Posts selected fromManagement Blog - Engineering Blog - Investing Blog and other blogs - The Importance of Long Term Disability Insurance
Studies show that a 20 year old has a 30% chance of becoming disabled before reaching retirement age. In the USA, the Social Security Administration provides disability benefits for total disabilities. (but these payments are not very large and do not cover partial disabilities) continue reading: The Importance of Long Term Disability Insurance - Wealthiest 1% Continue Dramatic Gains Compared to Everyone Else
The least trust-fund-baby favoring country cultures are Scandinavian countries. The USA has been moving to an increasingly trust-fund-baby favoring focus over the last few decades with the expected increase in kids incomes being more related to their parents income than any other factor. In the USA now nearly 50% of someone’s income can be “explained” by their parents income. continue reading: Wealthiest 1% Continue Dramatic Gains Compared to Everyone Else - Patient Centered Doesn't Mean Patient Directed
We need to have systems that are patient focused but that doesn’t mean patients dictate treatment. And we need to see a much wider system than we normally do. We need to be focused on healthy living not just disease treatment. And given the mess that is the USA health care system we need to focus on reducing the burden of coping with the horrible USA health system bureaucracy - that system does great damage to those having to deal with it (and it is nearly all waste that shouldn't be creating such hardship). continue reading: Patient Centered Doesn't Mean Patient Directed - When You See the Problem as Capitalism Instead of Corruption You Seek to Solve the Wrong Problem.
Capitalism has huge benefits and some issues. I am frustrated that we are allowing anti-capitalist ideas to be called capitalist. Those ideas are predominately about allowing huge businesses to subvert markets and corrupt the political process.
Corruption in our political system which then allows corruption of free markets (as favors to those giving politicians cash) is not "Capitalism." It is corruption.
Free trade is good. The secret TPP and other corporate-welfare/copywrong-cartel bill is not.
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A fundamental tenant of capitalism is free markets (based on the idea of perfect competition) in which no actor has the power to subvert the market. This was foreseen from the very beginning (in Wealth on Nations by Adam Smith) as an important criteria without which society would not benefit from capitalism as powerful interests would collude to prevent markets from functioning. continue reading: When You See the Problem as Capitalism Instead of Corruption You Seek to Solve the Wrong Problem. - STEM Graduates in the USA: 465,000 Women and 451,000 Men
STEM baccalaureate degrees in the USA in 2010 (reported by NSF in 2014):
| Field |
Women |
|
Men |
| Science (including math) |
442,000 |
|
343,000 |
| Engineering |
23,000 |
|
108,000 |
| Health |
193,000 |
|
36,000 |
| Total |
658,000 |
|
486,000 |
If you exclude health, women still lead 465,000 to 451,000. continue reading: STEM Graduates in the USA: 465,000 Women and 451,000 Men - Curious Cat Tax Proposals
 My plan would have 3 parts. I like a flat tax, I doubt it will ever happen, but if we could get one I would be happy. Cruz proposes that (at 10%). I am fine with his proposal to eliminate all deductions but mortgage interest and charity. I would definitely tweak that some – no more than $50,000 in mortgage interest deduction a year and the same for charity. Basically subsidizing it a bit for the non-rich is fine. Subsidizing these for the rich seems silly so I would cap the deductions in some way.
Increasing the giveaways to trust-fund baby as Cruz and Trump propose is the single worst tax policy change that can be made. I have explained previously how bad an idea this is: The estate tax is the most capitalist tax that exists.
Social Security taxes are nearly equal to other income taxes. They are highly regressive. I would eliminate the current elimination of the tax on high income earners. I would just have the tax due on all earned income (no cap). If that let me reduce the rate, great, if not fine it would just make the fund solvent for longer. I would not increase the benefits due for high earners beyond what it is now. continue reading: Curious Cat Tax Proposals - 2015 Health Care Price Report – Costs in the USA and Elsewhere
The damage to the USA economy due to inflated health care costs is huge. A significant portion of the excessive costs are due to policies the government enacts (which only make sense if you believe the cash given to politicians by those seeking to retain the excessive costs structure in the USA the last few decades buy the votes of the political parties and the individual politicians).
In 2015, Humira (a drug from Abbvie to treat rheumatoid arthritis that is either the highest grossing drug in the world, or close to it) costs $2,669 on average in the USA; $822 in Switzerland; $1,362 in the United Kingdom. This is the cost of a 28 day supply.
