Nice fakeout there this morning.

Sick.

New podcast posted at http://radiofreewallstreet.fm

so the board will be quiet for the 40 minutes or so.

Looks that way.

I got off a pretty good real estate rant in the last 5 minutes or so.

"i'm dr. wally wahlberg, your participating walmart surgeon. could you please move over to the next aisle for your appendectomy? ah, you've a coupon , i see."

Read Wolfgang Reuter "German state owned banks on verge of Collapse"...

Always and forever Banksters and Stocksters (CRYBABIES!!) GAMBLING WITH OTHER PEOPLE' MONEY

beardrech

question: What crops to they raise on Schmuck farms????

answer: Yes, indeed , you are correct! Banksters and Stocksters

I wonder if we'll take a little trip back to see my little friend down around 1312ish

...kinda really quick

...like vicious little paper eating rabbits can!

Winter's Brazil America takes on new meaning.


Brazil Became Net Creditor for First Time in January (Update3)

By Guillermo Parra-Bernal and Lester Pimentel

Feb. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Brazil, the world's largest emerging-market debtor for decades, became a net foreign creditor for the first time in January.

International reserves, swelled by record exports of agricultural commodities, oil and investment inflows, probably exceeded gross foreign liabilities last month by about $4 billion, Banco Central do Brasil said today in a report.
----
``This is unheard of in the history of our economy,'' the Brasilia-based bank said.

Brazilian exports have tripled since President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva took office in 2003 because of increased world demand for soybeans, iron-ore, beef and cars. An accompanying surge in foreign direct investment, including stock and bond purchases by non-residents, led the currency to appreciate to its strongest level in more than eight years today. Brazil

Mish is a good read today.

It could be called the 'Demise of Frivilous shops'..

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/

WMT wants to Mexicanize their pharmacuetical business. They know walk-in care is prescription driven (Viagra, antibiotics, etc.) and having the doc right next to the trough is the way for them to go.

agree with your second sentence, peek; pharmacies traditionally have had a strong presence near doctors' offices. but i'm not sure what you meant by the first.

It sure felt like there was no liquidity today. Maybe I should have held my spy puts instead of cashing 'em. Bear market rules, sell the morning pop.

Walmart has an exceptional opportunity to provide basic health care to the working poor who already shop at their place.

I don't expect anything fancy. No brand name drugs, no latest technology treatments, no expensive regimens. The focus will probably be on basic care, generic drugs, and prevention. Stuff that should be routine, basic, and cheap, but is not because it's being forced to subsidize the cost of all that expensive other crap.

Someone's got to step up and make a distinction between basic health care vs. super-advanced treatment that every fat smoking Western slob thinks is his/her natural right.

The American Medical Association may probably fight them to defend their turf.

Somebody has go take a stand against this scam...

===============================

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120355185318681367.html

Drug Prices Surge Despite Criticisms On Campaign Trail

The pharmaceutical industry has been a frequent target in the current presidential campaign, but that hasn't stopped it from continuing to aggressively raise the prices of prescription drugs.

Pharmaceutical companies increased wholesale prices for the 50 top-selling branded drugs by an average of 7.82% in 2007, after increases of 6.73% and 6.22% in the previous two years, according to Delta Marketing Dynamics Inc., a health-care marketing research company. The most recent increase is almost double the overall U.S. economy's 4.1% annual inflation rate last year.

Log scale has the trendline as resistance

They started selling generic prescriptions for $4. That was step one. They are opening these mini clinics staffed by nurse practitioners, by the hundreds. That's step two. Care to guess what step three might be?

Our dysfunctional, grossly inefficient, and, paradoxically, immensely profitable health care delivery system has left itself open for a competitor like WalMart to come in and revolutionize how basic health care services are delivered. Whether that will progress to ownership of outpatient surgery clinics, hospitals, and testing facilities we'll just have to see.

I can remember that not so long ago we had a friendly independent neighborhood druggist in every little shopping center. Now where do we go to the pharmacist?

A lot of US cancer, chronic pain, even elderly patients get meds in Mexico. You need a scrip from a Mexican doctor, who is often conveniently located next to the pharmacy. Especially in border towns.

Increasingly, the provider is the middle man for what many patients really want: a pill. If the patient is actually ill, I doubt WalMart providers will be much of a help (IV's, CT scans, etc.).

