The recovery needs small biz, but small biz needs help
Posted on September 22, 2009 at 8:01 amForbes publisher Rich Karlgaard reminds us that small companies are the backbone of a normal economic recovery. But he adds that the Obama administration must pretty much throw overboard its economic platform for that to happen this time.
We now have reached the inflection point — e.g., the recession is ending, but the recovery is embryonic — where small businesses historically jump to the lead and pull the American economy along. It is precisely now when small businesses ought to be coming out of hibernation, leasing or buying cheap commercial property, and gearing up for growth.
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When the bi-coastal Obama administration thinks of small business, it undoubtedly dreams of promising start-ups churning out solar panels or turbine blades for windmills. Well, that’s fine, but America will never get back to 5% unemployment and defuse the commercial property bomb with windmills.
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The path from health reform to behavior reform
Posted on September 11, 2009 at 7:27 amRobert Hendrick at change:healthcare some of the health care reform points brought up last night by President Obama are an assbackward way of raising prices for consumers. But they’ll work, he adds, and thus help create a more cost-conscious health care system.
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Bernanke news lifts banks
Posted on August 25, 2009 at 9:58 am
Local banks Pinnacle and Tennessee Commerce are up 3 percent this morning on President Obama’s announcement that he will nominate Ben Bernanke to serve another term as chairman of the Federal Reserve. Other banks with a big Middle Tennessee presence also are solidly in the green.
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HealthSpring may struggle with the rest
Posted on July 8, 2009 at 7:53 amSeekingAlpha blogger thinks shares of health insurers will likely fall today due to lingering uncertainty over President Obama’s health reform bill which yesterday bounced back and forth between requiring and not requiring a public plan.
Health insurers’ stock prices are likely to fall Wednesday. Most of them rose smartly Tuesday on news that President Obama would accept a health bill without a public option health plan.
But not only did the left get to Obama and force him to reassert his demands for a public option health plan, or Government HMO, Senate Majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV) told Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) that the health bill must include the Government HMO.
Both Obama and his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, look silly and weak. They’ve been rolled by their hard left base once again. And it might and should kill their health insurance reform bill, which really isn’t a reform bill but an inflationary health care spending bill that would cost trillions over the next 5, 10 and 20 years.
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Chrysler’s Chapter 11 official
Posted on April 30, 2009 at 11:59 am
The Obama administration’s auto task force this morning said it will orchestrate a ’surgical’ bankruptcy for the No. 3 U.S. auto maker that includes an alliance with Fiat.
The agreement with Fiat will allow the Italian company to take a 20% stake in Chrysler that will grow as Fiat meets certain milestones, such as building new models in Chrysler plants. In addition to the $3.5 billion in financing to keep Chrysler operating while in bankruptcy, the government will also provide up to $4.7 billion for the new Chrysler once it emerges.
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Thanks for the support, but not so loud, Rick
Posted on April 2, 2009 at 10:14 amFormer Columbia/HCA CEO Rick Scott has come back into the public eye as a vocal critic of President Obama’s as-yet undefined healthcare reforms.
So far, he has spent millions sending camera crews to countries with socialized medicine to record the pitfalls, buying up television ad time a la T. Boone Pickens, and generally agitating about the nebulous reforms allegedly on the way.
Liberals however, seem unperturbed:
Liberal groups planning to defend the administration’s health care plan, whatever form it takes, are seizing on Mr. Scott’s background through Web videos, fact sheets, blog postings and unflattering additions to his Wikipedia entry, which until recently did not mention his ouster from Columbia.
“He’s a great symbol from our point of view,” said Richard J. Kirsch, the national campaign manager for Health Care for America Now. “We cannot have a better first person to attack health care reform than someone who ran a company that ripped off the government of hundreds of millions of dollars.”
Scott, for those of you who don’t remember, was ousted from Columbia/HCA back in the late 1990s following a $1.7 billion misunderstanding with the government.
What are profit-to-earnings ratios?
Posted on March 3, 2009 at 7:34 pmI don’t know. You’ll have to ask the President.
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Feeling nervous about the economy?
Posted on December 11, 2008 at 1:04 pmDon’t talk to the Obama people if you want reassurance:
It’s quite unsettling to talk to members of Barack Obama’s transition teams these days, especially those who are helping with the economics portfolio. Without going into details, the sense I get from them is that they are very worried that the economy will get a lot worse before it gets better. Not just worse… a lot worse. As in — double digit unemployment without the wiggle factors. Huge declines in aggregate demand. Significant, persistent deficits. That’s one reason why the Obama administration seems to be open to listening to every economist with an idea and is stocking the staff with the leading lights of the field.
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