The Truth About Anti-Free Trade Arguments

Most reports in the media mainly give the anti-free trade point of view. That we ought to protect American industry. That’s the entire argument. Emphasis is also given to similar views about buying American products.

In a global economy we are well aware that folks overseas will soon hear of that stand, just as readily as we would hear foreigners say they refuse to buy American products in favor of their own.

Facts refute the anti-free trade position. Global trade adds an average of about $1 trillion a year to America’s domestic income. Further drops in global restrictions would add about another $500 billion or more to this total in our favor.

The problem anti-free traders see arises when specific industries get hurt and their employees, particularly their unions, get the media ear, Yes, some suffer from foreign competition. But others prosper. And on balance, all Americans are much better off.

The key to solving any job disruptions, to remedy the problems, is to retrain workers who lose jobs, or substitute new production for the obsolete in industry.

Problems of Companies Announcing Layoffs in Advance

Tipping off creditors and employees well in advance of premature problems that require plant closings, can cause corporate disaster.

Yet, left-thinking politicians and their union backers have had legislation created where employers of a certain size and type must notify employees well in advance of possible plant close-downs.

I can see why employees would like to know in advance, if they were to be trained for other jobs. But such action may unduly scare employees in the event the plants are not eventually closed.

Many times, financial conditions are dire, and finances cannot be arranged properly until the last minute. Once a notification has been made, you may have already lost employees with which you would have resuscitated the operation.

And then you have the question of credit. Once the mandatory plant closing announcement is made, the company’s credit may be permanently damaged. Stockholder values, including pension holders and other such institutions may be adversely effected.

As in most of such labor/corporate events, the general media provides a one-sided slant.

How Come the Government Can Easily Get Out of Some Businesses?

The government which wants to get into the most complicated of all businesses, health insurance, often stumbles in the least complicated. And gets out. While the public profits.

That should tells us something about socialistic efficiency.

They, for example, are able to sell airports to private operators. Such as those in New Orleans, Houston and the Midway Airport in Chicago. I understand there are negotiations for airport sales in Dallas-Fort Worth, and Savannah Ga.

Then you have toll roads which can make profits under private ownership, with all the required maintenance. Yet private owners pay taxes on them, at the same time.

So, why do government-controlled entities running airports and toll roads and bridges and what not, which pay no taxes, constantly eat up funds?

And require more money all the time from taxpayers?

What Are We to Do About The Shortage Of Doctors?

Unsaid with all the hullabaloo about government health insurance is the fact we have a shortage of doctors, particularly primary care doctors. This is getting worse every year, What is more, this occurs most rapidly where the government restricts their income and adds to their workload.

While the administration's health insurance planning sees to it that doctors will still be subject to any alleged tort malfeasance by lawyers.

The state of Massachusetts covers 97% of its residents with enforced coverage, but it just does not have enough doctors to accommodate the added insured that had been put into the system. The average wait time to see a primary care MD is up to a range of from 36 to 50 days. Yet, the state happens to have more of these doctors than others.

Furthermore, this shortage is expected to get worse through out the country, as doctor income is pressured downward, at the same time workloads go up. Doctors start their careers in heavy debt and it is becoming more and more impossible for them to recoup that outlay with present political thinking in this country.

Universal health care planning loses lots of its common sense when it comes to doctor understanding. Without enough competent doctors, the best planning will be useless.

The Difference: Training a Doctor Vs Training a Lawyer

It takes at least 8 years and up to $250,000 in cash and/or loans to send a scholar to college to become a doctor. That scholar has to take up science, math, biology and other tough courses, in lab settings. And he or she has to spend long hours of study to pass them. And then take extremely tough licensing exams.

Since it is so tough, many who flunk out, or who decide they are not smart enough, try to join other professions or job categories with college degrees to boot. Such as investment advisers, or lawyers, and even community organizers.

You spend less time in school and work a tiny fraction as hard. In fact, up to the end of the Second World War you could take the Bar Exam without going to college. (Abe Lincoln never went to college.)

There are college graduates, and as they say, there are “college graduates.”

Teaching Ethics in Business Schools

Folks in academia who ought to know better are suggesting that, perhaps, our current business near-depression would have been averted if MBA courses had done a better job teaching ethics courses.

To begin with, the financial problems experienced by Wall Street and business have little to do with business ethics. That is an eternal figment of the Academic Left’s imagination. It provides more fodder for ethical discussions in politics and government circles and the media.

That isn’t to say, there is no room for teaching ethics in business and finance, along with the responsibilities of executive management and boards of directors. But leave it to the Academic Left to repeat its war on capitalistic culture at the slight note of a recession.

