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What's driving rising business costs?

libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org

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Re: What's driving rising business costs?

#21

Post by lovich »

alephnerd wrote: post #17
stego-tech wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a vicious cycle, but something needs to pump the brakes before the metaphorical engine explodes. * Stop tying healthcare to private insurers and employers. State-level single-payer models by default via fixed payroll deductions per employee, and let the government dictate or negotiate costs. * Re-work incentives for efficient utility usage. Incentivize self-generation for power through lower electric rates if a…

> Stop tying healthcare to private insurers and employers. State-level single-payer models by default via fixed payroll deductions per employee, and let the government dictate or negotiate costs. Most state-run workers compensation and Medicaid funds are already insolvent. Until that gets resolved, no attempt at creating a single payer fund is possible. > stop subsidizing huge consumers (like data centers) by raising…

What do you proscribe as a solution then?

Re: What's driving rising business costs?

#22

Post by collabs »

Let us not worry about "the whole economy". Yes, we know there is massive Executive overreach with tariffs and immigration. Yes, we know Congress is deadlocked to the point of being worse than useless. Yes, the SCOTUS also has its own problems with a majority of the public no longer having any faith in the judiciary. Lets start with things the FEDeral Reserve can fix, right here, right now.

Narrow banking now.

This is something the Federal Reserve can actually fix. Give every single US person (I am not a lawyer and I can't define what counts as a US person) a fee-free bank account with the Federal Reserve. Cut out the middle men of commercial banks. I think that alone will go a long way to drive down business costs.

Re: What's driving rising business costs?

#23

Post by underlipton »

Financialization and the diffusion, across the economy, of the risk of dozens of major bad-bet nuclear detonations in the securities and commodities markets. The bets were never closed - not really - because the losses would have lead to immediate collapse. You're still paying for 2008 (and earlier debacles, and later ones, too). The economic output of the next few decades is already spoken for.

This hits TFA's culprits, rising insurance and utilities costs. They're just the symptoms, not the source.

Re: What's driving rising business costs?

#24

Post by labcomputer »

epistasis wrote: post #9

We really need to switch to a National Health Service style of administration of health costs. Right now we have Medicare which makes unilateral cost determinations, and doctors and hospitals end up accepting below-cost reimbursement that because how could they turn away all the retired people, but they end up subsidizing these unilateral decisions with money from private insurance payors (namely everybody who's work…

The dirty little not-so-secret is that we pay doctors too much in the US. To the tune of several times as much as other large developed countries, like Germany, France and England. Medical care in the US will never ever be as cheap as those countries as long as the providers here earn 2x or 3x.

That's partly because we have a doctor shortage here (medical schools collude to limit the number of new doctors created each year).

Another part of the problem is the bloated administrative bureaucracy of hospitals in the US, we well as the fact that you aren't allowed to build a new hospital (and yes, this is actually true) unless you can prove that a hospital is needed in a particular community.

With no competitive market for healthcare providers, nor a competitive market for places where they work, why shouldn't they extract as much as they can from the rest of us?

They get away with it, too, because "medical doctor" is one of the highest trusted and most reputable professions. It's badthink to discuss these things in polite company.

Until we fix those things, it simply doesn't matter how the insurance/payment system works. Every time I hear that we need to get rid of private insurers, nobody can seem to explain how doing that will save more than 10-15% despite the fact that insurance companies have a statutorily-limited profit margin.

Re: What's driving rising business costs?

#25

Post by testing22321 »

collabs wrote: post #22

Let us not worry about "the whole economy". Yes, we know there is massive Executive overreach with tariffs and immigration. Yes, we know Congress is deadlocked to the point of being worse than useless. Yes, the SCOTUS also has its own problems with a majority of the public no longer having any faith in the judiciary. Lets start with things the FEDeral Reserve can fix, right here, right now. Narrow banking now. This i…

And in the process make every member of congress less more rich tomorrow.

Never, ever going to happen.

Re: What's driving rising business costs?

