Tag Archives: disaster

Property Bubble, Tech Bubble, What’s Next For China?

by anunturiimobiliaretimisoara Posted on May 12, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

I’ve long been conflicted about China’s prospects for the future. On the one hand, their growth rate has been impressive over the past few decades, and their long-term growth seems to be reasonably well assured too. But there are clouds on the horizon. Demographics are one: China is getting older, and by 2030 nearly a quarter of the country will be elderly. There’s also a problem that’s inherent to growth: As China gets richer and more middle class, their labor costs will rise, eliminating one of their key attractions to Western manufacturers.

But what about the short term? That’s starting to look problematic too. China’s stock markets have been on a massive, bubblicious tear recently, none more so than the exchanges that specialize in tech companies. Matt O’Brien speculates about the underlying cause of this mania:

Why are China’s stock markets partying like it’s 1999? Well, part of it is that China’s housing bubble might be bursting—new home prices fell 5.1 percent in January—and the only other place people can put their money is in stocks. Another part is that China’s state-owned media companies have been saying for months that stocks look cheap, and people are listening. Especially people who haven’t graduated from high school. Indeed, 67 percent of China’s new stock investors don’t have a high school diploma. And now that China has cut interest rates so much—and looks like it will keep doing so—they can borrow money to buy as many stocks as they want. And that’s a lot. So-called margin accounts, which let people do this, more than doubled in 2014, and, even though brokerages have tightened their terms a bit, they’re still growing.

So whether you want to call this a boom, a bull market, or a mania doesn’t really matter. A bubble by any other name will pop just as much.

The best-case scenario is probably that China’s central bank manages to engineer a fairly normal cyclical recession, which will be mild and short-lived. The worst-case scenario is that borrowing is fueling more of this boom than we think, and China will shortly experience a bursting property and stock bubble that will look an awful lot like the one we went through in 2008.

Still, I will say one thing in China’s favor: a lot of analysts have been predicting a crash for a long time, and somehow China’s economy just keeps rolling along. On the other hand, to paraphrase Keynes, bubbles can last a helluva lot longer than you’d think. But eventually they all burst anyway.

So color me nervous about China. At the same time, keep in mind that all I know is what I read in the papers. I might be totally off base with my concerns.

See original article – 

Property Bubble, Tech Bubble, What’s Next For China?

Posted in alo, ATTRA, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Property Bubble, Tech Bubble, What’s Next For China?

Why Do We Give Medical Treatment That Increases Patients’ Chances of Dying?

by BlytheMadsen Posted on May 12, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

While Kevin Drum is focused on getting better, we’ve invited some of the remarkable writers and thinkers who have traded links and ideas with him from Blogosphere 1.0 to this day to contribute posts and keep the conversation going. Today we’re honored to present a post from Aaron E. Carroll.

I saw this study a few weeks ago on blood pressure treatment for nursing home residents, and I almost ignored it. There are so many like it. But it’s just ridiculous that this kind of stuff continues, and that we can’t seem to do anything about it.

We know that in many people, high blood pressure is bad. We therefore try and do things to lower it. But then we go ahead and decide that if lowering blood pressure in some people is good, it must be good for everyone. In frail, elderly people, however, there’s no evidence for this—and there may be evidence that lowering blood pressure is a bad idea. But that runs counter to what we’ve always been told, so many ignore it.

This was a longitudinal study of elderly people living in nursing homes, meaning that the authors recruited people there and then followed them for about two years. They were interested in seeing how different aspects of care were related to the subjects’ chance of dying. Almost 80 percent of them were being treated for high blood pressure (in spite of the above). A previous analysis of this study had shown that blood pressure was inversely related to all-cause mortality “even after adjusting for several confounders, such as age, sex, history of previous cardiovascular (CV) disease, Charlson Comorbidity Index score, cognitive function (Mini-Mental State Examination), and autonomy status (activities of daily living).” This study went further, to look at whether being on lots of drugs for high blood pressure was bad—even after controlling for the blood pressure relationship.

Patients in this study were on an average of seven drugs and were on at least two drugs for high blood pressure.

What the study found, to no one’s real surprise, is that the people on two or more blood pressure medications who had a systolic blood pressure of less than 130 mm Hg had a significantly higher all-cause mortality. This held true even after additionally adjusting for propensity score–matched subsets, other cardiovascular issues, and the exclusion of patients without a history of hypertension who were receiving BP-lowering agents.

We know that there’s evidence that keeping blood pressure lower in this population might be bad. Yet, many of these patients were not only being treated for “high” blood pressure—many were on multiple medications for it. Those on more medications (i.e. more treatment) were more likely to die.

