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Does anyone care about the economy?
http://forums.theskyiscrape.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=496		 Page 26 of 82
Author:  contamination [ Tue February 13, 2018 8:05 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Does anyone care about the economy?
Author:  --- [ Wed February 14, 2018 3:29 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Does anyone care about the economy?
contamination wrote:

haha wow is this bad
Author:  McParadigm [ Sun February 18, 2018 4:05 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Does anyone care about the economy?
Author:  4/5 [ Sun February 18, 2018 4:32 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Does anyone care about the economy?
It's kind of amazing that the markets with the most government involvement have experienced such dramatically higher inflation rates than the markets for products that are relatively freer from government influence.

Unfortunately, a lot of people probably look at that chart and see proof that we need even more government in healthcare to reverse this trend.
Author:  McParadigm [ Sun February 18, 2018 4:43 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Does anyone care about the economy?
Counterpoint: everything that’s become more affordable is, as you said, a product. It gets made. Its development cost is impacted by automation, the availability of cheap labor, other technological developments, etc. Childcare is not suffering from an over-abundance of government control.

Also, as a number of people have pointed out in response to this graphic, the “wages“ line looks drastically different if you chop off the top 2 or 3% of earners.
Author:  4/5 [ Sun February 18, 2018 5:10 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Does anyone care about the economy?
McParadigm wrote:
Counterpoint: everything that’s become more affordable is, as you said, a product. It gets made. Its development cost is impacted by automation, the availability of cheap labor, other technological developments, etc. Childcare is not suffering from an over-abundance of government control.

Also, as a number of people have pointed out in response to this graphic, the “wages“ line looks drastically different if you chop off the top 2 or 3% of earners.

All I'm saying is that the markets for healthcare services are so distorted due to both government involvement and the insurance industry that it contributes significantly to this outcome. The way he we purchase health services and hospital care, etc. is so different than the way we buy almost anything else and there is a total lack of transparency on the true cost of any of these services, so we shouldn't be surprised when prices rise so much faster in the health sector than prices overall.

In most industries, technological improvement leads to lower prices. You see that in virtually any market you can think of (and can see in that chart) with the glaring exception of healthcare. I think the main reason for that is the lack of transparent costs and pricing. Call three hospitals for quotes for the same services and you are likely get dramatically different prices quoted to you. Hospital prices are almost completely untethered to reality in any meaningful way. It also has to do with the fact that we pay such a high cost for healthcare through insurance premiums that when we actually purchase healthcare services, the additional cost to us is relatively small compared to what we've already spent essentially just for the right to be able to buy healthcare services cheaper when we need them, that we're more likely to do just that, and pay for healthcare when we may not otherwise do so if we were going to be responsible for paying the full cost right then and there. In my opinion, it's a very, very broken market, and I think a lot of that is due how the rules of the game have led to most people purchasing healthcare through an insurance program, along with other laws and policies that overtly protect and benefit the hospitals, insurance companies, and the pharmaceuticals to the detriment of citizens at large.

As a result, my preference is that healthcare could function like industries in markets that are freer of these influences. I suspect this would lead to higher wages on the front end for workers throughout the economy and falling healthcare costs as that market would come to behave more like other markets.
Author:  4/5 [ Sun February 18, 2018 5:20 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Does anyone care about the economy?
Regarding childcare, I really don't know very much about that, so I'll plead ignorance. I'm curious what they're putting under the umbrella of of childcare for the purpose of that graphic. It might be as simple as this: as more and more women work full-time and as the number of single parent households increase, the demand for childcare services has increased faster than the supply has increased in response, pushing the price up. If that's the case, this increase should begin to moderate as you would expect more people to provide childcare services in response, pushing the price down, or at least leveling off prices. But that's just a guess, I'm not claiming any particular insight on this one.

