Monday, April 27, 2009
Morning reading
Bereft as I am of creativity and scheduled to spend most of the day in New York with bankers in the age of TARP, herewith a bushel of links and random observations.
The Obama administration is rolling back financial transparency requirements for labor unions, including with regard to leadership compensation, at the same time that the Democrats are proposing rules that will subject corporate executive compensation to a vote of stockholders. Anybody see anything cynical in that?
"Busting Bank of America": The editors of the Wall Street Journal are brutal on the beating that the government has given to Bank of America and the consequences, unintended or otherwise, thereof. Money quote:
No wonder no banker in his right mind trusts the Fed or Treasury, and no wonder nobody but Pimco and other Treasury favorites is eager to invest in the TALF, the PPIP, or any of the other programs that require trusting the government as a business partner.
The political class has spent the last few months blaming bankers for everything that has gone wrong in the financial system, and no doubt many banks have earned public scorn. But Washington has been complicit every step of the way, from the Fed's easy money to the nurturing of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and since last autumn with regulatory and Congressional panic that is making financial repair that much harder. The men who nearly ruined Bank of America have some explaining to do.
A shortage of doctors is an "obstacle to Obama goals." The problem, according to the article, is not so much a shortage of MDs, but a shortage of primary care physicians. The over-specialization of American medicine has been a beef of the reformers for a long time, and, indeed, health care costs per capita are much higher in parts of the country with a larger proportion of specialists. Why? Because in American health care more supply drives more consumption without any reduction in cost per unit of care delivered. The Obama administration proposes to deal with the shortage by lowering reimbursement (and therefore physician compensation) on specialist procedures and raising it on primary care procedures. This will touch off a war within medicine, as predicted in question #5 of my 2007 post "A few questions for health care reformers."
Matt Drudge's contribution to the public health, via Glenn Reynolds.
Apparently the Obama administration's new willingness to treat with Iran is unpopular among Arab governments.
The Obama administration is dispatching its point man on Iran, Dennis Ross, to the Middle East this week in an effort to win greater Arab support for Washington's engagement strategy toward Tehran, U.S. officials said.
A number of Arab governments in recent weeks have voiced concern about the U.S. outreach, fearing it could help entrench Iran as a Mideast power while failing to end its nuclear program, the U.S. officials said.
Arab governments have been seeking assurances from Mr. Ross and other U.S. officials that Washington's overtures toward Iran won't undercut their security interests, U.S. and Arab diplomats said. The Arab governments are asking the U.S. to consult regularly with them as President Barack Obama seeks to hold high-level negotiations with Tehran aimed at ending its nuclear activities.
"The discomfort among the Arabs is quite real. They have deep anxieties about Iran," said a senior U.S. official working on the country. "The first thing is to be in the position of consulting with them, and taking into effect their concerns."
Hey! I was told that the Bush administration's policy toward Iran was incompetent and had no basis in geopolitical realism.
The "restructuring of global oil demand." Interesting.
That should hold you for a while.
MORE: This is what happens when you put an academic in charge of a problem in the real world.
4 Comments:
By 
, at
Mon Apr 27, 10:21:00 AM:
Link,
Yesterday, Obama’s weekly address was on “Fiscal Discipline.” “We cannot sustain deficits that mortgage our children’s future, nor tolerate wasteful inefficiency.” You can’t make this stuff up.
Here it is complete: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/04/25/Obama's_weekly_address_fiscal_discipline_96180.html
As Obama builds a “new foundation for lasting prosperity” … “One of the pillars of that foundation must be fiscal discipline.” ... Do we really want a foundation with pillars?
“… we have identified two trillion dollars in deficit-reductions over the next decade, while taking on the special interest spending that doesn’t advance the peoples’ interests.” WTF? Can I get the details.
He says he’s for PAYGO legislation — “new tax or entitlement policies should be paid for.” … so — for the next decade — does that mean we need $10 trillion in spending cuts, or $10 trillion in new taxes.
He wants to have suggestion boxes for government employees, and to have government use technology like business does.
You can empirically show that Obama's plans for energy and healthcare won't work -- similar energy plans aren't working in Spain ... a similar plan for healthcare in Massachusetts is way over budget. I doubt his education plans will work.
We're about to increase our deficit to 10% of GDP and will have dick to show for it.
This isn't about Democrat vs Republican. It's about waking up from a fantasy world.
Sidebar: How desperate is Larry Summers to stay in the game that he actually defends this ...
By , at
Mon Apr 27, 10:28:00 AM:
btw, honk if you own a GM vehicle.
From now on, GM stands for Government Made.......Think of the possibilities......I don't own a GM vehicle and haven't since the 1970's when their product was so awful; tho, not all their fault).
I would like to have a new corvette, or maybe several other of their models, but NOT NOW. Or ever. The Oldsmobile will become the Obamobile. All good comrades should (will) have one.
By , at
Mon Apr 27, 10:42:00 AM:
I agree with President Obama that we need more doctors. However, I hope the government will weigh diversity, historic discrimination and race when selecting the new doctors.
This would be a great opportunity to create jobs for former UAW auto workers. The details of augmenting their medical salaries to bring them as high as their GM salaries can be worked out later.
By 
Bluegrass Pundit, at
Mon Apr 27, 08:52:00 PM:
When pandering to his UAW union base, President Obama has revealed the morally corrupt level to which he is willing to stoop. A morally corrupt President panders to the UAW at the expense of everyone else viaBluegrass Pundit
