No SS COLA This Year -- Again!

[MachineGhost]

As for term limits, I'm in favor of them, but I don't think they will solve the problem of having economic ignoramuses in power. 99% of the public has no idea how money actually works, so why would politicians be any better? Unless there is a requirement that only those with a good knowledge of Austrian economics can run for office, they'll still vote to print unbacked paper so they don't have to tax people explicitly to pay for all their crazy schemes. 

You kill me.  Hasn't the last 6 years proven to you Austrian economics has failed?  None of its proscriptions have come true.

[mathjak107]

medicare covers a lot . don't forget that 20% it does no cover is based on what they would pay not the regular price .  need a 1500 dollar mri , medicare pays them 500 bucks so you pay 100 bucks for an mri if you have no supplement , big deal .

i find even if we didn't have a supplement we would likely do fine . you know how hard it is to pay our 2,000 bucks  in the small charges medicare does not cover ?  most things you pay are under 50 bucks  with many 10 or 20 bucks .

[MachineGhost]

$500 or $830 a month?!!!  You people better be fucking sick and nearly dead to justify a ridiculous waste of money.  Have you calculated the future discounted value of what you're spending instead of investing?

How does it get to be so high above the $105 premium anyway?  Oh I bet its the Medigap coverage?  Well, Advantage does away with that as well as separate prescription drug coverage.  Is an HMO really all that bad to justify paying $395 to $695 more per month?

[mathjak107]

yep , and  see what things cost when you fall in the donut hole or exceed certain coverage . 

my co-worker use to brag about how little his advantage plan cost . that was until his wife got breast cancer . as an out patient each chemo is 4500.00 co-pay .  there is no cap on out patient  .

he could have had years of an f-plan just with this one incident .

[MachineGhost]

my co-worker use to brag about how little his advantage plan cost . that i until his wife got breast cancr . as n out patiant each chemo is 4500.00 co-pay .  there is no cap on out patient  .

All of that stuff is explained upfront in the coverage document, or isnt it?

[mathjak107]

my co-worker use to brag about how little his advantage plan cost . that i until his wife got breast cancr . as n out patiant each chemo is 4500.00 co-pay .  there is no cap on out patient  .

All of that stuff is explained upfront in the coverage document, or isnt it?

not  really , because until you need something you do not know what catagory drug it is .

[mathjak107]

don't travel with an advantage plan either . there is likely no network hospital or doctor when you are sure to need one . out of the country ?  none have coverage .

they also only have allowances on things unlike medicare and a supplement . if they decide not to pay it all you are responsible .

the saying nothing is a problem until its a problem was made for advantage plans .

the saying you get what you pay for may never have been truer when you need medical services .

if i had cancer i want to go to sloan kettering or lenox hill  in nyc .  you can't with most advantage plans . you can only see and go in network .

[Libertarian666]

$500 or $830 a month?!!!  You people better be fucking sick and nearly dead to justify a ridiculous waste of money.  Have you calculated the future discounted value of what you're spending instead of investing?

How does it get to be so high above the $105 premium anyway?  Oh I bet its the Medigap coverage?  Well, Advantage does away with that as well as separate prescription drug coverage.  Is an HMO really all that bad to justify paying $395 to $695 more per month?

We pay $105 each for Medicare and about $120 each for Medigap, so $500 for two people. Oh, I forgot $20 or so each for part D prescription coverage, so about $550 for both.
In the past, I've paid that much for crappy corporate insurance that didn't cover much of anything.
As far as I'm concerned, HMOs suck rocks, especially if you live in the sticks as I do.

[Libertarian666]

As for term limits, I'm in favor of them, but I don't think they will solve the problem of having economic ignoramuses in power. 99% of the public has no idea how money actually works, so why would politicians be any better? Unless there is a requirement that only those with a good knowledge of Austrian economics can run for office, they'll still vote to print unbacked paper so they don't have to tax people explicitly to pay for all their crazy schemes. 

You kill me.  Hasn't the last 6 years proven to you Austrian economics has failed?  None of its proscriptions have come true.

Which "proscriptions" are you talking about? For that matter, what is a "proscription" anyway? I don't know that word, and looking it up online says it is the act of prohibiting something, which doesn't make any sense in your sentence.

[mathjak107]

which medigap plan ?  here in ny an f-plan is 320.00 each a moth .  but ny is different .

your supplement  likely goes up yearly by age as except for 3 states the country is age based . . ny is community based  . we pay one rate regardless of age . we can also change plans at any time without having to pass  a medical screening .  except for us and 2 other states only your first selection in plans has to take you . after that you can be denied if you want to switch . so we pay more because of these facts .  these are great perks but the early years are more expensive and you save later on as you age .

[Libertarian666]

which medigap plan ?  here in ny an f-pln is 320.00 each a moth .

The ARLIC f plan, in rural east Texas.

[mathjak107]

i replied while you were typng .

[MachineGhost]

Which "proscriptions" are you talking about? For that matter, what is a "proscription" anyway? I don't know that word, and looking it up online says it is the act of prohibiting something, which doesn't make any sense in your sentence.

That may be the wrong word I was looking for.  Anyway, I looked around and this seems to be a good summary:

The primary flaw in the Austrian view of the central bank has been most obvious since Quantitative Easing started in 2008.  Austrian economists came out at the time saying that the increase in reserves in the banking system was the equivalent of “money printing” and that this would “devalue the dollar”, crash T-bonds and cause hyperinflation.  It was standard operating procedure to see charts of the monetary base like this one followed by dire predictions of high inflation or hyperinflation.  Of course, none of this actually panned out.  The high inflation never came, the hyperinflation definitely never came, the T-bond collapse was a terrible call and the USD has remained extremely stable.