And regarding wages, one factor that has kept wages from rising as much as they should is the increase in healthcare/insurance costs. What ends up happening is that total employee compensation has increased, but instead of the employee seeing the result of that in their paycheck in the form of a raise, that increased compensation comes in the form of employers paying more towards the employees insurance/benefits plans. I imagine that most people would prefer that increased compensation in the form of higher wages, but unfortunately as long as insurance costs keep rising so quickly it stifles wage growth.
Author:  --- [ Sun February 18, 2018 5:38 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Does anyone care about the economy?
I wonder if the trend for the cost of vocational training is similar to that of college education.
Author:  McParadigm [ Sun February 18, 2018 5:44 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Does anyone care about the economy?
My point is more that topics like healthcare are massively complicated, and it’s hard to interpret them via a trend line or demonstrate the impact of a single variable.

For example, expenses have outpaced revenue growth in the average not-for-profit hospital (which make up around 60% of all hospitals) in 5 of the last 9 years. So...some of the years on that chart. A 2015 study found that over 2,000 of the 3,000 hospitals they looked at lost money on patient care that year. If we’re looking at causes, the variables that profitable institutions had in common were:

1. Located in urban areas
2. Did not contribute to medical training (didn’t teach medical students, interns or residents)
3. Were part of a larger health system, with regional dominance in at least one specialty

So it’s hard to point to one cause for any change to the massive, poorly defined subject of “healthcare,” which includes at least three distinct industries, and has seen a massive revolution of technology in the last ten years.

On the subject of that technology, you’re right that technological improvements usually decrease costs in a field. However, in the medical field, technological change is always about creating new arcs of care, and making new things possible. So right now, hospitals are saying “we want better predictive modeling for cancer advancement,” not “Make my blood bank cheaper.” And the most expensive equipment is usually the stuff that will only serve .1% of their patients. I would be baffled if healthcare costs weren’t rising in tandem with the speed of technological change. It would be absolutely nonsensical to me if that didn’t happen.
Author:  4/5 [ Mon February 19, 2018 4:37 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Does anyone care about the economy?
McParadigm wrote:
My point is more that topics like healthcare are massively complicated, and it’s hard to interpret them via a trend line or demonstrate the impact of a single variable.

That's true. Of course I agree that it's massively complicated and that government doesn't explain all of the increase, but when that "single variable" is a government that pays for somewhere between 40-67% of healthcare costs (depending on the source and how broadly or narrowly they define their terms) and has made policies that influence just about every aspect of the industry, I don't think it takes a dramatic leap to suggest that government involvement has restructured incentives in such a way that has directly led to costs rising faster than they would have in the absence of the type of government actions that have been implemented in the U.S. To be clear, I'm not arguing that government policy helps the poor too much or some Randian type of argument; my contention is that the overwhelming majority of our government healthcare intervention has been corporatist in nature, protecting the industries, not the citizens, even when the outward appearance is that it's helping the needy, and it has directly contributed to rapid increase in the cost of healthcare. I am therefore very skeptical that more government regulation is what we need to reverse this trend.
Author:  simple schoolboy [ Tue February 20, 2018 5:47 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Does anyone care about the economy?
McParadigm wrote:
Childcare is not suffering from an over-abundance of government control.

This may be true at a federal level, but definitely not at a state basis.

Please enlighten us...
Author:  BurtReynolds [ Tue February 20, 2018 6:40 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Does anyone care about the economy?
4/5 wrote:
I'm curious what they're putting under the umbrella of of childcare for the purpose of that graphic.

I wonder if they are including the daycare known as modern universities.
Author:  4/5 [ Tue February 20, 2018 4:09 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Does anyone care about the economy?
The state of Florida has a law that says if somebody wants to build a new hospital that they have to obtain a certification of need to prove that the area needs another hospital. That certificate needs to be signed by the established hospitals in the area, making them acknowledge that they are not able to serve the population and that there is a need for a new hospital (read: competition) to enter the market. And then we wonder why the inflation rate for hospital services is astronomical.
Author:  simple schoolboy [ Wed February 21, 2018 5:11 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Does anyone care about the economy?
4/5 wrote:
The state of Florida has a law that says if somebody wants to build a new hospital that they have to obtain a certification of need to prove that the area needs another hospital. That certificate needs to be signed by the established hospitals in the area, making them acknowledge that they are not able to serve the population and that there is a need for a new hospital (read: competition) to enter the market. And then we wonder why the inflation rate for hospital services is astronomical.