Ethics is a subject to be considered in all walks of life at all times. It cannot be taught exclusively in business schools as the end-all to nirvana. Just as it isn’t the solution to what ails the apparent lack of ethics in college graduates these days.

Looking for Venture Capital?

If you are seeking venture capital for your business, use reasonable numbers in your proposal. At the same time, you must show that the business you are proposing is scalable. That is, it can become big enough to attract speculative funds.

Venture capitalists make money by eventually selling their equity interest to the public on a large scale. They think in terms of hundreds of millions. The business therefore has to grow fast. In a few years.

There has to be what venture capitalists call an ”exit strategy.” That eventual public underwriting or IPO. The faster the growth the better.

But, at the same time, they would like to see their investment risk at the outset be at a minimum.

In the event you get turned down, as you will often be, keep coming back with follow-ups. Few seekers of venture capital are successful with their early attempts. You must be consistent and persistent, and be fortunate to get attention.

I have found that venture capitalists are not all brighter than most in the financial community. Those who have made fortunes at what they do, mostly stumbled upon the big winners. They have been taking unmerited bows the way lottery winners do when they picked winners.

So stick to these basics and keep trying. Good luck counts.

Do You Really Need to Go to College to Make Money?

If you are going to college just to make money, think again.

Contrary to popular opinion, you can work at many jobs without a college degree. Should you need the degree for window dressing, perhaps for social reasons, you can get a degree more cheaply from schools via the internet, part time, while you are growing your career at a job.

Make up a list of job categories or small businesses you would like to be in. You will see how just a few take college as a necessity. Some might require a trade school for a short time.

When academics tell you that college grads earn more, their numbers are often misleading. The comparisons are made with those who labor at close to minimum wage, not at skilled non-college jobs.

And we see shortages of skilled labor all around us, but plenty of unemployed college grads.

Much of this going-to-college-marketing fluff is not only costing our economy enormously, it is costing most of us individually.

The Odds Of Franchise Ownership Failure

A quick test for those thinking of buying a franchise.

Do you know the two major reasons for buying a franchise? Or what should be the reasons?

One is name recognition and the other; training that they are to give you.

How many franchisers give you true name recognition and training? You better get them because franchises are not cheap. You pay up front and the royalties thereafter will be a big cut of your bottom line. In fact, those royalties may equal half your bottom line, if you ever manage to get any.

In truth, I hardly ever recommend the purchase of a franchise because franchisees never really get true name recognition and the required training from the average franchiser.

Only a handful of franchises are worth buying. I have gone into this in my business publications.

Small Loan Do-Gooders

Payday loan outfits are under attack from do-gooders in government. Usually the fee is about $15 for a $100 two week loan. That quickly works out to 15% interest. That's o.k. as a temporary loan, if it is not repeated 26 times a year, where the rate would be outlandish. So, there is room in the economy for such emergency service.

Left-leaning government observers do not like the concept because they think folks with poor credit should get the same terms as those with good credit. After all, fair is fair.

But folks with bad credit have always needed emergency funds. That has been true going back for many years, in good and bad times. We know why so many in the past went to the extent of patronizing mobsters for funds. Paying enormous interest charges, plus limbs and lives in the event of non-payment.

So when legitimate services charge what do-gooders say is too much, an attempt is made to stop the vile business. And perhaps go back to the good old days.

Why Can’t Government-Sponsored Health Insurance Learn From Experience?

The problem with this Administration’s proposals for universal health care is that it completely overlooks past experience of others:

One: The bad service the Canadians and Europeans get in terms of care and rationing.

Two: The burgeoning costs of Medicaid and Medicare.

Three: The attendant fraud in Medicaid and Medicare that now exists and is not being properly handled by government.

Four: The current shortage of doctors and providers WITHOUT adding patients.

Five: The experience of the few states that have what the Administration wants for fifty states on “guaranteed issue” and “community rating“ coverage.

Six: The need to have tort reform when compensating patients for medical malpractice, in order to reduce the costs of medical testing.

The government can do something about all those health insurance steps that would be meaningful.

Why Do Government Politicos Bother to Forecast?

Politicians who are selling voters something are always cocksure about where their policies are headed. Whether it is for creating services for the poor, the economy, whether it is for new jobs, or health. They estimate how much it will cost, well into the future.

Why is it that it is so difficult for astute business people to estimate one year ahead where their own business may be headed?

And it is far easier to run even the largest corporation than the massive U.S. government. Remember that those in government doing the estimates are seldom much brighter than those in industry. When they are, they gravitate into private industry.