I can't see WalMart choppers wanting too many people throwing up or coughing up goober hairballs during blue-light specials.

According to pre-clinton CPI formula inflation is running at 8%.


http://www.shadowstats.com/

They're just keeping up with real inflation. Only the things you don't really need aren't going up.

No, but I can see the possibility that they will get into the hospital management business. WalMart is in the business of driving down costs and being the lowest cost provider of goods and services. I see this as a logical extension of their current business. They are doing it one small step at a time, learning as they go.

I look forward to the day when WalMart steps up and smashes the Humanas and Cignas and United Health Cares, the Mercks and Pfizers of this world. The entire health care delivery system from drug companies, to insurance companies, hospitals, and yes, even doctors, has siphoned off too much of our hard earned money for too long.

Doctors who make millions off MRI clinics and other labs that they own and send their patients to are an outrage.

Medical lab fees are an outrage.

$120 for a 10 minute visit to a primary care physician is an outrage.

$35,000 for a 3 hours surgery?

Outrage.

Vital prescriptions that cost $150-$600 per month for chronic conditions?

Outrage.

$750 per month for a health insurance policy with an $11,000 deductible for a married couple in their 50s? Outrage.

A self employed person with high blood pressure and cholesterol controlled by medication who can't get insurance at all?

Outrage.

A vicious and ruthlessly efficient corporate predator like WalMart is the only entity big enough and strong enough to smash the system. Government certainly won't do it. It's in the pockets of the providers.

So if WalMart did make a move in this direction, I would be more than pleased to see it.

They still make far less than the overcompensated, juice slamming pituitary freaks in professional sports. I'll never understand why someone who can handle a leather-sheathed sphere with celerity and dexterity deserves to be paid 100 times more than a school teacher.

despite my jests, dr. joe3pack believes that if walmart can provide quality primary care at reasonable cost, all the more power to the box and its patients. in the end, a healthier general population will mean fewer hospitalizations for acute care--that's where the most serious resource drain lies.

as for walmart moving in on hospital care, that requires a whole different level of infrastructure and staffing and supply chains.

Tell us how you really feel.



These costs are outrageous, but I think it's naive to assume that it's all due to greed. A few items:

Pharmaceuticals. i think it sucks how they come up with a new drug that is only marginally better than the older one that went generic. But for some of their blockbuster drugs, don't they deserve to be compensated for the high amounts of R&D they put in? These businesses work with a high failure rate, and they rely on only a few drugs to fund the thousands of other compounds that fail.

Physicians. These saps get sucked into enormous amounts of debt, malpractice insurance, and endure slave wages in residency. To criticize doctors for making six figures in light of this is wrong. If you want to reduce the cost, you have to address malpractice and the absurd training programs they have to endure.

HMOs. Realistically, they are being asked to indirectly subsidize the cost of Medicare and Medicaid, which stiffs providers at loss. This then forces providers to cost shift to the private sector and individuals such as yourself.

The bottom line is that 1) people feel they have a right to sue when things go bad, and 2) we fund the research into these amazing new treatments without any iota as to whether it will be cost-effective to use.

Not too long ago, people DIED when they had TERMINAL ILLNESS. THEY DIDN'T TRY TO SCREW THE SYSTEM AND MILK IT FOR ALL THE ADVANCED TREATMENTS HOPING SOMEONE ELSE WOULD PAY FOR IT.

There is no free lunch, Lee. You seem to think there is.

Looks like the ES futures ramp at the close fizzled quickly ...

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An interesting interview with the gal who blew the whistle on C in dec.

More Write-Downs Ahead?
The Citigroup research of Meredith Whitney, executive director of CIBC World Markets, triggered a staggering global selloff, and now she's warning that banks could face additional write-downs of up to $70B if bond insurers are downgraded

http://www.Crapvision.com/id/15840232?video=659529306&play=1

I think Healthcare will be topic #1 if Hillary gets the nod.

I think Obama will be The One.

