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What's on your mind?
It's been a pretty slow week for news, so it might be a good time to turn the floor over to you. Do you have any burning questions you'd like to get to the bottom of? Any topics on which you'd like to see more coverage? Anything you'd like to share? Last time I did this, there were some excellent comments that turned into future blog posts. Your feedback is welcome and encouraged in the comments section.
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Why aren't houses affordable? I heard on the radio coming in that ~80% of houses have negative equity. ~80%!!!! So, why aren't prices coming down to the levels of wages?
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aaXO2EVjAjb4
Scott, I'd like to see more discussion on the tax on medical device manufacturers and diagnostics. At a time when we are looking to increase efficiencies and cut costs, the $4 billion tax on medical devices (everything from stethoscopes to syringes, stents to pacemakers) will affect the costs of medical equipment across the board. To put the $4 billion annual tax into perspective, it exceeds the $3.7 billion in venture capital the industry received in 2007. The medical technology industry pays about 30 percent more than the average U.S. job.
One reason why it's hard to see the direct cost of this tax is because it is layered on top of billions of dollars in direct and indirect cuts on the industry that were already in the Senate Finance Committee legislation.
The indirect cuts come in large part because medical technology manufacturers are not paid directly by the government but by health care providers such as hospitals and home health care agencies.
I'd like to see an economic discussion of the impacts and possible benefits of health care reform on small businesses who are having trouble paying for health insurance for their employees.
It would be interesting to know if any businesses could add staff if there were a public option or to hear if people left their own businesses to go back to big-box employers because of health care costs.
A story regarding 3 finger gloves for texting was aired yesterday or today. The reporter made the gloves sound like a new invention. As a knitter, patterns for these gloves have been available since WW1 that I know of and maybe as far back as the Civil War. Hunters and Military used the gloves in order to be able to shoot. The best version was a mitten whose top half folded over showing either all fingers or leaving just the thumb and index finger bare with glove fingers covering the last 3 fingers. This is hard to describe, but there are patterns with pictures online. As the saying goes, everything old is new again.
Sorry, I've already had a turn but I really wonder if we're not pulling out of Iraq and Afghanistan because there's no jobs for the soldiers once they come home.
I'd like to see more discussion of an economic issue that seems to dwarf all others: the decreasing availability of commodities. The stunning economic growth of the past two centuries was fed by readily available oil, coal, metal, silicon, etc. Now we're at or near peak oil, peak gold, peak copper, and so on. Asian countries have started banning the export of sand because they're running out.
What will happen to agriculture, or to the consumer-driven economy when oil is $400 per barrel; or when a basic material like cement costs ten times more? How are governments and organisations preparing? China is hording gold and other raw materials. Germany is going solar. The transition town movement is working to prepare local communities. How should investors react? Where are the risks and opportunities?
Cash for Clunkers was said to have helped the vehicle manufacturers/dealers and to have harmed the used car market. If the process was 'marketable clunker to new car dealer to used car dealer' instead of 'marketable clunker to new car dealer to wrecker' would that have cost the government much more to administer?
I used to finance my business by transferring credit card balances to one promotional rate to another, before the promotion was up. This year, I could still do that, but with a 3% transfer fee. Next year, it's not looking so good. I used to keep a stack of offers on hand and throw them out if they expired. As I cleaned out the folder today, there was nothing left. I notice some of my customers are mailing me checks on ordering rather than using credit cards. They say they can't use their cards anymore, they've got to get them paid off. Well yeah, how does one pay off a credit card with 20% (or higher!) interest rate? If we ever get through this, how do we punish the banks for the way they've treated their customers who played by the rules? They should not get away with this!
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