#public healthcare is higher quality than private do not let people lie to you

[quarterqueens]

trying to find any sort of treatment for EDs is genuinely the most maddening experience on earth because the government won’t fund it unless you’re under x bmi but all the private treatment programs are like ‘take two weeks off work and pay 5k a day to ride horses’ or they’re just not taking patients

[marcjampole]

Government privatization of services doesn’t only fail in the United States as experience of Great Britain is demonstrating

The New York Times is giving us new evidence that privatization of government services is a failed concept. The Times reports that Great Britain’s decades-old experiment with privatizing government services is failing. Privatized facilities for the elderly and the disabled have run into a slew of abuse charges in the recent past. Moreover, a report by the British government found that over the next 25 years schools could cost 40 percent more, and hospitals 70 percent more, if run by private firms instead of through the government. Sounds like a typical privatized American prison, which costs more to operate than the government facility it replaced.

Why anyone ever thought that privatization of government services would lower costs and improve quality is beyond comprehension. When the government does something, its chief concerns are quality of service and cost to taxpayers. But once a private company gets involved, another factor enters the decision-making process: profit, which in the private sector is primarily split between owners and senior management. That profit has to come from somewhere, and it does: from the total pool available for providing the service—from salaries, equipment, supplies, transportation and facilities. Whatever the money set aside to provide the services, the cut given to profit will diminish it.

But wait, privatizers say. The private sector will run things more efficiently.

But how? Through economies of scale, which assumes that many companies will have the purchasing power of the federal government or most states. For the most part, that’s just not true. And in those rare cases in which a large private sector business might have an edge in purchasing supplies or maximizing the productivity of equipment over a local government, that government can always band together with other municipalities to buy supplies or share technology and staff.

As it turns out, it’s not economies of scale on which privatizers depend, it’s cutting the costs of labor. Typically, virtually all employees of privatized government services receive lower compensation than their government paid government. Why? Because privatized employees generally aren’t in unions, while government employees are often unionized. So what, you might ask? Who cares how an organization splits the pie, as long as the service is provided at a high level of quality and costs taxpayers as little as it has to. There are unfortunately two flies in this ointment: 1) Paying lower salaries will attract less qualified employees; 2) Cutting the salaries of large numbers of people—unionized or not—drives down the entire wage scale of an economy, which leads to all the problems that inequality of wealth brings, including an increase in asset bubbles and recessions, a decrease in the possibility of individuals moving up the income ladder and anti-democratic distortions to the political system.

(The exception to the rule that a privatized worker will make less than a government worker is the military, for which privatization brings on other problems such as a lack of loyalty of the mercenary to the values of the U.S. armed forces and pressure by privatizing lobbies to instigate or continue wars so that the profit train keeps running.)

But wait, privatizers say. The private sector is more likely to innovate and those innovations will lead to higher quality and lower costs. That’s not the way it has worked out in real life. In fact, when researchers Christopher Lubienski and Sarah Theule Lubienski ran the numbers, they found that one of the major reasons public schools outperform private schools (when adjusted for poverty and disabilities) is that public schools are more innovative, introducing new teaching techniques and technology than private schools. (The other reason, FYI, is because public school teachers are more experienced and participate in more continuing education classes than private school teachers. Makes sense, since paying more attracts better employees—that’s the American way!—and if private schools can cut teacher professional development, they can produce more profit.) No one has found any innovations at private prisons, except perhaps in the area of information technology which would occur at the governmental level, too. The privatized section of the armed forces has access to all the advanced technology they want—all developed by the U.S. military!

But wait, privatizers say. Privatization ends the special interest group politics surrounding government programs. That assertion is also belied by the facts. What happens in the real world is that the industry offering the privatized services becomes another special interest that finances and influences politicians. Teachers’ unions lobby for higher salaries and smaller classes, both of which lead to better outcomes for students especially in the elementary school years, at least according to the research. The prison industry lobbies for longer prison sentences, high bails and round-ups of undocumented immigrants, all to fill their jails. The defense industries lobby for higher military budgets and more military excursions. For those dear readers who don’t see the painfully obvious difference, let me explain: what the teachers want helps society; what private prisons and military contractors want does not.