Yet, the media continue to report political economic forecasts with just minimal evaluation and investigation to suit media bias or slant.

Why Government Fingers in Business Generally are a Disaster

Andrew S.Grove, the former CEO of Intel, recently made some points in the Wall Street Journal, statements that should be mulled over. They have a somewhat different slant than the public may have of business success.

What would have happened to the PC industry if IBM were taken over by Uncle Sam prior to the PC revolution, as the American auto industry is being revamped today?

The government wants GM and Chrysler to remain as they have been all along, making its products vertically. That is, a company makes its final auto in all its stages, to the final retail consumer sale.

The computer industry changed with the advent of the PC. It became horizontal, with some producers manufacturing hardware, and others adding their specialties that made the final product.

Had the government interfered back in the 1980’s, the PC revolution probably would not have occurred. The government hacks then might have insisted that PCs be made entirely by the same outfit, particularly one that may have been struggling (and many did).

Socialized Medicine Will Mean Exactly That––Socialized Medicine

The public does not truly understand what happens when the government is in charge of spending or granting funds for health. It is never even-handed. It cannot be, when there are budgets and limited funds to consider.

We already have that situation to a degree in the United States today, when more research is done on breast cancer than on prostate cancer because of inordinate political pressures. Aids research has always gotten more funds per normal need than does breast cancer. I wonder how many women realize that?

In Europe, rationing of drugs and treatment is the result of limited funds. Medical research in the U.S. will eventually be curtailed as well, when funds are strained under proposed legislation.

Need proof in the U.S.? Look at the states where a form of health care experimentation already is underway.

Congress and Administration Numbers and Your Future "Investment” Costs

A suggestion whenever you get an estimate of how much it will cost to have a new government-sponsored program. Double the cost for the first three years and triple it for the first five years.

Note: This applies only when the number is reputable, such as that given by the Congressional Budget Office or CBO. If estimates come from the imagination of a government official staff, you know they are pure fantasy.

And forget the use of the term “investment” when politicians are spending your money for pure, useless political giveaways.

Medicare and Medicaid Fraud Are a Growth Industry

Medicare fraud is estimated to be about $60 billion each year.

This is because of widespread criminal operations that go pretty much unchecked due to poor governmental oversight on varying levels. It consists of such ploys as using dead doctor reports, fake patients and non-existent treatments.

The FBI says Medicaid fraud is a $10 billion annual industry. Practices involve billing for nonexistent or unnecessary services, kickbacks and inflated costs.

With all this chicanery, how is the government going to undertake a massive health insurance plan that will entail one sixth of our entire economy? The politicians tell you only how this fraud-infested system is going to save money.

Health Insurance Freebies for Illegals

It is estimated that about twelve million illegal immigrants may qualify for free health care, for themselves and for relatives, under the Administration’s current universal health care planning, according to recent statements by some Democrat politicos and certain immigrant groups. When the subject is framed in this manner, current discussions take on a different slant.

It is true, also that undocumented immigrants still get medical care when they ask for it at medical facilities.

Also fact is that only about eight million Americans cannot afford health insurance premiums.

I would think it would be far cheaper to give the latter group that health coverage free of charge, without the mess of revamping the entire system, as is being proposed by Big Government enthusiasts.

The Unspoken Cost in Health Insurance

The unspoken cost in the health insurance discussion is a subject the present Administration intentionally overlooks because about 90% of the political contributions the national political party behind it gets, comes from lawyers.

I am talking about the cost of malpractice insurance and the need for tort reform to reduce that cost.

In the proposed health Insurance House legislation which is very heavily weighted towards reducing doctor’s income, as a means of saving money, the MDs can still be sued for malpractice. It is almost as if the government is waging war on the main players in the health care picture.

Without health care providers, there is no health care. Forcing providers to retire or not to enter practice is ridiculous. On the other hand, doctor and provider errors can and should still be taken in account.

Compensation can be handled with tort reform, including expert independent arbitration facilities.

Finding a Doctor Under Government Health Insurance

Finding a doctor after you have Government health insurance is not as easy as passing a law offering health insurance to everyone. You have to pay them a decent wage for the skills they have. You cannot skimp with MDs.

About 1,500,000 Canadians don’t have or cannot easily find a primary care physician. Because of a shortage in medical staff in Norwood, Ontario, in one instance, a TV video showed a town clerk pulling names of lucky winners to see a doctor in a lottery. Losers had to wait .

That’s only one reason many sick Canadians come to America for surgery. Canadian officials call much of what we may consider essential surgery as “elective.”

Before we change our system to emulate Canada’s or any other universal health program, it would be a good idea to closely study their’s.