Here’s the kicker: This wasn’t a study done in the United States. It was done in France and Italy—so this isn’t me bashing on the US health care system. It’s a problem that’s writ large. We find something that is bad. We find that lessening it is better. We then start to lessen it even more. Soon we’re trying to lessen it for everyone. We’re saying it’s too high in all populations, even when we don’t have evidence that’s true. We say it even as evidence builds that less is bad for lots of people.

Better clinical decision support might help, but we can’t seem to get that in electronic health records, and doctors hate those anyway. Many are still unaware that guidelines even exist.

And then when things get really bad, we act as if we weren’t to blame. From an editorial in JAMA:

It is surprising that among frail elderly patients with a systolic blood pressure less than 130 mm Hg (20 percent of the studied group), the use of multiple antihypertensive drugs was continued, because few evidence-based data support this approach.

Really? It’s surprising?

Getting doctors to change their behavior is hard, and getting them to stop doing something may be even harder. But all of this is important, and it’s part of why health services research is so critical.

A final note: Even when I’m upset about some aspects of medicine, I’m grateful for so many others—like the ones helping Kevin right now. I’m crazy about health care. I’ll keep poking it with a stick. That’s how I show my love.

This article:  

Why Do We Give Medical Treatment That Increases Patients’ Chances of Dying?

Posted in Everyone, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Why Do We Give Medical Treatment That Increases Patients’ Chances of Dying?

Warmer seas make for a transoceanic fish party

by ElmerGrasser Posted on February 4, 2015

Warmer seas make for a transoceanic fish party

By on 4 Feb 2015commentsShare

Here’s a thing you may not have considered before: Climate change could make fish more mobile, upwardly and otherwise. Most marine species in the North Atlantic and North Pacific have been traversing the same ocean highways and byways for a while now (ahem, 2.6 million years), largely because the northern passage between the two is just too darn cold. But according to a study published Jan. 26 in Nature Climate Change, by the end of this century some fish in these formerly frigid climes may be able to swim in the Arctic, and beyond. Which can only mean one thing: Global fish mixer!

Led by Loïc Pellissier of the University of Fribourg, the team of Swiss scientists looked at how 515 fish species in the northern oceans were likely to react to climate change over the next hundred years. They found up to 41 species likely to move into the Pacific, and 44 into the Atlantic, by 2100.

For coastal-dwelling humans, this could mean an expanded menu at the crab shack, since ten of the species predicted to take advantage of the move also happen to be fish-and-chip favorites, according to Science News:

They include Atlantic cod, American plaice (a type of flounder) and yellowfin sole. Fishing opportunities have already opened up off of Greenland because of climate change, and more could develop as the Arctic region warms.

While an abundance of tasty new species opens up the danger of exploitation and overfishing, the bigger dark side of this delicious twist is the disaster it could spell for ecosystems. Species migrations can sometimes create major shifts in ecosystems:

… The arrival of apex predator species, such as Atlantic cod and lingcod, could have particularly large effects, as their meal choices ripple through the food web. The researchers say that predicting those effects is “the next modeling challenge,” but there may be effects similar to what’s been seen when invasive species enter ecosystems. Invaders often upend food webs, causing some species to decline and even become extinct.

But, y’know, if you’re a fish, warmer temperatures could mean greener pastures, bigger adventures, and new exotic friends! Just, other than the whole “getting snarfed by giant apex predators” thing — you’re gonna have to learn some stream-smarts if you want to make it the other side of the ocean tracks, little fishes.

Source:
Warming Arctic will let Atlantic and Pacific fish mix

, Science News.

Share

Please

enable JavaScript

to view the comments.

Find this article interesting?

Donate now to support our work.

Get stories like this in your inbox

AdvertisementAdvertisement

See more here: 

Warmer seas make for a transoceanic fish party

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, LG, mixer, Mop, ONA, The Atlantic, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Warmer seas make for a transoceanic fish party

Gouging the Gougeable: Yet Another Triumph of the American Health Care System

by JillianLowin Posted on December 16, 2014

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Len Charlap has had a couple of outpatient echocardiograms recently. Elisabeth Rosenthal tallies up the damage:

The five hospitals within a 15-mile radius of Mr. Charlap’s home here charge an average of about $5,200 for an echocardiogram, according to an analysis of Medicare’s database. The seven teaching hospitals in Boston, affiliated with Harvard, Tufts and Boston University, charge an average of about $1,300 for the same test. There are even wide variations within cities: In Philadelphia, prices range from $700 to $12,000.

