The Haiti and Chile earthquakes have had terrible repercussions in that hundreds of thousands of people have died and millions upon millions in property has been destroyed. Our hearts go out to all those affected by these earthquakes.  But to just understand the tragedy does no good if one does not address it.

The only way to address issues like this is to first fight the poverty in third world nations.  The 7.0 earthquake that hit Japan just days ago was not much better than the one that hit Haiti however the death toll was minuscule in comparison.  The reason? Poverty.  The building structures in Haiti and Chile are not earthquake resistible because the nation is having trouble even building enough houses for everyone (let alone fixing them to resist earthquakes).  If this poverty were properly addressed, then nations like Chile could then revise their priorities but until poverty is addressed and until the third world governments have enough money to pay for housing and food, they cannot pay to rebuild series of houses.  It is thus that in any effort to fight the impact of natural disasters like hurricanes and earthquakes inherently MUST begin with efforts to fight poverty.

While the Senate jobs bill has been panned for being so scaled back when compared to the house jobs bill, it will still likely save a good number of jobs.  The bill can essentially be broken into four main subsections:

1) Exempting employers from a SS tax if they hire unemployed workers 2) Funding highway and transit programs, essentially more short term infrastructure development 3) Tax cuts for businesses spending on capital purchases and 4) Help for states to fund more infrastructure programs.

The 15 billion dollar bill is clearly more decentralized than the 114 billion dollar house bill, but according to Reid it will save up to 1 million jobs.  We believe that these estimates are over-inflated and the number is closer to 750,000 over the next 4-5 months.  This sounds somewhat minuscule but if you look at the massive impact stimulus spending had on our employment picture, you’d recognize that this is quite good.   Read the rest of this entry »

While the president didn’t include the public option in his proposal for a final health insurance reform bill, the campaign to add it on through reconciliation with an amendment requiring 50 votes is still alive. The real question is, how possible is it that the public option is added, and how the process, not the option itself will impact health insurance companies.

The first thing we must look into is whether or not the democrats actually have the political will to try to pass a public option with 50 votes. While Reid has signaled support for pushing the public option through, the letter to him has began losing steam and the rate at which it has been garnering signatures has slowed. Nevertheless, both Chuck Schumer and Bob Menendez, 2 of the other 3 people in the Senate Democratic leadership have signed the letter urging a renewed push for the public option. All the same, finding 50 democrats for the public option in a reconciliation process will be hard and there seem to be only about 52-53 “gettable” votes. Ultimately, what you believe will happen with the public option proposal will be what directly impacts your view on how health insurance companies will be impacted. I personally tend to be slightly pessimistic about the plan’s chances, and believe the buzz will die after the health care summit, in which Obama will not give the public option the wholehearted endorsement it needs. The interesting thing about this, is how it will impact health insurance stocks.

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It was the one year birthday of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (the Stimulus Package) and the President touted its success one year in.  And despite what many on the far right claim, economists on both sides of the aisle would agree that it has saved plenty of jobs.  By looking at recovery.org’s archives and other estimates we have compiled estimates of how many jobs were saved at 5 different points since the act was passed.  Below is our estimates of how it has benefited the economy.  All I have to say is, thank god it passed because otherwise, we’d be at a 10.9 percent unemployment rate.