Tag Archives: Perverse Incentives

A Shuffle of Aluminum, but to Banks, Pure Gold

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“The story of how this works begins in 27 industrial warehouses in the Detroit area where a Goldman subsidiary stores customers’ aluminum. Each day, a fleet of trucks shuffles 1,500-pound bars of the metal among the warehouses. Two or three times a day, sometimes more, the drivers make the same circuits. They load in one warehouse. They unload in another. And then they do it again.  This industrial dance has been choreographed by Goldman to exploit pricing regulations set up by an overseas commodities exchange. The back-and-forth lengthens the storage time. And that adds many millions a year to the coffers of Goldman.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/21/business/a-shuffle-of-aluminum-but-to-banks-pure-gold.html?emc=eta1&_r=1&&pagewanted=all

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A CEO’s-Eye View of ObamaCare

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“The ACA could actually cause the number of our covered employees to decrease, particularly in the first year. The penalty for declining coverage will be low compared with the cost of coverage; and employees will know that if they happen to get sick, they can get insurance after that. So the economically rational decision for young people, like our crew employees, is to pay the penalty and forego the insurance. Despite what the government may believe, our employees are smart enough to figure this out. For insurers, it’s simple math: Premiums collected must exceed claims paid. If too few young healthy people enroll, insurers will raise premiums on those who do.”

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323309404578613653344566068.html

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Safety Statistics Are Not to Be Ignored, Especially Not in Oil Transport

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“An oil spill is 34 times more likely with a railway accident compared to just the aging pipeline infrastructure. So why then are we relying more and more on rail transports? The answer is simple: there is simply too much uninformed opposition to building new pipelines and replace the aging infrastructure criss-crossing North America. But the fact of the matter is this: for every day that we delay implementing a ‘Casey Sensible Solution,’ we are in fact putting rural communities such as Lac Mégantic at risk from either rail disasters or spills from pipelines that have been around since the Eisenhower administration.”

http://www.caseyresearch.com/cdd/safety-statistics-are-not-to-be-ignored-especially-not-in-oil-transport

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“You’re Fired. Want to Work Part-Time?”

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“The U.S. Chamber of Commerce summarizes what the situation is. ‘Small businesses expect the requirement to negatively impact their employees. Twenty-seven percent say they will cut hours to reduce full time employees, 24 percent will reduce hiring, and 23 percent plan to replace full time employees with part-time workers to avoid triggering the mandate.’ Thanks, Nancy. Thanks Barack. You have just created the new normal for low-paid workers: lower pay!  This is why the government decided to delay implementation of small business rules until 2015. You see, there are Congressional elections in November of 2014.”

http://teapartyeconomist.com/2013/07/19/youre-fired-want-to-work-part-time/

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101 Million Americans Received Food Aid Last Year

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“Nearly one-third of Americans received government-funded food aid in 2012, according to a new report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). There are roughly a dozen federal food assistance programs operating today. The USDA reports that 59 percent of households that participated in one of the four largest food assistance programs—food stamps, school breakfasts, school lunches, and WIC—end up receiving benefits from ‘two or more programs.’ This indicates significant duplication, ‘providing participants total benefits in excess of 100 percent of daily nutritional needs.'”

http://blog.heritage.org/2013/07/18/101-million-americans-received-food-aid-last-year/

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Hey, kids – let’s talk about heroin!

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couch1

“In Switzerland, they took a different approach — give it away for free. Yes, they gave away free, controlled, safe doses of heroin to addicts in a clean clinic with doctors and social workers. They did a study in conjunction with this program and found a 94% reduction in criminal activity by those in the program; addicts were living longer; once stabilized they had an easier time kicking the drug; and… they made it unprofitable to be a criminal heroin dealer, so fewer young people were starting! Changing our drug laws will save lives.”

http://www.drugwarrant.com/2013/07/heroin/

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Medical research on animals often biased, scientists warn

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“Researchers examined 160 previously published meta-analyses of 1,411 animal studies on potential treatments for multiple sclerosis, stroke, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and spinal cord injury, all done on more than 4,000 animals. Just eight showed evidence of strong, statistically significant associations using evidence from more than 500 animals. Only two studies seemed to lead to ‘convincing’ data in randomized controlled trials in humans, it said. The rest showed a range of problems, from poor study design, to small size, to an overarching tendency toward publishing only studies in which positive effects could be reported.”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/07/16/medical-research-on-animals-often-biased-scientists-warn/

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Restaurant Shift: Sorry, Just Part-Time

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“Rod Carstensen, owner of 11 Del Taco restaurants around Denver, began in April converting his mostly full-time workforce into one comprising mostly part-time help to minimize his health-care costs. He estimates the costs could have climbed by as much as $400,000 a year without the change. Mr. Carstensen had 180 full-time and 40 part-time workers and is in the process of switching to 80 full-time and 320 part-time workers who clock no more than 28 hours per week. He is plowing ahead despite the Obama administration’s reprieve, he said, because ‘we need to get there anyway, and it will take until January 1, 2015, to make this transition.'”

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324694904578601922653718606.html

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Burn your Obamacare card

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“Without premium payments by millions of young adults under 40, Obamacare can’t work. Younger Americans make up the bulk of the uninsured today because health insurance simply costs too much relative to their needs. If they don’t obey the mandate, premiums will be higher than expected in the new government ‘exchanges,’ people will be driven away, and a vicious cycle will set in, ending in the scheme’s failure.  This suggests an opportunity. If all of us, especially millennials, were to become health care draft resisters, we could hasten Obamacare’s inevitable collapse and pave the way for a patient-centered system.”

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jul/10/burn-your-obamacare-card/?page=all

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Dear New Yorkers: Here’s Why Your Rent Is So Ridiculously High

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“While the average rent for available apartments in New York City is now over $3,000, the U.S. Census Bureau says renters in New York City were only paying a median of $1,125 in 2011. What gives? The answer is, there are lots of cheap apartments in New York. You just can’t get one of them, because they’re rent controlled, and tenants with great rent controlled deals cling to their apartments until they die. In Manhattan below 96th Street, 35% of rent regulated apartments are occupied by a tenant who has lived there for more than 20 years. Less than 3% of market-rate tenants have been around that long.”

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-8-reasons-why-new-york-rents-are-so-ridiculously-high-2013-7

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