Has anyone thought about what will happen (socially) if Obama gets the nomination but doesn't get elected ?



if you were alive/aware inthe 60's, you'll probably need to start thinking about it ....

doc, you're on point about physicians who own their own labs and then refer their own patients there. however, medicare and medicaid programs already prohibit illegal referrals.

as for physician compensation, it's peanuts compared to what the insurance companies make. data from the late 1980s show that insurance companies skim 25 cents off of every healthcare dollar, and physicians receive only 12 cents out of said dollar; the current proportions might be even more, uh, disproportionate. many primary care physicians receive only chump change ($15-$30) for an office visit (compare that with an oh-so-necessary skin peeling procedure), with which they have to pay their staff, the rent, utilities, etc. the economics of primary care, which the gov and insurers treat as shit work, mean that physicians must spend very little time with their patients; PCPs have to hustle thru four to six patients per hour to pay the bills.

as a hospital doc, i'm salaried. no matter how busy or light my day, whether i stay hours late to care for really ill patients, i get paid the same. i can get extra pay by picking up an additional shift here or there, but i'm not compensated further by the procedures i perform or the complexity of the cases i see, and i frankly like it that way--it takes the possible element of greed out of the equation. (i've seen what greed does to fee-for-service docs.) i'd like to see salaries happen, at least to some degree, in other specialties.

let's see, where did i place my ticket to utopia. . . .

Can't wait for tomorrow.....Do we violate the magic 2250 zone?

[attachmentid=95873]

put a few coins in the SKF slot today.

I completely endorse the view that big pharma must make lots of money to finance R&D. That's why I think they should limit the amount they can squander in marketing.

"Big Pharma Spends More On Advertising Than Research And Development, Study Finds"

"A new study by two York University researchers estimates the U.S. pharmaceutical industry spends almost twice as much on promotion as it does on research and development, contrary to the industry’s claim."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/...80105140107.htm

Because millions of people are willing to spend cash money to watch them play (so they can vicariously experience the thrill of victory).

Nobody wants to watch a school teacher.

Unless she's hot like my 4th-grade teacher, she always wore miniskirts and white boots.....

I agree with you entirely. They blow a lot of money on doctor bribes (marketing), Plavix ads, and C-level bonuses. Then they stiff everyone for 7% inflation gains.

Subprime loans defaulting even before reamsets

It turns out that maSSive interest rate spikes aren't the problem -- many borrowers couldn't afford these mrotgouges even at the low, low, introductory interest rates.

In both 2006 and 2007, well over 40 percent of subprime borrowers were awarded mrotgouges with either little or no documentation of their ability to pay. With these so-called "liar loans," borrowers did not have to show proof of either earnings or aSSets.

Now they're being prosecuted. Borrowers who lied on their loan applications may face up to 10 years in federal aSS-pounding prison.

How the fornicateing hell do you know what the fornicate I am thinking. And who the fornicate said anything about a goddam free lunch.

What I wrote is what I meant. If WalMart came in and smashed the system, I wouldn't cry.

Don't put goddam words in my mouth. I am very careful to write exactly what I mean.

And if you think that these providers aren't ripping us the fornicate off, then go ahead and feel free to think it. I don't think, they are, I KNOW it. The drug companies charge a HELL of a lot less for their products everywhere else in the world than they do here. They get their ingredients from China forgodsakes. It costs them pennies. They pay their salespeople, mostly good looking young women, hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to schmooze the doctors. They send the doctors on juicy junkets to expensive vacation resorts on the pretext of "medical conferences."

They bribe doctors to prescribe their drugs with million dollar "research grants." They spend billions on useless advertising.

I am not complaining about doctors with 6 figure incomes. I am complaining about the ones with multi 7 figure incomes, and there are plenty of them, who get their income from labs and medical testing facilities which they own and send their own patients to.

IF you think the HMOs are subsidizing Medicare, you are just plain ignorant. Talk to your doctor some time about how little reimbursement they get from the insurance companies and HMOs and how long they take to pay, if they pay at all. Your doctor probably has a couple of people on staff whose sole function is just to argue with the insurance companies about their reimbursements.

So, please, don't insult my intelligence any further with these ridiculous arguments. Whatever your axe to grind on this is, don't grind it with me. I just won't have it.

Like I said, I wrote exactly what I meant, and it has nothing, NOTHING, to do with expecting a goddam free lunch. So, yeah, I think it has a lot to do with greed, corruption, and venal behavior. If you disagree with that fine, but please don't insult me again with the insinuation GARBAGE. I write what I think. You don't need to read any more into it than what's on the damn page.

I'm engaging in a healthy exchange of ideas. If that makes you uncomfortable or makes you engage in expletives, that's your problem. But I won't be intimidated by the tone of your arguments.