The Biggest Ponzi Scheme of All is Sponsored by the U.S.Government

The Medicare and Social Security programs are estimated to be short by close to 110 trillion dollars. That makes them completely bankrupt.

Ask the average American, for example, how Social Security works and he or she will tell you it’s an insurance program. It’s not. There is no trust fund. There are no reserves, although you often hear politicians mention such terms. Benefits are paid today to retirees from earnings of those still working,

So what makes this different from any other Ponzi scheme? Paying off some folks today with money taken from others, to whom you promise benefits tomorrow, IF you have the money?

The funds you take are never really invested. They are used to pay off obligations of today.

Government, in short. has already denuded what is supposed to be the Medicare Trust Fund—there’s nothing left. Social Security will run out of money in a couple of decades when there are not enough taxable workers to pay off all retirees.

I repeat: What makes this different from any other Ponzi schemes?

Government Health Coverage Can Cost Human Lives

About 14% of all patients in Great Britain must wait more than one year to receive treatment after they have been referred to a specialist by a general practitioner. As much as 50% of patients getting government care in Britain must wait between 18 to 52 weeks for treatment. On average, over three-quarters of Canadians must wait about three months for an MRI under government-operated health care.

I won’t mention dental care. You can imagine how their governments put teeth at the bottom of the List when they cut costs.

More than 75% of British patients in their National Healthcare Service waited four or more weeks for admittance into a hospital (as reported in May, 2009)

That is why the average survival rate for all types of cancer for patients in the United States is 60%. Canada’s survival rate is lower at 55%; Europe’s is much lower at 48%. Or that about 80% survive the prostate cancer diagnosis in the USA , as compared to about 43% in Great Britain, under their nationalized service.

Something the proponents of government health insurance in this country somehow never mention.

Americans, for the most part, are not familiar with this. The media tend to overlook such important facts. The media continue to spout propaganda without too much further analysis.

Anti-Trust Versus Business in a Severe Recession

It takes a left-leaning, anti-business Administration to take a stand against what it perceives to be a monopoly at a time when business is in the doldrums

Especially when there is a big question whether a monopoly actually exists.

The Administration is attempting to enforce the century-old Sherman Anti-Trust Act used originally to get after the John D. Rockefeller Trust oil complex. There is always the question whether size by itself is monopolistic.

Today, some of the telecom giants are very competitive but this does not stop the government from its view that they're too big. This. despite the fact there is little evidence the consumer is getting the short end of the telecom stick. In fact, it could well be that breaking up the telecoms will result in higher prices and less choice for the consumer.

That generally happens when socialism rules the day, The evidence is there in other socialistic societies and Europe, where the anti-monopolists are currently on the rampage. They appear to be giving their bureaucratic colleagues in the USA their ideas.

Unfortunately, the anti-trusters are choosing to take a hammer to big business, when big business is supposed to be creating jobs.

Government Health Insurance and Law Suits

The political bias in health insurance is evident for all those who want to see it.

One: Adding the number the patients but not adding more doctors. In fact, developing disincentives for doctors to practice family medicine.

Two: Driving out of business over 1500 competing private insurance companies with the one public health insurer that will have no competition.

Three: Installing rationing of benefits under the guise of “suggesting” treatments that doctors ought to give. All this to reduce costs, as has been standard procedure in other counties offering such health care.

What could save ENORMOUS costs but is never mentioned is tort reform. Even though the government will tell the doctor how to practice, he or she could still be sued for malpractice. All that would be needed is a cap on lawsuits, something the lawyers are successfully lobbying against.

Government Influence of Business

It has been pointed out how dangerous it is when government runs business. It always happens under socialism, when it’s practiced, whether in Nazi Germany, Mussolini’s Italy, Soviet Russia, present-day Europe, Latin America, etc. And right now, America, with its toe in the system.

The government is in the auto industry and you see its ramifications. General Motors decided to build s new compact car. And needed to choose a site The decision the government made was based on the politics of “community impact” and “carbon footprint” in Michigan. Other GM sites were available in Tennessee and Wisconsin, but Michigan had its “party” credentials and thus influence. The other two states did not.

Facts Versus Beliefs as a Political Religion

The psychology of facts, versus ingrained beliefs, is part of the political picture, and has evolved into a religion-like discussion. It so often affects economics and the business picture.

Conservatives, for example, claim their economic stance is based on the written constitution, and on historic economic fact. Those events that actually happened in this country and around the world, and say they are reacting to those events.

Liberals, on the other hand, tend to react on the basis of their beliefs, the way life and things ought to be. If the constitution does not remedy what they believe is wrong today, they would simply adjust the meaning of the constitution. And if the majority of voters don’t want that change, they would find a like-minded judge to rule for the change.

