Full interview here: http://www.hks.harvard.edu/news-events/news/articles/robert-blendon
Robert Blendon, professor of health policy and analysis, examines how public opinion affects and influences the design and execution of health policy.
Duration : 0:2:33
In which John offers a summary of the health care reform bill that just passed the U.S. senate, discussing the insurance exchange market, pre-existing condition clauses, medicare taxes, and other fine points of the still-under-debate bill. Here’s a good explanation of how the insurance exchanges will look like: http://bit.ly/eIwNE
Thanks to Alan Lastufka
( http://youtube.com/fallofautumndistro ) for the Ben Nelson asshat photo.
About abortion: The senate plan works like this: Policies covering abortion would be available in the exchange market (at least in some states), but those plans would have to collect two separate premiums–one covering everything other than abortion, and one for abortion coverage. The subsidy (available to all families making less than about $88,000 a year depending on number of kids) would only apply to the non-abortion policy.
If this seems like a hilariously stupid distinction, that’s because it is. Ultimately, it of course doesn’t matter which policy the subsidy goes toward. But then again, every federal program “supports” abortion in some way. For instance, without federally funded highways, it would be impossible for most women to get abortions. All government spending indirectly goes to support all activity in America, but it’s ridiculous to say that, for instance, food stamps encourage meth use, even though sometimes people trade meth for food they bought with food stamps. It’s equally disingenuous to say that this bill will allow federal funding of abortions, unless you’re willing to argue that all government spending funds abortion.
Duration : 0:3:54
More at http://therealnews.com
Are assumptions about Iran wrong?
Monday November 19th, 2007
Duration : 0:8:12
Speaking in the run-up to the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Bali, Indonesia, Mr. de Boer emphasized that business has an absolutely critical role to fulfill in creating an international climate change policy. He applauded business in its efforts to date to devise solutions to measure up to the challenge while at the same time allowing economies to grow. He further noted that if business needs are not taken into consideration in the elaboration of a comprehensive climate change policy it is set to fail rather than succeed. Mr. de Boer strongly welcomed the business role in formulating a post-2012 climate change policy that makes sense from a business perspective.
Duration : 0:0:54
Daniel Ellsberg spent three years in the U.S. Marine Corps, serving as rifle platoon leader, operations officer, and rifle company commander.
He worked as a strategic analyst at the RAND Corporation and consultant to the Defense Department and the White House.
“His recent essay, “The Next War”, featured in the October 2006 issue of Harpers magazine, urges government officials to reveal truths about government secrecy and nuclear planning—with documents—to avert a possible attack on Iran.”
“A hidden crisis is under way. Many government insiders are aware of serious plans for war with Iran, but Congress and the public remain largely in the dark.” http://harpers.org/archive/2006/10/0081208
Duration : 0:2:31
In 2006, Massachusetts passed health care reform that implemented a number of policies that are now being mirrored in the Obama health reform plan. The president has repeatedly claimed that his plan will lower health care costs but not decrease health care quality. This visualization looks at how the Massachusetts plan has panned out in terms of cost and wait times.
Sources:
Wait Times – Merrit Hawkins and Associates 2009 Survey of Physician Appointment Wait Times: http://www.merritthawkins.com/pdf/mha2009waittimesurvey.pdf
Cost of Insurance Premiums – AHIP Center for Policy and Research Individual Health Insurance 2006-2007: A Comprehensive Survey of Premiums, Availability, and Benefits – http://www.ahipresearch.org/pdfs/Individual_Market_Survey_December_2007.pdf
Duration : 0:2:10
Watch more at http://www.theyoungturks.com
Follow us on Twitter.
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Duration : 0:8:0
Watch more at http://www.theyoungturks.com
Follow us on Twitter.
http://twitter.com/theyoungturks
Check Out TYT Interviews http://www.youtube.com/user/TYTInterviews
Vote for us at the podcast awards. Nominate The Young Turks in the “Politics” and “People’s Choice” categories. http://www.podcastawards.com/
Duration : 0:8:0
http://www.informedtrades.com/
A lesson on the business cycle and how the government uses fiscal policy to try and keep growth going and inflation in check and what this means for traders of the stock, futures, and forex markets.
Fiscal policy can be defined for our purposes very simply as anything relating to government spending and taxation. Before looking at the fiscal policy role of government in trying to influence the economy, one must first have an understanding of the business cycle. For a number of reasons which are widely debated the economy goes through repeated periods of growth and contraction over time which can be broken down into the following phases.
1. A Contraction where economic activity and growth slows and can turn negative
2. Trough where the economy stops contracting and a new expansion begins
3. An Expansion or the speeding up of economic growth.
4. A Peak where the growth of the economy maxes out and begins to turn downward
We could spend many months going over and debating why this is but for our purposes it is simply important to understand that, while the timing and length of each of these phases has varied widely, the above pattern repeats itself over and over again throughout history. This is important for us as traders to understand as different phases of the business cycle and changes in peoples forecasts of where the economy is in those cycles is arguably the greatest factor which effects the price level of every market.
Prior to the great depression the US Government had a pretty hands off approach in regards to the business cycle. Since the great depression however the government has played a much more active role in the economy with its stated goals being to act to facilitate full employment and price stability. To help understand these goals and the balancing act that goes on between them as they often conflict, lets look at how each relates to the different phases of the business cycle.
1. During an expansion we start to see more people employed as companies begin to sell more goods and services and need to hire more people to keep up with the demand. As economic growth picks up and more people are employed there are more people spending their paychecks which can cause prices to rise, something also known as inflation. Because of this effect on prices the government’s primary concern here will normally be trying to keep prices stable and inflation in check without hurting economic growth. The two things they can do in regards to Fiscal Policy to try and keep prices in check and inflation at bay are:
a. Raise Taxes: By raising taxes money is taken away from the consumer who now has less money to spend helping to counteract the demand that is pushing prices up and causing inflation.
and/or
Duration : 0:8:37
Tucker Bounds On Palin Experience