. That saves a TON of money because they have bargaining power, you do not.
"Absolutely have disaster-like insurance. By this I mean: The insurance with the highest deductible (probably $100/mon) The other benefit of that insurance: Even when you pay out of pocket, you pay the insurance-company negotiated rate. That saves a TON of money because they have bargaining power, you do not. "
yep, i wish i could buy that type. but here in nyc with mandates and community rating those are unaffordable too. there's no cheap option like that for a young healthy person (unlike other states).
EHP
(3) I feel comfortable at this time in claiming my prize of predicting the peak of the recent bear market rally down to the specific week.
If this is the peak, how far down from here and how long to get there? When does the sp then break 1000 again?
barfly
I know you're trying to steer things back on course with some humor, but do you know when and where you saw the treasury yield curve invert? I actually have a vivid memory about it. Grabbed my housemate who was studying economics and told her about it, got a funny look. Also remember learning about options from a teacher during some free time back in high school back in the fall of '02. Told him AMD was a screaming buy -- disastrous financials and all -- stuck to my guns. Haven't seen him since the spring of '03, but I'm sure he remembers me.
I worded that badly: The insurance with the highest deductible. It will probably cost $100/mon, the deductible will be about $5K.
but here in nyc with mandates and community rating those are unaffordable too. there's no cheap option like that for a young healthy person (unlike other states).
Don't know that I can help... but What do you do for a living?
EHP - my respect for your intelligence could not possibly be any higher. I mean that. I just wish you were more representative of your generation, rather than the exception to the rule. More power to you, young man.
"I worded that badly: The insurance with the highest deductible. It will probably cost $100/mon, the deductible will be about $5K."
yes, i got it. here believe it or not, the premiums are HIGHER than for non-high deductibles. i looked into it cause i wanted to open a HSA. NOT IN NYC. fucking joke.
let's not get depressed by what i do for living... soon enough i'll move to a cheap state, into a farm (good internet is one of the very few of my non-discretionary items).
Doc +10
Nostalgia for the days when SNL actually had talented writers and actors
Wow, you are not kidding. Small biz guys are $243/mon as one example. Hey, you wanted the big-city life kiddo!
Anyway, since you're moving soon, there's nothing to do but wish you luck in your next location. And sorry that your living causes you something less than joy, may that change in your new place too.
U.S. Government Stages Fake Coup To Wipe Out National Debt | The Onion - America's Finest News Source
thanks JP, NYC is fun for a while (6 years), but i'm more than done with it.
Take a name asswipe,
I'm still half waiting for some kind of surge up, but at this point I'm not worried about holding short through it. As for how far it goes. I haven't called that, risk management for making an ass out of myself. I've got a mark for fair value. I've got a mark for duration. To be blunt though, it's not worth the gamble to pick an exit from here. There hasn't been a rally in either direction less than 20% yet. That is some fat money, no need to be greedy when you're playing in this zone where the market can temporarily go up or down without justification. I'll probably make a call when the time comes, or admit when it has passed me by, either way. But I would rather withhold my bet as I get free increases in information and context while the value of a long bet will increase until such a turning point.
`
In the interim I'll make stupid bets on smaller things. I was pretty impressed with how oil stayed near $70. I've hit non-farm payrolls exactly. I don't know anyone else who came close to me in getting auto sales so right and early. I've done all kinds of currency calls for fun, like long GBPEUR earlier in the year just to live dangerously. I'm pretty sure I've already put oil in the $20s per barrel out there for now. You can never be sure if it's just my delusions, or I'm just selecting the winners. But trust me, they're all legit
Yes...mortality rates increase rapidly from 50 on up...basically doubles for every ten year cohort.