Unfortunately, many dictatorships have started with precisely this easy method of adapting government constitutions or basic rulings to what well-meaning folks think ought to be.

Which Major Costs Are Rising Faster Than Inflation?

Many costs today are rising faster than inflation. The one I can think of, right off the bat, would be that of attending sporting events. But that can be easily remedied. Don’t attend.

The second is going to college. Because the government subsidizes this effort with tax breaks, schools are not under too much pressure to reduce their retail charges. They do give scholarships, etc., but their expenses tend to rise far too much for what they get from net tuition.

It is said that health insurance costs are rising as much as three times as much as inflation. But this is not the case. You compare apples to grapefruits. You cannot compare costs when new advances in medicine defy any true comparison of medical procedure and achievement. So, much of the health care inflation talk is bogus.

Another Way to Make Health Care Cheaper

I have previously noted a way to make health care cheaper. Without ruining the entire system with a socialized version.

Another way to cut costs sharply would be to reduce the costs in providing medical care. Physicians and hospitals will tell you this could be done if they would be able to curtail defensive practices.

The accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers says that about 10% of medical cost owes to medical malpractice lawsuits. About 2% is caused by direct lawsuit costs.

Add to that about 5% to 9% , due to expenses because MDs have to practice defensive medicine. That is, they add tests in case a plaintiff asks them in court: Why didn’t you do this…??

The Clunker Government Effort

Here is what they say is a teaching moment. It has to do with this Administration’s effort to give new car buyers a $4500 cash allowance for buying a certain type of new car.

You decide whether the whole idea is good to begin with:

One: The government has to mix an economic stimulus concept with an environmental objective so that it could confuse the public.

Two: The government, as is usually the case, has no concrete administrative plan for carrying out the program to reimburse dealers.

Three: Dealers are not sure they will sign contracts with customers that will be approved by Congress if there is not enough funding for all business they do.

Four: Cars sold in this manner will mean that no cars will probably be sold normally for a couple of years after this program terminates. The public’s appetite will be stimulated for yet another similar deal. So folks will hold off from future buying.

Five: Because of the way these clunkers are being disposed, the used car and parts markets will be adversely affected.

Six: If money of this kind is used for clunker cars, what about clunker washing machines, or lawn mowers, or ….??

You make up your mind how well this stimulus money is being spent. Or wasted.

Who truly is worried about the deficit??

One Way to Make Health Care Cheaper and Effective

There are many ways to make health care cheaper and effective. Without ruining the entire system with a national, socialized version. This Administration is intent on ramming through its idea quickly so that few Americans will discover the potential problems.

I will touch on them from time to time.

One alternative way that makes sense in making health care cheaper, would be for doctors and hospitals to set their bills at the lowest rates now being charged to insurance companies. That discount rate would be the one given to the non-insured. That usually is a fraction of what the insured pay.

A Public Health Insurance Facility for Competition??

The Administration tells us we need a public health insurance plan to help compete with private health insurance. This is yet another instance where politicians talk down to voters, who they figure were dumb enough to vote for them, so they will fall for this line as well.

There already are about 1500 private health insurance plans in this country. They all compete with each other. The ONLY plan that would have NO competition would be the public plan. With no capital or working cash outlay, you, the taxpayer, will provide funds to undercut those 1500 competitors.

If you now have private health insurance, it will be priced out of the market entirely. However, you will eventually pay more or have your benefits reduced. Or rationed, as the only attempt at cost-cutting.

This was done in England, Canada and other foreign health insurance programs, as their experience shows.

Cap and Trade, Pollution and Politics

Cap and Trade is meant to be a complex subject. That way, the public will let politicians who love to dispense pork and tax their way to power, to operate at will.

The idea is to cut down on carbon emission pollution,the type you get from using fossil fuels. So the politicos in charge get to designate which industries get quotas for emissions with which they can befoul the air. If the figure you are stuck with is too high for officialdom, you can buy a credit from someone who is fortunate to have a credit, so you can conform with the quota you got from the government.

Then there are fees involved and penalties. That’s where the hidden taxation arises, and accumulates as one giant tax gimmick that will hit industry and the consumer, both directly and indirectly

It is a taxpayer and consumer nightmare. And the answer to any entrenched statist politician's dream.

The Chinese and India want nothing to do with it because it destroys economies. New Zealand tried it for a couple of years and just quit. The Australians put it on hold after some sober thought. But the current American administration seems to be gungho about bullying us into accepting the fiasco, supposedly for its ambitious and controversial global warming theories.