But wait, privatizers say. The private sector always does it better than government by definition. Now that’s just a lie, as a landfill’s worth of evidence demonstrates. All we have to do is compare the cost and outcomes from the American system of healthcare insurance and delivery to those of every other western democracy, all of which have one form or another of single-payer healthcare. We rate first in costs and close to last in infant mortality and life expectancy. BTW, some nationalized healthcare systems like Germany’s do find a place for private, highly regulated health insurance companies. Not surprisingly, the most nationalized part of the American system—Medicare, Medicaid, the Veteran’s Administration before Bush II and Republicans gutted its budget—do the best job on costs and quality.

Is it possible that government control or ownership works best for the delivery of all goods and services? Based on the evidence of the Soviet Union and its satellites, it would be hard to make that assertion.

On the other hand, it seems that many types of industries seem suited to government control—certainly education, prisons, the military and probably healthcare. One key similarity of these enterprises is that they require large numbers of people who interact intimately with those served. While a telecommunications company or a solar panel manufacturer may require thousands of employees, technology, facilities and equipment are at least as important to the business as people. A phone company sells phone service using phones over landlines or on wireless frequencies. A school may use computers and science labs, but it sells teachers and teaching. A military sells armed forces (although modern warfare has increased the military’s dependence on capital goods more).

Another similarity of the industries that have seen disastrous results in privatization (or in the case of education, merely mediocre results) is that they all involve the entire public and the public good. No society since about 1850 can survive without universal education and literacy. Everyone needs healthcare. We build prisons and maintain armies to protect everyone. One can make a case that everyone needs electrical, telephone, water and natural gas service, too. Evidence is mixed as to whether government or the public sector most efficiently delivers these capital-intensive utilities, but we do know that when privatized they always require a lot of regulation to make sure that everyone has cheap, ubiquitous and reliable access to them.

A final similarity I see in the industries for which past experience demonstrates that government control beats privatization is that they are either mature industries, meaning that the market will not increase for their services except through population growth; or industries that it is the public interest not to grow. We are certainly better off when we have less need for prisons and the military.

I suspect that a whole lot of industries would be better off if they were nationalized. Of course I do, I’m a democratic socialist. But the experience in the United States and elsewhere else suggests that even the most extreme free-market conservative should see the benefit of centralized public education, prisons, healthcare, military, mass transit, roads and other services that governments routinely provide in most western nations. Except, of course, those right-wingers who hope to profit from privatization; or do not believe that rich folk should be taxed so that everyone can enjoy the service in question, e.g., affordable and high quality education and health care, and hope to use privatization as a Trojan horse to achieve that end.

[nwsuburbanbankruptcy]

Consumer Debt Roulette: Debt Is Up $605 Billion BEFORE $682 Billion Is Spent on Christmas — InvestmentWatch

From Daisy Luther, The Organic Prepper

The last time consumer debt has been this large was. . Well…NEVER. But now, it seems we are engaged in a high stakes game of consumer debt roulette. And the House is the only one who’ll win this game.

Last summer, it was reported that people made more on loans, charge cards, credit cards, and payment strategies than ever before. The nation surpassed the spike that resulted in the crash of 2008 back in March when debt attained a mind-boggling $12.73 trillion from the first quarter of this year.

Here is the breakdown, through  ZeroHedge:

Total household indebtedness stood at $12.73 trillion at March 31, 2017. This increase set  overall family debt 50 billion over its previous peak set from the third quarter of 2008 and 14.1 % over the trough set in the next quarter of 2013.

Mortgage accounts, the biggest part of household debt, reached $8.63 trillion at March 31, a 147 billion uptick from the fourth quarter of 2016.

Balances in home equity lines of credit fell marginally in the first quarter, down $17 billion to $456 billion.