I was trying to buy a machete today, and our local hardware stores are full of hippies, so I had to call the army navy surplus store in the county seat the next town over to find out when they opened. I dialed it up and boop boop beep the number has been disconnected. So I figure google has an outdated number for them, hop onto google maps, and find the name of the business next to them (the AN Surplus store is a corner store) look up their number and call. Boop boop beep. Disconnected. I try the business next over. Boop boop beep. Disconnected. I keep going, with increasing disbelief. Boop boop beep. Disconnected. Boop boop beep. Disconnected. I'm starting to think I'm in the twilight zone, until I hit a bar called "The Stag," second to last business on the block. They pick up, and I ask them if the AN surplus store is still in business. They say no. I ask them why they're the only business on the block to pick up their phone. They say they're the last business on the block still IN business. It's main street, Woodland, California, the county seat, in the middle of downtown. An entire block of businesses, out of business.
Once had a conversation on here about the impact of stress from the economy on personal health. For instance heart attacks are strongly correlated to stressful events in someone's life. Morbidly, there has been an increase in suicide which is also significantly higher in those soon to be or recently laid off. Lower incomes households consume more processed foods and suffer consequences in health. From the retirees I know, keeping busy does more than just to confirm you are still alive. Lower account balances do have a way of turning people into shut-ins (remember the man who froze to death this past winter but had significant savings?). Biggest health impact could come from expected the new norm of people working longer.
EHP, they found that the incidence of fractured molars increases stupendously during recessions. All that jaw clenching from extra stress shatters them.
Hoopajoops LTD
You can order a sample batch (~10 or 20) of Machetes from China. You'll spend more in shipping than on the product. Give the extras away as party favors
dying with one's boots on is probably preferable to wasting away in a nursing home
"Once had a conversation on here about the impact of stress from the economy on personal health. For instance heart attacks are strongly correlated to stressful events in someone's life."
there were 50k more deaths from heart attacks in buenos aires on the weeks following the default than during normal times. most people over 60. stress is a killer.
dying is one's boots on is probably preferable to wasting away in a nursing home
Amen.
damn. i suck at typing... "is" shoulda been "with"
You can order a sample batch (~10 or 20) of Machetes from China.
I bought a chinese machete -- they're all the local stores are selling. It was made of simple sheet metal, and could be bent into strange shapes quite easily with my index and pinky fingers. Far too dangerous to use such a thing.
Hoops, take a look at the Gerber Gator machete...I've had good luck with bassproshops.com getting ammo and other stuff shipped.
Hmmmm.
:fallingmachete:
If I may make the assumption, at least we here don't have the worries of India and its 'family planning'. Lot of dark history, lot of legitimate but taboo problems, lot of uncertainty going forward. For comparison, China is accelerating the unwind of what is known as the one child policy
Actually, I was hired by the federal government to get medicare costs under control.
machetes a senior
And cover up certain things...
machetes kenyan birth certificate
LOL...
You Americans are so silly with your Kenyan birth certificates and Dead Steven Hawkings. I wouldn't mind Canada not being dragged into a fight about healthcare it has no part in all the time. Why can't the networks start talking about the 2010 Olympic Hockey already. It would be much more enjoyable and fill a gap in their coverage
`
What about that upcoming G20 summit in Pittsburgh (Sept). Will they have all the tax treaties completed in time? Will Obama put in a special word for Chicago's olympic bid (Oct.)? Will Pet Rock make a huge comeback to be the #1 Christmas gift this year (Dec.)? Will the Shanghai 2010 World Expo even be in the same league as the 2008 Beijing Olympics (2010)?
"renter in NYC says, "i'll get my food from a farm i'll move into, till you old folks show some respect towards future generations."
......renter in NYC must be very young. Hope he's able to grow enough food to exist before he dies of starvation in the first few weeks. Were these "old folks" that probably own this "undefined farm" allowing him to move back into his old bedroom perhaps?
This is a test, just friggn relax and wait a second:
Further anecdote:
About the new metro line. They did a really spiffy job of hyping it up, top notch media relations. It started a conversation nationally, and there is big support for investments in rail. Wouldn't be surprised to see this manifest in some kind of key government platform soon, Canada is probably heading into an election in the next 6 months.
