August 17, 2011
During the last two downturns, the highest the unemployment rate reached was 7.8% before declining again. The Great Recession has been far worse for the job market. In fact, we have now been a full percentage point over that level for more than two years: the unemployment rate has been at or above 8.8% for the past 28 months.
Read the full Economic Policy Institute Article…
Standard and Poor’s downgrading of the U.S. credit rating for the first time in history was the second warning given by the rating agency. The first was last April. Nonetheless, it seems to have come as a surprise to many within the Washington Beltway. It took about three days for politicians to regain their composure enough to define the cause as “a lack of political will.” Our position is that the cause is far deeper than that statement implies.
Standard and Poor’s downgraded the credit rating for reasons that took root more than thirty-years-ago. Factions of Congress today embrace ideologies that reflect an irresponsible attitude to the fiscal management of the largest economy in the world.
The full report on The Loss of America’s Credit Rating explains what happened and what can be done to fix the mess politicians have left for taxpayers to clean up. Download the report, today. It is free.
Download the full pdf report by clicking this link :
The Loss of America’s Credit Rating:
How it Happened, and What Must be Done to Fix It
This PDF report presents findings on how fiscal and tax policies led to current, high-levels of unemployment, sluggish economic growth, widening income disparity, the US credit downgrade, and declines in “capital creation.” It’s “good stuff.” Download it, today.
For anyone caring to remember early justifications of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the story of Saddam Hussein’s 1988 use of chemical weapons against the Kurdish population of Halabja quickly comes to mind.
Hussein’s chemicals included mustard gas, VX, Sarin, Soman, and hydrogen cyanide. Some reports indicate Hussein purchased the gas, or the technologies, from Western countries, notably the U.S., Germany, and France.
Meet Kyler VanNocker, a five-year-old boy that has lived half of his life with Neuroblastoma, a cancer that attacks the nervous system. After two-and-a-half years of care, Kyler’s insurance company refused to pay for his next round of treatments. The insurer is Coventry Health Care, Inc. (Health America Division).
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When I started looking into healthcare cost issues, I sought advice from six physicians on two minor medical conditions. For one of the conditions, doctor advice ranged from in-office procedures to hospital surgeries. When questioned about costs, one of the hospital-surgery doctors said, “It’s covered by insurance.”
The idea that costs are unimportant because they are covered by insurance is a moral hazard. The term simply means that people that do not pay the bills often do not think about the consequences. Unnecessary spending is likely.
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