….In other countries, regulators set what are deemed fair charges, which include built-in profit. In Belgium, the allowable charge for an echocardiogram is $80, and in Germany, it is $115. In Japan, the price ranges from $50 for an older version to $88 for the newest, Dr. Ikegami said.

Because Mr. Charlap, 76, is on Medicare, which is aggressive in setting rates, he paid only about $80 toward the approximately $500 fee Medicare allows. But many private insurers continue to reimburse generously for echocardiograms billed at thousands of dollars, said Dr. Seth I. Stein, a New York physician who researches data on radiology. Hospitals pursue patients who are uninsured or underinsured for those payments, he added.

This is now such a common story that it’s hard to work up the outrage it deserve. Is this practice corrupt? Merely venal? Or just crazy? I don’t even know anymore. What I do know is that if an outpatient echo costs $80 in Belgium and $500 via Medicare, there’s no conceivable justification for a $5,200 charge. It bears no relationship to the actual cost of the test, and is designed primarily to gouge the occasional uninsured patient who has no choice in the matter along with the (inexplicable) occasional insurance company willing to pony up even for obviously outrageous charges. One of the hospitals that performed an echocardiogram on Charlap didn’t even bother denying that this is what they’re doing:

In a statement, the hospital in Princeton that performed Mr. Charlap’s first, more expensive echocardiogram noted that “the vast majority of customers” paid much less than the listed prices. It added that its pricing reflected the need to offset losses because many programs, including Medicare, reimburse less than the cost of delivering services.

I doubt that Medicare is reimbursing less than the cost of performing an echocardiogram, but you can see what’s going on here. The “vast majority” of patients do indeed pay far less than list price. So why have such a high list price? In order to gouge the tiny minority who are gougeable.

It’s lovely the way American medicine works, isn’t it?

Original source: 

Gouging the Gougeable: Yet Another Triumph of the American Health Care System

Posted in alo, Casio, FF, GE, LG, ONA, PUR, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Gouging the Gougeable: Yet Another Triumph of the American Health Care System

Quote of the Day: Russian Central Bank Decides It Needs to Destroy the Economy In Order to Save It

by CaseyHSJTjrd Posted on December 16, 2014

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

From Neil Irwin, commenting on the huge interest rate jump announced by Russia’s central bank in the wee hours of the morning:

It may go without saying, but a 6.5 percentage point emergency interest rate increase announced in the middle of the night is not a sign of strength.

Roger that. Russian central bankers hope that this will be an incentive for people to keep their money in Russia, earning high interest, instead of shipping rubles out of the country at warp speed and squirreling them away in any safe haven that comes to hand. And maybe it will work. Alternatively, as Irwin suggests, it may be viewed as a sign of desperation, causing Russia’s oligarchs to pile on the dilithium crystals and ship out their money even faster. You never know what’s going to work when a currency crisis goes into panic mode.

In any case, even if it works, the price is going to be high. Here in America, we argue about whether the Fed will choke off recovery if it raises interest rates to 2 percent. Russia is now at 17 percent. Even if this puts a halt to currency flight, it’s going to kill their economy. In Russia tonight, there are no good options left.

See original article:  

Quote of the Day: Russian Central Bank Decides It Needs to Destroy the Economy In Order to Save It

Posted in Anker, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Quote of the Day: Russian Central Bank Decides It Needs to Destroy the Economy In Order to Save It

The Lima Climate Talks Actually Produced Something Important: An Idea

by LyndonQuintanil Posted on December 15, 2014

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

So what should we think about the recently concluded climate talks in Lima? They were, as usual, a dog’s breakfast. Rich countries fought their usual battles with poor ones. The talks nearly foundered completely. Over the weekend the wording of the draft agreement went from “weak to weaker to weakest,” in the words of Sam Smith, chief of climate policy for the environmental group WWF. And in the end, no legally binding limits were set on greenhouse gas emission.

That sounds pretty bad. And yet, something important happened in Lima. As weak as the final language turned out, it does do one thing: it asks every country on the planet to submit a plan to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. It doesn’t mandate what the plans should be. It doesn’t require any independent review of the plans. It doesn’t set out any timetables. But it does require a plan from everyone.

This is something new. It may not be legally binding, but then, no agreement was ever likely to be. For the first time ever, though, Lima enshrines the idea that every country should have a plan to fight climate change. This is similar to Obamacare, which is flawed in dozens of ways but, for the first time in American history, enshrined in law the idea that everyone should have access to affordable health coverage. Once you do that—once you get that kind of public agreement to an idea—you can use it as a building block. Eventually Obamacare will become universal health care. In the same way, Lima may eventually be the building block that produces a universal agreement to fight climate change on a global scale.