Non-housing debt saw combined changes–a rise of $10 billion in auto loans and $34 billion in student loan accounts, along with a $15 billion drop in credit card accounts.

And we have exceeded the dreadful record more. This year, the debt because of American households has grown by 605 billion dollars. THIS YEAR.  That’s on top of the insane numbers mentioned before.

And it’s causing serious problems.

From prolonged traces of cash-strapped consumers at New York food pantries into a growth in mental health problems, the hottest New York quarterly Fed data paints a dire film: US household debt has grown by $605 billion within the previous 12 months, together with $116 billion, or nearly 1%, hitting in the latest quarter. Funding is mushrooming everywhere — on mortgages, student loans, and auto loans. Credit card debt, meanwhile, has jumped by 3.1 % in the latest quarter. (origin)

You’d think that people would suddenly start to be worried that their debts have been outstripping their earnings, but you’d be wrong.

It hasn’t slowed down to Christmas shoppers just one bit.

Let us delve into some crazy data concerning the money spent last weekend. Don’t let the term “data” make your eyes glaze over — you are going to want to examine this.

Picture everyone sitting after turkey dinner in the front of the game ignoring each other and shopping in their phones. That is a fairly accurate image when you understand that online revenue on Thanksgiving day struck  $2.9 billion.

Mobile accounted for 61% of all website visitors on Thanksgiving Day, Adobe reported. Shoppers placed 51% more orders tablets than a year ago, according to a Salesforce report emailed to Retail Dive (origin)

Isn’t family togetherness wonderful?

Needless to say, this was just the beginning. In the peak of Black Friday chaos, it wasn’t only the brawls over bath towels and toy automobiles  which has been jaw-dropping. People spent ONE MILLION DOLLARS A MINUTE  shopping in retail outlets and online.

To sum this up, beginning on Thanksgiving Day and continuing through Dark Friday all how to Cyber Monday, shoppers shopped. Plus then they shopped BIG. 70 percent of Americans shopped over the holiday weekend, spending an average of $335 per individual. Let’s break that down a bit.

The 174 million Americans who flew between Thanksgiving Day and Cyber Monday spent an average of $335 per individual during this five-day interval, the trade group said. The  largest spenders, millennials aged 24 to 35, paid out an average of $419.52 each individual. (origin)

However, it will not stop there. The accurate National Retail Federation predicts that, even though our record high consumer debt, we will still see up to 4% greater spending this year over the past year’s insanely substantial numbers.

The National Retail Federation announced today  it expects   holiday retail sales in November and December — leading cars, gas and restaurants — to  rise between 3.6 and 4 percent for a total of $678.75 billion to $682 billion, up from $655.8 billion last year. (origin)

People are planning to spend an average of nearly a million dollars PER ADULT — maybe not home. The precise number that one poll  reveals is  983, which is up dramatically from a realistic $417 back in 2000.

(I have to be stuck in the calendar year 2000 because I can not fathom spending considerably more than that. In that case.   Here is some info   on how WE do budgets)

And imagine how they plan   to cover it all.

You guessed it. With more consumer debt.

Article Continues Below

Credit cards are the most popular form of payment this year, utilized by 40% of shoppers, up from 39 percent this past year. That is tied to debit cards, which will also be employed by 40%, exactly the same as a year ago; 18 percent intend to pay with money and 2 percent will utilize checks. Of emerging payment methods, PayPal will be employed by 36 per cent, Apple Pay by 7 percent, Samsung Pay and Google Wallet by 4 percent every year and Venmo by 3%. (origin)

So debt I mentioned previously? The 605 billion dollars extra in American consumer debt this season?   This was just year-to-date.   We are adding roughly   a second 271.5 billion dollars to debt.

$271,500,000,000.

When we already   owe   $605,000,000,000.

Everyone likes to blame the bankers for the crash in 2008 that sent us spiraling to a downturn but in fact, it had been brought on by consumer debt. No one is forcing us to max out our credit cards or purchase houses we can barely afford. However, in 2008, banks pushed up the cost of homes and loaned out tons of money to people who really didn’t qualify.