You Americans are so silly with your Kenyan birth certificates and Dead Steven Hawkings.
Oh yes, you just reminded me.
machetes Stephen Hawkings' United Kingdom birth certificate
OT : JPM's shiny crazy Dimon knows where his bread is buttered :
Homeowners Could Lose Over Taxes - NY Times
Ah, the tax lien business. Doesnt get much sleazier than that.
And oh, CR : have you been peeking at my website? Those population chart animations look sort of familiar. Ha.
Oh, additional anecdotal point - I went to three or four shops which sold inferior machetes, and at each one the employee asked me whether I was buying them to fight zombies when I asked for them.
Is there some kind of zombie-machete connection I'm missing here? Wouldn't it just get lodged harmlessly in their fore-skull?
Ok, no big deal...
Android | Official Website
Hoopajoops LTD
There was a zombie uprising in downtown Vancouver Saturday afternoon. It happens in other cities too, what day did you go shopping?
Check out this EXCELLENT Video. The Website name is a little wacky, but this video, a talk by Professor William Black is amazing.... really worth watching. Very intelligent speaker, with all kinds of S&L scandal experience.
Goldman Sachs: A Massive Scandal ~ Goldman Sachs Information, Comments, Opinions and Facts
EHP it was the damn Worcestershire sauce...
"There was a zombie uprising"
....they have those here on Tuesday afternoons at The Cherry Patch Brothel - Senior Citizen's NapTime Discount Day: 2 for 1 Special
GDD9000
Quality article there, in the sense that I have not been directly associating the banks who are not paying taxes on their property with the banks buying the tax liens. Incestuous
come on Black Star Ranch, are you angry that i will not contribute to your ss and medicare?
LOL.........you don't have to, renter.........I don't collect either - never will......
Black Star Ranch
zombies I'm talking about
They were clearly distinct from the goths attending the Vans Warped Tour and the kids on the Twilight pilgrimage
wow interesting, are you a preacher? a Mennonite? an Amish?
Damn, Henry - Sorry I missed THAT one. LOL. Reminds me of some of the middle boy's friends a while back.
EHP, not zombies... they just had pink eye... I told you upthread already...
"wow interesting".........nope, just an "old guy" that has a rather large garden and a few animals.
YLSP
Yeah, you would say that wouldn't you. Zombie-lover
Just happened to be browsing ancient Congressional records, came upon this:
The, President pro tempore laid before the Senate a letter of the Secretary of War, recommending that the value of a lot of animals stolen from the Government corral at San Antonio, Texas, by Comanche Indians, may be deducted from the appropriation heretofore made for those Indians, and transferred to the appropriation for the pay and subsistence of the Army.
Wonder how that idea would fly now; whatever damage the insurgencies cause in Iraq/Afghanistan, we deduct from aid to those countries and pay for our armies.
If this picture were a movie, it would be Rated R. If you're an adult at home, you have no reason not to look at it.
Artistic Bernanke via Jr Deputy Accountant
Is there some kind of zombie-machete connection I'm missing here?
I read "The Serpent and the Rainbow" about the chemical concoction to turn people into "zombies". Turns out they're not really zombies, they're actually solvent, it's an accounting trick.
Baby boomers are facing many longevity related challenges:
The list goes on and on. I will be pretty surprised if average life span doesn't start dropping like it did in Russia in the 90s.
She ends up with surgeries and expensive medicines, which she will most likely be on for the rest of her life.
she suffers and goes quietly bankrupt.
Errrr, isn't that also an argument for just trying to live healthy? She's screwed either way, working to pay health insurance isn't going to lessen her pain as much as one
hit.
albrt - that's funny!
Thanks picosec, but to tell the truth it's getting old. I'm a tail end baby boomer (1963) which means I was part of the first generation to be bitter about the baby boomers. I'm seriously considering leaving my current job because with the financially disappointed baby boomers sucking up all the surplus, there are going to be very few new equity partners for the next ten years. It really doesn't look like it's ever going to end.