This is a fairly rosy view of the Lima agreement, and I don’t want to oversell it. Still, the mere principle that every country on the globe should have a formal plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is important. Once the plans are in place, they become a concrete starting point for climate activists everywhere. And then they go from weakest to weaker to weak to something that’s actually meaningful. Everywhere.

It’s not enough. But it’s something.

Visit site:  

The Lima Climate Talks Actually Produced Something Important: An Idea

Posted in Everyone, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The Lima Climate Talks Actually Produced Something Important: An Idea

Krugman: “Russia Keeps Looking More Vulnerable to Crisis”

by mAskasieie45gg Posted on December 14, 2014

Mother Jones

Paul Krugman just left a conference in Dubai, and decided to write a bit about oil prices because all the geopolitical stuff he heard was pretty grim. But the oil stuff wasn’t that interesting. His one paragraph about geopolitics is:

My other thought is that Venezuela-with-nukes (Russia) keeps looking more vulnerable to crisis. Long-term interest rates at almost 13 percent, a plunging currency, and a lot of private-sector institutions with large foreign-currency debts. You might imagine that large foreign exchange reserves would allow the government to bail out those in trouble, but the markets evidently don’t think so. This is starting to look very serious.

Yes it is, and the reference to Venezuela-with-nukes is telling. A Russian economic crash could just be a crash. That would be bad for Russia, bad for Europe, and bad for the world. But it would hardly be the first time a midsize economy crashed. It would be bad but manageable.

Except that Russia has Vladimir Putin, Russia has a pretty sizeable and fairly competent military, and Russia has nukes. Putin has spent his entire career building his domestic popularity partly by blaming the West for every setback suffered by the Russian people, and that anti-Western campaign has reached virulent proportions over the past year or two. If the Russian economy does crash, and Putin decides that the best way to ride it out is to demagogue Europe and the West as a way of deflecting popular anger away from his own ruinous policies, it’s hard to say what the consequences would be. When Argentina pursues a game plan like that, you end up with a messy court case and lots of diplomatic grandstanding. When Russia does it, things could go a lot further.

I have precious little sympathy for Putin, whose success—such as it is—is based on a toxic stew of insecurities and quixotic appetites that have expressed themselves in a destructive brand of crude nativism; reactionary bigotry; disdain for the rule of law, both domestic and international; narrow and myopic economic vision; and dependence on an outdated and illiberal oligarchy to retain power. Nonetheless, there are kernels of legitimate grievance buried in many of these impulses, as well as kernels of necessity given both Russia’s culture and the post-Cold War collapse of its economy that has left it perilously dependent on extractive industries.

I don’t know if it’s too late to use the kernels as building blocks to improve, if not actually repair, Western relations with Putin’s Russia. But it’s still worth trying. A Russian crash may or may not come, but it’s hardly out of the realm of possibility. And if it happens, even a modest rapprochement between East and West could help avoid a disastrous outcome.

Read this article: 

Krugman: “Russia Keeps Looking More Vulnerable to Crisis”

Posted in bigo, FF, GE, LG, ONA, PUR, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Krugman: “Russia Keeps Looking More Vulnerable to Crisis”

James Risen Will Not Be Required to Reveal His Sources for "State of War"

by KatherineUbc Posted on December 13, 2014

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

From the New York Times:

Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan wants to force Richard Bonin, a longtime producer for “60 Minutes,” to testify next month at a terrorism trial over bombings by Al Qaeda in 1998. One of the two defendants, Khaled al-Fawwaz, is accused of running Al Qaeda’s media office in London. Prosecutors want Mr. Bonin to discuss his dealings with the group’s media office in an unsuccessful effort to interview Osama bin Laden in 1998, officials and others briefed on the case said.

Wait. What? Al Qaeda had a media office?

In other, better news, Eric Holder has decided not to subpoena New York Times reporter James Risen in an effort to force him to reveal the sources for his book, State of War. “If the government subpoenas Risen to require any of his testimony,” a Justice Department official said, “it would be to confirm that he had an agreement with a confidential source, and that he did write the book.” I don’t know how Risen feels about that, but it’s obviously much less pernicious than threatening jail time for refusing to identify a source.

This comes via Doug Mataconis, who argues persuasively that the arbitrary nature of federal prosecutions against reporters for refusing to reveal a source is exactly why we need to pass some kind of federal shield law for reporters. Even if it turned out to be weaker than many of us would like—pretty much a dead certainty, I’d say—at the very least it would provide some consistent guidance for both judges and media members.