Afterward, unsurprisingly, they could not make their mortgage payments.

Lending huge amounts of money to the property market pushes up the price of houses together with the level of personal debt. Interest has to be paid for each of the loans that banks create, and with the debt increasing faster than incomes, finally some folks become unable to keep up with payments.   Now, they quit repaying their loans , and banks find themselves at risk of going bankrupt. (origin)

Here is another explanation of this situation from 2008.

For almost a decade now, because 2007, we have been living a lie. And that lie is now preparing to wreak havoc on the economy….

The lie I am talking about is the idea that the fiscal disaster of 2008, along with subsequent “Great Recession,” were due to profligate government spending and subsequent public debt. The precise opposite is in fact the case. The crash happened because of dangerously substantial levels of private debt (a mortgage crisis especially). And this is the part we aren’t supposed to speak about–there’s an inverse connection between private and public debt levels.

In the event the public sector reduces the debt, then overall private sector debt goes up. That is what happened in the decades leading up to 2008. Now austerity is making it happening again. And when we don’t do something about it, the results will, necessarily, be a different disaster. (origin)

Certainly, this is unsustainable however people are blithely ignoring it.

Americans are in trouble.

Currently, the issue that could be the mind domino that begins the chain reaction of all the others falling is the sub-prime auto loan industry. We might see exactly the same situation we saw in 2008 when people start defaulting on automobile loans that they should not have gotten.

Participants have been warning for decades that subprime auto loans pose a threat to creditors since delinquency rates have improved higher considering reaching a post-recession reduced in 2012. But it wasn’t until last quarter which minimum creditworthy borrowers began to show the sorts of overdue payment profiles which followed the beginning of the monetary crisis.

“We’re seeing an increase in delinquencies together with all credit scores, however in the maximum credit quality, it’s only a basis point or two,” Chief Economist Amy Crews Cutts stated in an email Tuesday. “In deep subprime, the rise is more considerable.   What stood out to me was that the issuers. Those which have been doing so for ten years or even more were showing the ‘greater’ operation, while those who were comparative newcomers were in the ‘worse’ category.”

…”As soon as creditors (and the investors behind them) get overconfident they have greater models and can make surplus profits by disrespecting credit risk, they always receive their hats handed to them earlier or later,” Cutts said. “The mortgage marketplace learned this lesson at the cost of the whole global monetary system, and it’s playing out now in a micro-level, in the ABS market for subprime auto loans” (origin)

However, we’ve got the student loan crisis, the mind-blowing quantities of credit card debt (over a trillion dollars), the ever-growing expense of living and stagnant wages. Add climbing healthcare policy costs that can cost more than most of your additional living expenses put together (plus a pending 37% boost in 2018) and at some point not too much off, a collision is inevitable.

There’s only 1 method to survive the consumer debt crisis.

You only have to refuse to take part. The solution has to be undertaken personally. You can not expect the authorities or even the bankers to do what is right — that is who got us into this mess in the first place.

Resolve now to lower your monthly expenditures, eliminate your debt as fast as you can, and learn to stay within (or even better yet, beneath) your own means. There are various factors out of your control, for example healthcare costs, inflation, and the job market, but you can control your spending and your debt level. I’ve  done this myself and I can help you to do exactly the same. (Go here for more info)

It is possible to continue to keep your vacation spending back in the year 2000 and you’re able to resolve not to play consumer debt matches. You can not do anything about the rest of the nation’s bad spending habits, but you can create yourself more recession-proof.

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http://investmentwatchblog.com/consumer-debt-roulette-debt-is-up-605-billion-before-682-billion-is-spent-on-christmas/

from nwsuburban-bankruptcy – Credit Repair & Debt Experts http://www.nwsuburban-bankruptcy.com/consumer-debt-roulette-debt-is-up-605-billion-before-682-billion-is-spent-on-christmas-investmentwatch/