In other localities, the same applies to equipment such as MRIs. They need to demonstrate a 'need' before acquiring such equipment.
Author:  simple schoolboy [ Wed February 21, 2018 5:19 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Does anyone care about the economy?
4/5 wrote:
Regarding childcare, I really don't know very much about that, so I'll plead ignorance. I'm curious what they're putting under the umbrella of of childcare for the purpose of that graphic. It might be as simple as this: as more and more women work full-time and as the number of single parent households increase, the demand for childcare services has increased faster than the supply has increased in response, pushing the price up. If that's the case, this increase should begin to moderate as you would expect more people to provide childcare services in response, pushing the price down, or at least leveling off prices. But that's just a guess, I'm not claiming any particular insight on this one.

And regarding wages, one factor that has kept wages from rising as much as they should is the increase in healthcare/insurance costs. What ends up happening is that total employee compensation has increased, but instead of the employee seeing the result of that in their paycheck in the form of a raise, that increased compensation comes in the form of employers paying more towards the employees insurance/benefits plans. I imagine that most people would prefer that increased compensation in the form of higher wages, but unfortunately as long as insurance costs keep rising so quickly it stifles wage growth.



Childcare costs are insane, and largely due to state level licensing and other regulations. In previous eras, 14 year olds (or younger) were considered capable of caring for young children, and now this:

[url]https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/district-among-the-first-in-nation-to-require-child-care-workers-to-get-college-degrees/2017/03/30/d7d59e18-0fe9-11e7-9d5a-a83e627dc120_story.html?utm_term=.15bba43a0670
[/url]
Author:  BurtReynolds [ Wed February 21, 2018 5:35 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Does anyone care about the economy?
It's a brave new world.
Author:  4/5 [ Wed February 21, 2018 4:01 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Does anyone care about the economy?
simple schoolboy wrote:
4/5 wrote:
Regarding childcare, I really don't know very much about that, so I'll plead ignorance. I'm curious what they're putting under the umbrella of of childcare for the purpose of that graphic. It might be as simple as this: as more and more women work full-time and as the number of single parent households increase, the demand for childcare services has increased faster than the supply has increased in response, pushing the price up. If that's the case, this increase should begin to moderate as you would expect more people to provide childcare services in response, pushing the price down, or at least leveling off prices. But that's just a guess, I'm not claiming any particular insight on this one.

And regarding wages, one factor that has kept wages from rising as much as they should is the increase in healthcare/insurance costs. What ends up happening is that total employee compensation has increased, but instead of the employee seeing the result of that in their paycheck in the form of a raise, that increased compensation comes in the form of employers paying more towards the employees insurance/benefits plans. I imagine that most people would prefer that increased compensation in the form of higher wages, but unfortunately as long as insurance costs keep rising so quickly it stifles wage growth.



Childcare costs are insane, and largely due to state level licensing and other regulations. In previous eras, 14 year olds (or younger) were considered capable of caring for young children, and now this:

[url]https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/district-among-the-first-in-nation-to-require-child-care-workers-to-get-college-degrees/2017/03/30/d7d59e18-0fe9-11e7-9d5a-a83e627dc120_story.html?utm_term=.15bba43a0670
[/url]

Yeah, as soon as I saw you say
Quote:
This may be true at a federal level, but definitely not at a state basis.

I thought of licensing requirements, which seem to be getting more and more absurd by the day.
Author:  verb_to_trust [ Thu February 22, 2018 4:21 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Does anyone care about the economy?
I'm not sure I'd rather have what would likely be a marginal at best wage increase if it meant I had to shoulder the burden of health benefits. Of course it would be nice to have decent raises every year and good benefits but that's not going to happen. Realistically, this problem is only going to get worse.
Author:  4/5 [ Fri March 02, 2018 3:59 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Does anyone care about the economy?
Oh, more tariffs. Great.

So a second round of tax increases on Americans since December's tax cut. :shake:
Author:  bune [ Fri March 02, 2018 4:30 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Does anyone care about the economy?


What's that about a swamp?
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