Oh well, I thought we were all going to die in a nuclear war when Reagan got elected, so I'm living on bonus time anyway.
M-F - thx for the link. Quite interesting.
I'm living on bonus time anyway.
Well, if we don't live happily ever after, it still going to be better than living in Somalia, Cambodia, etc. For all the griping about the welfare state, no one here seems to envy it enough to accept it as a retirement fate. And all those who dream about moving to New Zealand to poison the waters there for the locals,...
Which reminds me:
Andy in NZ !!!
You still out there?
Joint replacements should be getting cheaper. Joints are almost fungible(in price, not quality), surgical glues have cut post op time in hospital by half: so if pricier it's because of doctors fees or bloated overhead. I'll take the latter.
That chart looks like an avalanche, not a bulge.
Shenzhen Exchange Records Largest Net Outflow in July
More than 15.5 billion yuan flowed out of the Shenzhen stock market in July as major institutional investors reduced holdings, the Shenzhen Stock Exchange said recently.
Though the exchange did not release other figures, it said the July net capital outflow was the largest for any month so far this year]
I don't know about Andy, but I am. Whaddaya want?
Andy was a commenter here a couple of years ago who ran into some employment problems (and he was a new father.) As a member of the insomniac crew here in the US, I told him I wouldn't forget him. Just hoping things have gone okay for him.
Ahh. Well, no-one starves here. It's probably one of the better places to be unemployed.
How are the tropical fish?
EHP, institutional investment exiting the market usually precedes the down turn, but are we now seeing that Asian exchanges are moving the rest of the world rather then the NYSE?
How are the tropical fish?
Great! It's a good time to be in the hobby, new species being discovered; better understanding of the care and husbandry; and my daughter is finally old enough that I can devote more time to it.
Only downside currently: raccoon wandered in downstairs and made a meal of a few. Gotta keep that door closed.
Interesting. I'd have thought aquarium species would be shallow-water, hence well-documented. No?
Here's a link to one of my favourite places, should you be passing this way.
New Zealand Marine Studies Centre & Aquarium
Goodnight now.
great job on that graph CR, I know I'm always giving you guff on some of the others but here you have excelled...!
shallow-water, hence well-documented. No?
Shallow water yes, well documented, no. Not important food sources and from little visited (by western cultures) streams, creeks, ponds. Most collections were by sailors on leave who took stuff back in formalin to ichthyologist friends,...no money for funding research into non-commercial species. They missed a lot. New Guinea alone in the last decade or so has contributed a lot of new species to the hobby,... and there's bound to be more in the back areas where it's so difficult to get to.
yes and if an uninsured motorist hit and runs you, or you randomly come down with cancer, or you suddenly become schizophrenic like my brother, or you get shot at in a drive by... etc....
then what.
according to CR's second graph Elvis Costello needs to change the words
of Pidgin English around the year 2046 (alert! film reference)
FROM:
There's a young girl with her old man who's too sick to mention
She'll be turning twenty seven as she draws her widow's pension
But he couldn't catch a common cold he couldn't get arrested
Too terrified to answer back
Too tired to have resisted
TO:
There's a young boy with his old bag who's too sick to mention
He'll be turning twenty seven as he draws his widower's pension
But she couldn't catch a common cold she couldn't get arrested
Too terrified to answer back
Too tired to have resisted
Firlight2012 (profile) wrote on Mon, 8/17/2009 - 8:16 pm
I'm hoping for Senior Olympics. Wouldn't that be cool?
1) Competitive channel surfing.
2) Gumming corn on the cob.
3) Finding the car keys.
4) Morning bowel movements.
5) Telling off whippersnappers.
This is too easy. And not very interesting.
BSR: Senior at brothel to madam: "She don't have to be pretty, just patient."