So why was Austrian economics wrong on this point?  Because their model is predicated on the same faulty loanable funds based model that most other economists use.  So they assumed that more reserves would mean more “multiplication” of money and thus hyperinflation.  Of course, as I’ve explained numerous times here before, banks are never reserve constrained and do not make loans when they have more reserves.  Further, QE is a simple asset swap that changes the composition of private sector assets.  Referring to this as “money printing” is highly misleading (see here for more details).  Austrians got this wrong because, in an attempt to attack government, they have devised a government centric view of money creation that misunderstand the way money is created primarily by private competitive banks endogenously.

[Libertarian666]

Which "proscriptions" are you talking about? For that matter, what is a "proscription" anyway? I don't know that word, and looking it up online says it is the act of prohibiting something, which doesn't make any sense in your sentence.

That may be the wrong word I was looking for.  Anyway, I looked around and this seems to be a good summary:

The primary flaw in the Austrian view of the central bank has been most obvious since Quantitative Easing started in 2008.  Austrian economists came out at the time saying that the increase in reserves in the banking system was the equivalent of “money printing” and that this would “devalue the dollar”, crash T-bonds and cause hyperinflation.  It was standard operating procedure to see charts of the monetary base like this one followed by dire predictions of high inflation or hyperinflation.  Of course, none of this actually panned out.  The high inflation never came, the hyperinflation definitely never came, the T-bond collapse was a terrible call and the USD has remained extremely stable.

So why was Austrian economics wrong on this point?  Because their model is predicated on the same faulty loanable funds based model that most other economists use.  So they assumed that more reserves would mean more “multiplication” of money and thus hyperinflation.  Of course, as I’ve explained numerous times here before, banks are never reserve constrained and do not make loans when they have more reserves.  Further, QE is a simple asset swap that changes the composition of private sector assets.  Referring to this as “money printing” is highly misleading (see here for more details).  Austrians got this wrong because, in an attempt to attack government, they have devised a government centric view of money creation that misunderstand the way money is created primarily by private competitive banks endogenously.

I have made no predictions (which I guess is the word you were looking for).

A main tenet of Austrian economics is that economics is not a quantitative science, which of course you would know if you knew anything about Austrian economics.

Accordingly, it is clearly impossible to predict future values of any economic variable with any precision.

What Austrian economics can say is that distortions of the money supply by government intervention will have bad results compared to what would happen without such distortions.

Hope that helps.

[MachineGhost]

A main tenet of Austrian economics is that economics is not a quantitative science, which of course you would know if you knew anything about Austrian economics.

Then it is not a science, nor is it economics.  I've read some of Mises high falutin' stuff.  It is like the pre-larval form of what is know known today as behavioral economics.  Time to evolve!  Hayek in contrast embraced empiricism and econometrics.

Accordingly, it is clearly impossible to predict future values of any economic variable with any precision.

I'm interested in an economic science, not ideology that has no explanatory power for the real world functioning as it is.  It may have been acceptable before the 1930's to say that predicting human behavior was "impossible", but that's hardly the case today (not necessarily in any current economic school of thought, mind you, since they're virtually all outdated based on flawed foundational assumptions).

What Austrian economics can say is that distortions of the money supply by government intervention will have bad results compared to what would happen without such distortions.

That would have been correct pre-1971 under fixed exchange rates.  In fact, it would be correct for ANY agent intervening with ANY money supply.  Either let the free market create spontaneous demand for money as needed, or you wind up with inefficient distortions some way, some how.  Been there, done that, for centuries.  Does that mean that government intervention is everywhere and always a negative distortion as Austrian's believe?  No, there are clearly cases of market failures which require centralized coordination to get people out of their frozen "deer in headlights" syndrome, including with the money supply.  Time to evolve!  You can't deal with the real world with a doubting Thomas ideology that has no prescriptions for what to do or not do when a market failure smacks you square in the head.

[Libertarian666]

A main tenet of Austrian economics is that economics is not a quantitative science, which of course you would know if you knew anything about Austrian economics.

Then it is not a science, nor is it economics.  I've read some of Mises high falutin' stuff.  It is like the pre-larval form of what is know known today as behavioral economics.  Time to evolve!  Hayek in contrast embraced empiricism and econometrics.

Accordingly, it is clearly impossible to predict future values of any economic variable with any precision.

I'm interested in an economic science, not ideology that has no explanatory power for the real world functioning as it is.  It may have been acceptable before the 1930's to say that predicting human behavior was "impossible", but that's hardly the case today (not necessarily in any current economic school of thought, mind you, since they're virtually all outdated based on flawed foundational assumptions).

What Austrian economics can say is that distortions of the money supply by government intervention will have bad results compared to what would happen without such distortions.

That would have been correct pre-1971 under fixed exchange rates.  In fact, it would be correct for ANY agent intervening with ANY money supply.  Either let the free market create spontaneous demand for money as needed, or you wind up with inefficient distortions some way, some how.  Been there, done that, for centuries.  Does that mean that government intervention is everywhere and always a negative distortion as Austrian's believe?  No, there are clearly cases of market failures which require centralized coordination to get people out of their frozen "deer in headlights" syndrome, including with the money supply.  Time to evolve!  You can't deal with the real world with a doubting Thomas ideology that has no prescriptions for what to do or not do when a market failure smacks you square in the head.

You have no concept of what you are talking about, so there is no point in continuing.
Have a nice millennium.

[MachineGhost]

I must be a sucker for punishment.