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The report also includes the cost of medical procedures. For both the drugs and the procedures they include not only average but measures to show how variable the pricing is. As you would expect (if you pay attention to the massive pricing variation in the USA system) the variation in the cost of medical procedures is wide. For an appendectomy in the USA the 25th percentile of cost was $9,322 and for the 95th was $33,250; the average USA cost was $15,930. The average cost in Switzerland was $6,040 and in the United Kingdom was $8,009. continue reading: 2015 Health Care Price Report – Costs in the USA and Elsewhere - Export anything to a friendly country except American management
Part of the reason improvement has been so slow is that while many people seem to like sharing such quotes with their friends and colleagues very few people dig into the context of his quotes in order to learn how to actually improve. Humor is useful is piquing people’s interest. Sadly even if thousands of people appreciate and share such a quote, very few actually think about what they can do in their organization to improve the situation. Some people do, and that is wonderful. continue reading: Export anything to a friendly country except American management - The Worst Aspect of TPP That Gets Nearly No Attention
Sadly among the worst aspects of the Trans-Pacific Partnership TPP (and also the TTIP) is the promotion of the copyright cartel's agenda along with very bad patent policy. Almost no one with political power is even talking about these huge problems with it.
I support free trade. I don't support the politically motivated trade agreements that impose the USA political donors' wishes on citizens of the USA and other countries. continue reading: The Worst Aspect of TPP That Gets Nearly No Attention - USA Health-Care System Ranks 50th out of 55 Countries
None of these rankings are perfect and neither is this one. But it is clear beyond any doubt that the USA healthcare system is extremely costly for no better health results than other rich countries (and even more expensive with again no better results than most poor countries). It is a huge drain on the economy that we continue to allow lobbyists and special interests to take advantage of the rest of us... continue reading: USA Health-Care System Ranks 50th out of 55 Countries - Burning Toast: American Health System Style
 Democrats and Republicans have created a health care system in the USA over the last 40 years that “burns toast” at an alarming rate. As the symptoms of their health care system are displayed they call in people to blame for burning toast.
Their participation in the “you burn, I’ll scrape” system is even worse than the normal burning then scraping process. They create a bad system over decades and ignore the burnt toast just telling people to put up with it. And when some burnt toast can’t be ignored any longer they then blame individuals for each piece of burnt toast.
They demand that those they bring before them to blame, scrape off the burnt toast. And they act shocked that the "toaster" burns toast. It is the same "toaster" they designed and maintain at the behest of those benefiting from burnt toast and of course it burns toast (those results are the natural outcome of the system they designed and maintain). continue reading: Burning Toast: American Health System Style - Guadalupe Peak Trail, Guadalupe Mountains National Park
 The Guadalupe Peak Trail in Guadalupe Mountains National Park is a 8.4 mile round trip hike with an elevation gain of 2,930 feet.
The hike was fantastic. Lots of great views and interesting plants and insects.
This park is one of the many wonderful, less known but still great national parks. continue reading: Guadalupe Peak Trail, Guadalupe Mountains National Park - Cliff Palace, Mesa Verde National Park
 Sometime during the late 1190s, after primarily living on the mesa top for 600 years, many Ancestral Pueblo people began living in pueblos they built beneath the overhanging cliffs. The structures ranged in size from one-room storage units to villages of more than 150 rooms. While still farming the mesa tops, they continued to reside in the alcoves, repairing, remodeling, and constructing new rooms for nearly a century. continue reading: Cliff Palace, Mesa Verde National Park - Estate Tax Repeal is a Very Bad Idea
The estate tax is the most capitalist tax that exists. Capitalism, which some seem to think is based on people inheriting assets from their relatives, is not. Capitalism is based on the concept that each person gets to receive rewards for their work.
Long before Adam Smith, noble rich passed on their wealth to their heirs. It was not Capitalist then and it is not Capitalist now.
You have to have some taxes to run the government. The income tax is a poor tool, as it is a direct disincentives to positive economic activity. The best tax is one that doesn’t take anything from someone who earned it. And that is exactly what the estate does, tax a portion of the millions someone is given.
The income tax, however, is the largest source of income and therefore it will not disappear. But if you are going to lower taxes, that is the tax you should lower not one on people being given millions of dollars. continue reading: Estate Tax Repeal is a Very Bad Idea - Stock Market Capitalization by Country from 2000 to 2016
 One way to view the dominance of mega-companies is that the market cap for the top 4 stocks exceeds the market cap of all of Canada’s stocks (Apple $807 billion + Alphabet $687 billion + Microsoft $588 billion + Facebook $507 billion = $2.589 trillion). The next, Amazon $477 billion, bring the total for the top 5 to over $3 trillion (and surpasses the UK market cap, leaving only USA, China and Japan as larger markets).
The USA market capitalization was at 46.9% of the global market cap in 2000 and fell to 31.6% in 2000 before rising to 42% in 2016. China grew from 1.8% of world stock market capitalization in 2000 to 6.9% in 2012 and 11.2% in 2016. Adding Hong Kong to China’s totals shows 3.7% in 2000 with growth to to 12.2% in 2012 and 16.2% in 2016.
You may be surprised to learn that 26% of USA equities are owned by investors outside the USA.
continue reading: Stock Market Capitalization by Country from 2000 to 2016
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