#26

Post by burntpineapple »

collabs wrote: post #22

Let us not worry about "the whole economy". Yes, we know there is massive Executive overreach with tariffs and immigration. Yes, we know Congress is deadlocked to the point of being worse than useless. Yes, the SCOTUS also has its own problems with a majority of the public no longer having any faith in the judiciary. Lets start with things the FEDeral Reserve can fix, right here, right now. Narrow banking now. This i…

fee free banking + KYC + free instant transacting = ooo eee modern banking infra

Re: What's driving rising business costs?

#27

Post by collabs »

testing22321 wrote: post #25
collabs wrote: post #22

Let us not worry about "the whole economy". Yes, we know there is massive Executive overreach with tariffs and immigration. Yes, we know Congress is deadlocked to the point of being worse than useless. Yes, the SCOTUS also has its own problems with a majority of the public no longer having any faith in the judiciary. Lets start with things the FEDeral Reserve can fix, right here, right now. Narrow banking now. This i…

And in the process make every member of congress less more rich tomorrow. Never, ever going to happen.

Right, also turns out the regional banks of the FED are de facto owned by commercial banks. Why would they vote against their own interest if they can get money from the Federal Reserve at about three percent interest and then turn around and lend it at six percent?

Re: What's driving rising business costs?

#28

Post by h4kunamata »

Enshitification and the weird desire to please modern audience, are the only reasons.

Until the early 2000s, things were built to last, solid build, simple.

Now, even fridge has AI in it like what the actual f!!! Cars are tablets on wheels, Tesla and others, rather than just being cars.

And this weird desire to please modern audience costing movies, products, videos games billions of dollars, closing studios thousands of jobs lost unable to make the investment back as consequences and yet, companies seem to do not read the room.

Re: What's driving rising business costs?

#29

Post by collabs »

burntpineapple wrote: post #26
collabs wrote: post #22

Let us not worry about "the whole economy". Yes, we know there is massive Executive overreach with tariffs and immigration. Yes, we know Congress is deadlocked to the point of being worse than useless. Yes, the SCOTUS also has its own problems with a majority of the public no longer having any faith in the judiciary. Lets start with things the FEDeral Reserve can fix, right here, right now. Narrow banking now. This i…

fee free banking + KYC + free instant transacting = ooo eee modern banking infra

If we had a functioning Federal Government, we need this like yesterday. I know the EU and the China Mainland are showing ridiculous incompetence today but they won't be incompetent forever. Digital Euro and Digital RMB are coming, perhaps as soon as within a decade. We are essentially playing catch up with the US Dollar at this point. Fed Now is a good start but it really is not enough.

What you said, fee free banking + KYC + free instant transacting is something we definitely need, even if it hurts JP Morgan Chase a little bit.

Re: What's driving rising business costs?

#30

Post by shimman »

labcomputer wrote: post #24
epistasis wrote: post #9

We really need to switch to a National Health Service style of administration of health costs. Right now we have Medicare which makes unilateral cost determinations, and doctors and hospitals end up accepting below-cost reimbursement that because how could they turn away all the retired people, but they end up subsidizing these unilateral decisions with money from private insurance payors (namely everybody who's work…

The dirty little not-so-secret is that we pay doctors too much in the US. To the tune of several times as much as other large developed countries, like Germany, France and England. Medical care in the US will never ever be as cheap as those countries as long as the providers here earn 2x or 3x. That's partly because we have a doctor shortage here (medical schools collude to limit the number of new doctors created eac…

Doctor salaries alone do not account for the hundreds of billions in profit that health insurance companies extract from us. You are right there is not a competitive market place because the US government cannot provide a universal plan for anyone. We all know the insurance companies would fold overnight as government welfare programs are extremely popular (just look at how much corporations love government welfare).

Odd how the most popular programs in the US, social security + medicare, are the ones with zero means testing.

Maybe let's not blame one of the few only noble professions left in our greed fueled world.

Blame the hospital administrators or pharmaceutical reps before you start blaming doctors.

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