Did anyone link to the John Hussman post yesterday? Probably.
He looks at the broad economy, going forward, based on U.S. Department of Commerce 10-year projected growth/potential real GDP - an analysis I hadn't seen performed previously.
Hussman Funds - Weekly Market Comment: Growth in "Potential GDP" Shows Limited Potential - August 17, 2009
It's simplistic to look at U.S.health care spending as being mainly age-driven, with younger people spending little and effectively subsidizing older people.
Health care-spending is also disability-driven. People who have serious illnesses or disabilities tend to cost vastly more, at all ages.
It's also event-driven. Pregnancies and deliveries are drivers of health care costs, and of course these costs are focused mostly on younger and middle-age families.
A hundred years ago, the U.S. didn't spend nearly as much on lifetime disabilities, and more people with disabilities died younger or led miserable lives.
Likewise, many babies were born at home or by midwives, and there were more delivery deaths.
The fact that young people feel so threatened by health care costs shows you how broken the U.S. system is. Of course, it is true that if nothing changes, young people in the U.S. will get crushed by ever-rising health care costs as they get older.
Young people in Canada and France don't feel so threatened.
This population aging has GOT to happen. We cannot continue to strip this planet bare of resources - and the idea of crowding out all the creatures with which we share it seems horrible to me. I do not want to live in a world of mega cities with industrial agriculture supporting them. Children these days demand so much in terms of resources, parental time, and lifetime support that it's a very realistic option not to have them. Many of us interested in the environment did not, and, so far, so good. I don't know of anyone who regrets the decision, and, far from leading to selfishness, most of us are focused on doing some good for the planet at large, not promoting our own offspring over those of our neighbors. Hope I don't sound like I'm ranting ... I just think the advertising and culture promoting parenthood is totally out of balance with what this planet needs right now. I don't want to criticize parents, it's just that the culture overwhelms those of us advocating for a smaller population in order to make this a more beautiful and enjoyable world. I'm conscious that I don't have children to fall back on, so I'm working to keep myself from being a burden.
this is not my game but perhaps one of you 'boy/girl geniuses' out there might know the answer:
a dear friend writes -
"Am seeing a price of USD80.20 for June '10 puts on S&P at strike 950, (so one contract costs you about USD8,020 right now).
Open interest already 17,886 so the contract already seems fairly "liquid".
What do you reckon ?...
any thoughts?
don't
Of course, my advice is worth what you pay for it.
thanks, all... I don't play the option markets so I don't know what to tell him...
depends on whether you are looking at the mini contract or the the regular.
The regular is $250 per s&P point and the mini is $50 per point. i.e. $20,040 and 4,010 respectively
Morning all. What madness walked the earth while sensible people slept?
Nikki got a shot in the arm at 2pm local, could have been another days of big sads but ended just in kermit territory. Most Asia stocks declined, only slight edging higher in Shanghai, Korea. Taiex still battered. USD wobbling against locals.
Clearly just an unfortunate misunderstanding in Yerp and US stocks since futures for both now shaking hands with kermit. Fun ratio for yesterday, DAX was off 2%, but VDAX volatility spiked almost 15%.
Well, I would too.
C
Duke of Con: Well, being a mid Atlanticer from Indiana, you certainly know how to listen politely then say something like, " Thanks so much for the opportunity to which I will devote a lot of thought." Then buy more gold or silver.
Based on the other chart that CR put up since we can no longer borrow our higher level of consumption the next step will be to see consumption ex health care decline to make room for health care spending.
When any discussion on cost effective medicine is reduced to "killing granny" or "rationing care". We in the US deserve to be and will be crushed by rising health care costs.
Once again, The Onion has a solution to the debt problem:
U.S. Government Stages Fake Coup To Wipe Out National Debt | The Onion - America's Finest News Source
Go Onion, go.
Actually, this is just the same as they do it in Miami-Dade County, and always have. The investers bid at a reverse
auction. The County sets the fees. They are remorseless.
