Saturday Morning Cartoons
DB’s Medical Rants blog has a variety of entertaing medical cartoons. Enjoy!
EconBrowser – Jim Hamilton’s Blog
Jim Hamilton, one of my professors, has a great blog which analyzes current events from a macroeconomic point of view (Econbrowser.com). For instance, in the post “Just how implausible is a gasoline tax,” Hamilton reviews a NYT article which states that while 85% of Americans oppose a gas tax, 59% would support a gas tax…
Anne Frank House director weighs in on social insurance
Cornelius Suijk is a hero. His family was one of the many Dutch Gentiles who secretly housed Jews during World War II. After the war Mr. Suijk met with Otto Frank, Anne Frank’s father who lived in Switzerland. Mr. Frank and Mr. Suijk became friends and eventually Mr. Suijk was charged with heading the Anne…
H&R Block misfiles taxes?!?!?!
H&R Block, one of the largest tax services businesses in the United States, has incorrectly filed its taxes in 2003 and 2004. The tax error understated H&R Block’s tax liability by $32 million. Oh the irony!!! Check out the complete article in BusinessWeek (“H&R Block falls on 3Q results, tax issue“).
Center for Practical Health Reform’s take on High Deductible Health Plans (HDHP)
On The Health Care Blog, Brian Klepper of the Center for Practical Health Reform weighs in on his opinion on HDHP (“Can Consumerism Save Healthcare?“). A few of his major points: Imperfect Information still a problem: HDHP’s force consumers to absorb a portion of the health care cost and thus these individuals should shop for…
Alberta trying proposes a ‘Third Way’ in managing health care among resident
On February 15th, Health Care Economist reported on British Colombia‘s attempts to reforms its health care system. Now the Canadian province of Alberta is proposing its own reform as well. The CBC in “Alberta’s ‘Third Way’ could mean health-care showdown with Ottawa” reports that: Under the so-called ‘Third Way’ patients will be allowed to pay…
How are German Smokers and American Savers related?
Medpage Today recently released some statistics regarding the prevalence of smoking cessation among Germans with serious health diseases (“Smokers Can’t Say No in the Face of Serious Circulatory Disease“). “…the investigators found that among those with a single disorder, the proportion of current smokers among ever-smokers ranged from 29% for myocardial infarction to 44.4% for…
Sharp to prohibit physicians from seeing Non-Sharp patients
Sunday’s San Diego Union Tribune (“Doctors object to ultimatum on health care: Sharp wants every senior on one plan“) had an interesting article on Sharp’s decision to issue its physicians an ultimatum: either provides services exclusively for our patients or find work elsewhere. Let us look at this from a variety of perspectives. Sharp: Sharp…
‘A Wealth of Talent’: Complimentary article on UCSD’s Economics department
This Sunday, the San Diego Union Tribune (“A wealth of talent“) wrote a complimentary article regarding the ascendancy of UCSD’s Economics department into the elite strata of economics departments. Last year, U.S. News and World Report ranked the UCSD economics department #10 in the nation. As a graduate student in UCSD’s economics department, my ‘unbiased’ opinion is…
How to invest your money
Paul Merriman one of the few investment advisors I respect. His blog is full of useful information. His advice is simple: Invest in Index Funds. For an average investor, attempting to ‘beat the market’ or is a wasteful endeavor. Index funds diversify risk by allowing investors to hold a large variety of stocks while minimizing…