Saturday, September 29, 2012
Friday, September 28, 2012
Fee-for-service leads to ever more service and ever more fees. Interestingly, electronic medical records accelerate this:
Over all, hospitals that received government incentives to adopt electronic records showed a 47 percent rise in Medicare payments at higher levels from 2006 to 2010, the latest year for which data are available, compared with a 32 percent rise in hospitals that have not received any government incentives, according to the analysis by The Times.
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Liquidity creates bubbles. However, judging the Fed by the ideal of NGDP level targeting instead of the ideal of a Taylor rule, I don't wish the Fed had tightened more during the years of the housing bubble.
NGDP was a bit below trend during 2001-2005 and a bit above trend during 2005-2007. (It's been way below trend since 2008. I consider that the Fed's greatest failure since the Great Depression.)
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Monday, September 24, 2012
A tempting idea. Students, look out.