There was a nutso guy who owned his house free and clear and it was sold for taxes after his caretaker died. His
friends tried to help and it took a huge court battle to get the property back for him. Actually, what he forgot to do, wasn't even pay--totally disabled, no taxes--but to file a form saying he was disabled.
Again, with trepidation, I'll ask a question about health care costs... Has anyone seen data or modeling on industry concentration, and the extent to which anti-trust action might be warranted at either the provider or insurer level for collusion, price-fixing, infrastructure/construction bid-rigging etc?
The reason to ask is the explicit assumption that health care costs will always rise. That very well might happen. But it seems more likely if there are oligopolistic conditions, including the structural drive to turn primary health care solutions into tertiary goods, services and fee structures - the sprained ankle diagnosed with the MRI is a good example. This goes hand in hand with marketing which tells the consumer that their demand may remain highly inelastic; there is nothing you can't have, and nothing that can't be treated.
Just seems to me that if price outstrips capacity to pay (and it has, it will, for ages, given recession and unemployment), and stays there, something should give: market settles on new (lower) price, or government intervenes to ameliorate market failure.
I'm not proposing solutions, just having grown up in a mixed public/private system it just seems some of the assumptions imbedded in the debate could be questioned. So, flame away...!
C
Different perspective on health care issue:
Get your rage the %@!# under control - The Globe and Mail
How did the Oregon thing work out?
Seems you figure how much money you want to spend
and divvy it up paying for prevention, health (veggie and
fruit coupons), and the least expensive treatments that do
the best job. Have money left over? Do medium expensive
treatments that do a good or medium job.
People who need heart transplants will have to buy catastrophe
insurance, or raise the funds themselves. Or, die. We all
do you know.
I'm reminded of that gizmo wielded by McCoy (looked like a clamshell phone come to think of it) that could diagnose about anything. McCoy had one at the ready for every crew member.
Question for the folks back home may have been how do I get a berth on a starship?
Also, none of the media, including NPR, has broken out the various alternatives
and explained what they are, how much they cost or how it would affect what we have
today. Just focussing on the political fight, which I find profoundly boring.
U.S. housing starts down in July, but single-family building permits rise 5.8%
U.S. housing starts flat in July at 581,000 pace - MarketWatch
Children these days demand so much in terms of resources, parental time, and lifetime support that it's a very realistic option not to have them. Many of us interested in the environment did not, and, so far, so good. I don't know of anyone who regrets the decision, and
I commend you for your decision but I sure hope you don't use the services of anybody from a younger generation as you get older and require help.
So, according to consensus model builders, demographers and statisticians, not true that U.S. health care costs will rise "sharply." Just a bit.
Maybe it's only to keep deficit projections under control.
lawyer liz,
For the umteenth time, here's the Wells and Krugman article on comparative health care systems in Britain, France, Canada and America. It's in the New York Review of Books which I believe is print media. It's a half hour read. There's lots there to attack, if you have the information.
The Health Care Crisis and What to Do About It - The New York Review of Books
.....I agree......Instead of assisting in the challenge, they assist in the flaming.
Dead thread, but that was just too funny.
Birth rate was down 2.6% in california in 2008 versus 2007. Down 3.2% among hispanics - 66% of all california births.
Looks like birth decline is accelerating in 2009 because the births were lower later in 2008 than earlier.
In Arizona for the first 6 months of 2009 births are down 7% versus 2008. Thats huge for a state that yearly posted 5-7% birth growth rates for a decade or so.
If you look at negative equity, about 40mn mortgages homes will be negative equity in the next year (where it pays to walk away). Given the economy and not only the high but enduring unemployment with no real bright spots in the Philly Fed index... and the negative equity, the 2 biggest factors, don't be surprised if half of those people deta.
hat tip to Interesting Finance & Economic articles
the economy failing
The government must save for the health needs of the 80's in 2050. We also need a lot of care givers by that time.