naked capitalism

fresno dan says:

"An upshot of the decades-long war on cancer is the popular belief that healthy people should regularly examine their bodies or undergo screening because early detection saves lives. But in fact, except for a few types of cancer, routine screening has not been proven to reduce the death toll from cancer for people without specific symptoms or risk factors." NYT
The point is raised all the time about how our 2x spending doesn't get us any better health in statistical comparisons to other countries (which is accurate). One could also accurately say that we could reduce current health care spending by 90% and it would have no statistical affect on health care outcomes. What happens when health (i.e. insurance) reform runs into the reality that most health care is, in fact, ineffective.

Minh says:

Paulson reveals US concerns of breakdown in law and order Independent. So the message is if the banks were rescued, the US would fall into anarchy.

I believe you ment "So the message is if the banks weren't rescued, the US would fall into anarchy."

The Kanjorski-Paulson exchange is here between 53:00 and 1:00:11, this should be of interest to ZeroHedge's Tyler Durden

Here's what Paulson testified "Our financial system underpins our modern economy; commerce today requires a string
of payments, whether that string of payments is for delivering a gallon of milk from farm
to consumer or for delivering a new product from idea to production. And that string of
payments depends on trust. Our financial system works because consumers and investors
have confidence in the strength of financial institutions.
Last fall, that confidence was largely gone, especially among those who lend to financial
institutions by purchasing their debt. The crisis of confidence threatened to disrupt our
entire financial system—not just the institutions that had high credit losses on their
mortgage investments, but all financial firms, whether weak or solvent, would have
suffered as widespread fear prevented investors from lending to any financial institution.
As liquidity dried up, the continued collapse of financial institutions that provide credit
and handle payments for our economy would have meant that firms across industries—
not just Wall Street, but every street—would have seen a massive curtailment of their
access to liquidity and thus their ability to purchase supplies and pay employees. Missed
payrolls would quickly have turned into even more millions of layoffs, and this in turn
would have meant an even greater retreat of consumer spending than we have witnessed
since last September. It would have been extremely difficult to break the momentum of
this downward spiral. Fortunately, the most dire of consequences were averted. I am proud that, along with
many others, I brought what experience, talent, and efforts I could to right our nation’s
course.
Now that the financial system has stabilized, many, including this Committee, have
begun to look back to analyze the efficacy of our responses to the crisis as it unfolded.
Learning the lessons of the past is a necessary and important step as we forge our way
forward. The complexity of the crisis and the multifaceted character of the solutions,
coupled with the short time in which decisions had to be made, will all require careful
consideration and analysis to help the current Administration and future generations
understand and confront issues of economic crisis. Our responses were not perfect, and,
even when our actions proved effective, Congress and many in the private sector played a
significant role. But, having had the benefit of some time to reflect, and to consider
views expressed by others, I am confident that our responses were substantially correct
and that they saved this nation from great peril."

This kind of reasoning maybe right, but it also reminds me of the Bush administration total bull.hit that because of what they have done after 9/11, no more terrorists' attack took place. Guess who created the mess in the first place: killed most of the 3000 people in the two towers that day: the 19 Arabs or the demolition experts ?

My question is when the US government, specifically the money-controlled press, Mr Obama and his democratic dominated congress stop beating about the bush and get to the point of prosecuting the real culprits of 9/11, illegal foreign invasions and subsequence economic collapse ?

selise says:

skippy – submitted without comment:

http://www.electricpolitics.com/podcast/2009/07/deadly_dust.html

Anonymous says:

the US is the only advanced economy in which it is considered good medical practice to have everyone at age 50 get a colonoscopy.

You are beginning to see why health care costs are climbing so fast. This country pushes health care like dealers push heroin. We just have far more heath care demand than is necessary and patients rarely question their doctors.

The number of tests patients go through is excessive. I have 4 siblings in health care at a hospital in a poor section of town. Each works in a different department – one is in billing (IT), one is in the legal department, another in a testing lab, and another is a liason with doctors on fund-raising and grant applications. It is a unique opportunity to get to listen to front-line workers in several departments communicate with each other – the only time it probably happens in the actual course of business is when department VP's talk and they are too removed from the day-to-day functions that they are unaware of the cross-departmental ramifications of a decision in another department. And doctors have ZERO interest in understanding concepts such as affordability; it's a combination of arrogance and CYA.

Doc Holiday says:

I'm against kitties being fed tissue paper during the first year or so of their days on Earth, however, as these things grow into cats, a full spectrum of paper can be introduced as a nutritional supplement*, but That's Just My Fuc-ing Two Cents, which I think should be a new webpage (TJMFTC@nakedcapitalism.com)

* This is really not a bad idea during these economic challenging times, but be careful using newspapers with soy ink, because that may impact estrogen levels and increase the need for catnip.

FD: meow

Jason says:

AIG black hole alert!

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aXu5aUboayJY :
- – - – -
European banks including Societe Generale SA and BNP Paribas SA hold almost $200 billion in guarantees sold by New York-based AIG allowing the lenders to reduce the capital required for loss reserves. The firms may keep the contracts to hedge against declining assets rather than canceling them as AIG said it expects the banks to do, according to David Havens, managing director at investment bank Hexagon Securities LLC.

skippy says:

@selice,

Thanks for the link. I'm fairly up to date on the subject, but the more the merrier. Still the hole area was wiped clean and thats the biggest problem to contend with, motive/method be dammed. Plus any samples left are too small a fraction of the total aftermath (present in any litagation).

Skippy…for my part the hole thing does stink to high heaven.

skippy says:

@Minh,

I have personally used just about all the goes boom stuff out there, military to commercial and homemade over a 30 year period, including thermite. Just imagine Skippy and about 10 friends blowing the hell out of the desert at 29 stumps USMC base, with enough gear C4, thermite, detcord etc on many different types of steel from tanks to structural stuff. So I understand small and big explosions and the jobs to be done on rock, steel, body's
etcetera.

The physics alone get the short hairs standing on the back of my neck with out including explosives. So I'm not suggesting any thing other than more evidence must be compiled before hitting the streets, get my drift eh, don't blow your wad on the first day of court.

Skippy…concave top of soap dishes makes a sweet shape charge for C4.