Grab bag — Wednesday afternoon
Posted on July 29th, 2009 by ecthompson md
- In spite of the uptick in new home starts for June, I still think the housing market is significantly depressed and it will be so for some time. Resale values have yet to show anything like a rebound. Dean Baker, the codirector of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, agrees with me (and it may be more appropriate to say that I agree with him).
- New York has started to confront their homeless problem by sending people home. New York has paid for one-way tickets for over 500 families. I guess the question is, do these people want to go home? Are they going into an atmosphere that will help them get back on their feet? Or is New York simply dumping the problems on other cities?
- Recently, many Americans have come to believe that our government is completely inept and only private business can get things done efficiently and cost-effectively. I have argued vehemently against this notion. Yahoo! is another example of a business that had no vision and poor leadership. Within the last 18 months Yahoo! told Microsoft to go take a hike. Now, with Yahoo! in a considerably weaker position, a deal has been reached with Microsoft over a search partnership. This is another example of how business can make huge mistakes just like everyone else. They aren’t magically smarter than the rest of us.
- House Democrats have announced a deal that would trim $100 billion from their health care bill. According to press reports, healthcare providers would not be paid based on Medicare reimbursement rates. I’m not sure exactly what this means.
- On Monday, the Washington Post editorial page advocated for prosecutions of those officers who’ve gone beyond what was outlined in John Yoo’s memo. Again, this goes against the American tradition of holding those who were responsible for the deviant policies responsible. We need to stop looking at the bottom. We need to investigate and prosecute from the top down. Glenn has more.
- There appears to be some discussion on Capitol Hill that may end SCHIP. This may be good or it may be disastrous. The program has clearly helped millions of children. This program needs to be rolled into a single payer system. We don’t need to be cutting back benefits.