I think you clearly stated your point, which is that excess greed is at the root of all the problems with the current health system. I think some cost savings can be achieved from the elimination of "greed", but I don't engage in these diatribes where I try to demonize the other side as the main cause for the problems.

As for HMOs subsidizing Medicare, I think you are plain ignorant. Providers lose tons of money on treating Medicare/Medicaid, which has caused many of them to stop treating these people as patients. Other institutions that do take them, then cost shift their expenses to other parties - which would be private insurance or people like you.

People like you are screwed because you have no bargaining power that the HMOs or the large corporations that purchase those plans have. Is it uncomfortable to hear? Maybe, but it is what it is.

One more thing. Most medical costs are spent for people in the last nine months of their life. Much of these treatments are unaffordable not only to the people being treated, but society at large. Who is to pay for this?

For basic medical care that focuses on prevention, it shouldn't be that expensive by itself.

There you go again, projecting feelings that I simply don't have. I am not uncomfortable with HMOs having bargaining power that I don't. I am uncomfortable with them because they are THIEVES and scoundrels who are ripping us off.

You just don't get that. My argument is with you ASSUMING that I am thinking something beyond what I wrote. I said they are greedy bastards and thieves. My problem is not with you disagreeing with that. It is with the fact that you are imputing and attributing thoughts to me that I DO NOT have. Read what I wrote, and don't project my thoughts beyond that as if you know what I'm "really" thinking and feeling. What I am really thinking and feeling is right there on the page.

I think they are greedy bastards. I will stop projecting your thoughts.

My point is simply this: Tons of greed. Getting rid of greed will reduce the costs somewhat.

Main point is that the high costs of training physicians, malpractice, and the explosion of extremely expensive new treatments used by people in the terminal phase of their life are at the root of why health care costs are spiraling out of control.

Good! I glad we got that sorted out.



At the EOTWAWKI party, there are bound to be scuffles.

Just to explain or better yet provide a basis for the magnatude of how far out of wack this market has gotten with the FC that Doc and Russ talk about all the time:

Pull up a long term chart of the s&p going back to 1920 and put a price channel on it or a bollinger band on it.

Even with the pull back we have already experienced we are still outside the top of highest band.

Just let that sink in for minute.

This is how stretched this market has become.

Malpractice wouldn't cost so much if there wasn't so much malpractice.

[bell ringing]: Ding, ding, ding

Round 2

Do you have one of those you can show us?

*Now* yer torquin!!

What timeframe on the candles? I assume yearly?

Is that Ms Cummings by any chance?

I would have a real problem showing up at a Walmart clinic and explaining to a female nurse practitioner that I think I have male hormonal problems and that my chest hurts.

But I must say, since women shop more than men, it probably makes good sense to have clinics in a Walmart.

I kinda feel the same way now I did last year in the summer. Was wondering if my MGIC puts were going to expire worthless. It had coasted along a key support level, and the phuckers jacked it up to 68. Tuned it out.

A couple of months later, the thing plummeted down to 17. Not boasting or anything, but this trial by fire is just part of it.

Except now, things seem just so much worse.

Small caps IWM speculators don't appear to be in a shopping mood. I could swear it's rolling over below the 50dma

http://www.StockSharePublishing.com/ChartL..._1203644495.png

McClellan topped. It could be a real top this time, wadda think?

I'm not a lawyer, but I know people in several professions who have had malpractice suits filed against them. A doctor's suit usually involves some adverse outcome resulting in bodily harm. A lawyer's malpractice can result in jail - or a death sentence. Counselor's malpractice -> suicide, divorce, etc. All - usually - unintentional outcomes.

Those least liable seem to be those "professions" who actually profit off their client's misjudgment of risk (brokers, financial advisors , "predatory lenders", etc). It seems that off-loading risk absolves one of malpractice, even though the result is often intentional. Or at least seems that way.

Malpractice is tort. Malintent is civil/criminal. If both acts were lumped all into the same category, lets name it "The F**ked Up Result ", then there probably would be less of everything.

Thats it Shorty! Dems fightin words! I grew up 30 miles from Green Bay and you've insulted the Pack!Maybe we can be the warmup match to the Title Bout between Doc and Russ!

Doc you would think that you would be a little more appreciative of a health care system which allowed your mom or mother in law to survive her AAA. Your comments tonite have me flabbergasted. You dont have a phukin clue how the health care system works. Stick to the markets.