Quite a lot of nothing going on right now, as I wait for the market to sell off so that it can turn around and crush the shorts more.
My feelings of a market correction this year were predicated on bad data breaking into the faces of rosy optimism. But, instead we got nonchalant data; and while not rosy, that’s not necessarily the same as a disappointment.
Look, recessions can’t last forever. We’re already five years out from the 2009 lows. At some point, we will grow again. Maybe that time is now. Or maybe, we’re just far enough out and everyone has enough unrealized gains baked into the pie not to care.
Either way, I have a nice fat little cash position, but my terror level and need to keep 50% long exposure controlled in case of another 10% wash out is ebbing. The summer has past and now the fall is here.
Obamacare is coming into effect, and that will be a little shock, but it’s a shock people are increasingly aware of. And the good men and women of American industry are doing their best to ensure the fallout of this lands squarely onto the shoulders of the American jackass.
My guess is that through October, the market will get a little messy as healthcare premiums get released and sticker shock frightens the market. Then, we rally into Christmas, because any company with assets over $ fifty million self-funds anyway.
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i’m sooo glad your back blogging again
I think you are missing what the Affordable Health Care Act will be doing, and how little it will actually affect people’s wallets.
I think you don’t work in healthcare
I’m glad we are all thinking. But, yes, you are right, I do not work in healthcare. However, I have read the act in its entirety. Yeah, I’m kind of a political nerd.
Average renewals are 6% on the low end this year. The industry is seeing everything from 30% to 40%, to as high as over 100% cost increase, on a case by case basis.
Where do you think that load is going to end up?
Benefit levels can only be cut so much. Public sector has lots of cuts they can still make, but private sector employees are already pushing $1,000 deductibles. So you implement HDHP but that still leaves you looking at a rate hike that will probably be passed along to employees.
I think you do not think. Brain infections are very rare except when politics is the issue. The normal rational human can and will do and think crazy shit like calling a government take over of healthcare the “affordable care act”. Ever been to the DMV? How about a court house? You can not be this irrational. Government has never done anything affordable. Wake up.
Dude, you need wake up. Insurance companies have hijacked healthcare, if anything this act will help stop the predatory pracitices of that industry. Lets think logicaly, an insurance company makes money by NOT paying out, so they will do everything in their power to not pay for an operation or what have you. At least with the Affordable Healthcare Act we actually have something that works for the people and not against it.
“Lets think logicaly, an insurance company makes money by NOT paying out so they will do everything in their power to not pay for an operation or what have you”
That’s not at all how an insurance company makes money nowadays. Those practices haven’t existed for 30 years or more.
Modern insurance is on an administrative basis. Claims are carefully detailed in reports that any insurance member can pull, either by being a client or through an FOIA request.
There are multiple settlement options available ranging from rate adjustments to payouts, depending on whether the covered corporation is a member of an insurance pool, experience rated, self-funded, etc….
In the event that extra money is left over at the end of the year, there is usually a balancing process that gets the surplus back to the company. Mind you this doesn’t always happen perfectly, and sometimes insurance carriers require…reminders. I wouldn’t say I “trust” them.
But the wild west practices you’re describing were largely rooted out by company executives who figured out they were being screwed years ago.
Health insurance is increasingly expensive because healthcare is increasingly expensive; and expansive, as available medical procedures that fall under insurance coverage continue to grow in number exponentially every year. That is the biggest driver of healthcare costs, not insurance malpractice.
These are all very unfortunate truths that will break this healthcare bills into a thousand pieces, and probably further erode to US budget into nothingness.