Original article:  

James Risen Will Not Be Required to Reveal His Sources for "State of War"

Posted in FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on James Risen Will Not Be Required to Reveal His Sources for "State of War"

Disneyland Is the Latest Victim of Thin-Skinned 1-Percenters

by SamGresswell Posted on December 13, 2014

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

If you don’t live in Southern California—or if you do, but have a life—you might not be aware of Club 33, a “secret” club at Disneyland coveted by the rich and famous as a hideway from the hoi polloi at the park. (And, not coincidentally, the only place at Disneyland that serves alcoholic beverages.) It’s so coveted, in fact, that there’s no waiting list for membership. Years ago, it got so long that Disneyland just closed it.

Today, the LA Times passes along breaking news that has outraged the 1% who are the primary (only?) denizens of the place:

For access to what is billed as “the most exclusive address in all of Disneyland” — Club 33 — many members pay $11,000 a year….The current uproar has to do with how many extra VIP cards are allotted to platinum members.

The cards allow a lucky few to enjoy many of the benefits of a member, including access to Disney parks and dining at the secretive Club 33 restaurant, tucked away in Disneyland’s New Orleans Square….But last week, platinum members received a letter that said in 2015 only the member and a spouse or domestic partner would have Club 33 benefits, while the price for the platinum level would rise to $12,000….A current platinum VIP cardholder was enraged. “It really has just turned to a money game for them.”

OMG! “It really has just turned to a money game for them.” This is mighty rich coming from someone who is almost certainly wealthy as hell and probably considers himself a rock-jawed supporter of laissez-faire capitalism. But if Disneyland raises the price and changes the terms of a product that obviously has far more demand than supply, why, it’s just an example of a bunch of ruthless money-grubbers taking advantage of the downtrodden. How dare they?

Plus he’s dead wrong anyway. First of all, last I looked Disney was a public corporation widely admired in the business world for its money-making prowess. Of course it’s a money game for them. Second, the waiting list for Club 33 is so long that it’s closed. Quite plainly, they could double or triple the price of a platinum card and keep their membership at the same level. In other words, if they really were just ruthless money-grubbers, they could instantly double or triple their revenues for Club 33 with the stroke of a pen. The fact that they haven’t done this clearly suggests some combination of loyalty to longtime members along with an understandable desire to avoid a PR headache.

Anyway, that’s Orange County for you. Home of conservative Republicans who have an abiding faith in the free market when they’re the ones setting the rules, but get in a snit when they themselves end up on the business end of the not-so-invisible hand. You can file this under the shockingly thin skins of the rich when they aren’t treated with the fawning deference they all think is their birthright.

UPDATE: Here’s a note for aficionados of behavioral economics. As near as I can tell, the outrage here is not over the modest 9 percent price increase. It’s over the loss of a perk. This is an example of people responding far more strongly to loss than to gain. And in this case it’s especially irksome because it’s the loss of a perk that allows a member to very publicly show off their status. “Going to Disneyland? Here, why don’t you take one of my VIP cards and eat at Club 33. It’s great.” This is a chance to do a favor for someone and show off your ownership of a normally invisible status symbol that money can’t buy. But now it’s gone.

Link:  

Disneyland Is the Latest Victim of Thin-Skinned 1-Percenters

Posted in alo, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Disneyland Is the Latest Victim of Thin-Skinned 1-Percenters

Torture Is Not a Hard Concept

by MarylouCiantar Posted on December 12, 2014

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Like all of us, I’ve had to spend the past several days listening to a procession of stony-faced men—some of them defiant, others obviously nervous—grimly trying to defend the indefensible, and I’m not sure how much more I can take. How hard is this, after all? Following 9/11, we created an extensive and cold-blooded program designed to inflict severe pain on prisoners in order to break them and get them to talk. That’s torture. It always has been, and even a ten-year-old recognizes that legalistic rationalizations about enemy combatants, “serious” physical injury, and organ failure are transparent sophistry. Of course we inflicted severe pain. Moderate pain would hardly induce anyone to talk, would it? And taking care not to leave permanent marks doesn’t mean it’s not torture, it just means you’re trying to make sure you don’t get caught.

Christ almighty. Either you think that state-sanctioned torture of prisoners is beyond the pale for a civilized country or you don’t. No cavils. No resorts to textual parsing. And no exceptions for “we were scared.” This isn’t a gray area. You can choose to stand with history’s torturers or you can choose to stand with human decency. Pick a side.

Link:

Torture Is Not a Hard Concept

Posted in FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Torture Is Not a Hard Concept