Policy

An Under Served Market

Dave Davis Policy, Uncategorized

Can you think of anything anywhere there are 36 ready and willing buyers for everyone offered and no one is doing much to meet the demand? Something there’s at least a 2 to 7-year wait? We couldn’t either. In a capitalist country, supply would simply rise to meet the demand. Unless it’s a short-range disruption, generally it’s the government doing something wrong (think Cuba or Venezuelan) and/or not providing the proper legal framework to allow markets to do their job.

So it is with the shortage of babies for adoption. Right now, more than 2 million couples are waiting in line to for a baby. Families waiting to be completed. How many more are too discouraged by the incredible gauntlet of our adoption system to even try, have dropped out or are looking elsewhere is unknown? If you are among the few not having a family member or friend that has gone through the adoption misadventure, go online to read the endless stories of woe. We feel for a much lower number of transgenders wanting to get on with their lives, but we ignore the stress these millions are going through for just wanting to have a family.

Even if you can’t get worked up over what these couples are going through, you just might be over the possibility of our declining national population. Countries with declining populations such as Japan or Russia are locked in very slow growth with less young people supporting an ever-growing aged population. This will only get increasingly untenable in the future. So how do we maintain or increase our working-age population down the road? We can allow much greater numbers of immigrants. This, however, is a great bone of contention between our two major parties with no resolution anywhere on the horizon.

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He Cant Be Serious

Dave Davis Commentary, Policy, Uncategorized

President Trump again has put a wide swath of the establishment types in a state of fear for another of our “venerable” institutions.  What could he be thinking?  Steven Moore and  horrors Herman Cain considered for the Federal Reserve Board?  Why they don’t even have a PHD among them. Worse he is playing politics with appointment by selecting people generally agreeing with him on economic policy.  They see the  Fed as a revered independent agency led by highly educated elites delivering stable money and full employment from on high.  Contamination with these two louts will taint this wonderful institution with mediocrity possibly leading to failure. We have trouble in River City.

Before everyone hyperventilates, remember we’re talking about the Federal Reserve.  You know, the people not having a clue the “Great Recession” was on the horizon.  The ones by keeping interest rates so low it forced people in need of returns worldwide to buy riskier instruments such as the Collaterized Mortgage Obligations containing the subprime mortgages. That rocked the world economy.  Even when they woke up, their answer was to buy trillions of dollars worth of debt with newly created money driving interest rates near zero.  The result was the slowest recovery ever recorded after any recession or depression.  This even with  Obama’s near trillion-dollar stimulus.  At best the Fed has a hit or miss record since its inception.  We warned of the continuing destabilization of  the economy if interest rates continue below normal in our post Free Capital to Finance “More” in our series “The long Journey to More.”  The Fed never seems to be aware of the bubbles it creates till they burst.

Tightening or loosening the money supply at the wrong time may actually have happened more often than they got it right. As Milton Friedman put it, “No major institution in the US has so poor a record of performance over so long a period as the Federal Reserve, yet so high a public reputation.”  And this was said before  its “Great Recession” failures.  It would seem this is an organization in clear need of fresh ideas to achieve positive performance.

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Pills Shouldn’t be Bitter

Dave Davis Commentary, Dave's Healthcare Plan, Policy, Uncategorized

High Drug prices have been the subject of endless news stories. Politicians are railing against greedy “Big Pharma.”  It is hardly surprising people ask , “what does Dave’s Plan do to control drug prices if anything?”  They note the subject isn’t specifically mentioned. That’s true , but only because medicine is an integral part of healthcare not something apart.  One of the basic tenets of”Dave’s Plan” is to make the vast majority of healthcare transactions for cash by individuals.  Today the incomprehensible 3rd party maze of  drug companies, pharmacy-benefit managers (PBMs), discounts, rebates and insurance companies have resulted in Americans in many cases are paying much more for patented and other drugs than they should.  Yet Americans also have the most access to the advanced and in many cases life saving drugs in the world which of course is the real meaning of medicine.  After all, leaches may be cheap but are hardly crest of the medical wave. So what is the best way to balance price and the best medicines.  Scott W. Atlas of the Hoover Institution writing in the Wall Street Journal asked “so how can policy makers bring drug prices down?  By empowering consumers not insurers  or other intermediaries.”  That is exactly what Dave’s Plan does by allowing transactions to be made at the first dollar for cash.

We know this works even today.  With deductibles getting ever higher, shopping around can mean real savings.  Use pricing apps such as GoodRX.com or RXSaver.  Shop online at Blink Health.com or HealthWarehouse.com. Rather than using your insurance, just asking what the drug price would be if you pay cash at the pharmacy might result in major savings. New rules allow pharmacists to quot e direct prices,but only if you ask. If cash does better in many cases now, imagine what the price pressure would be from virtually all Americans paying cash and looking for the best deal? Could Amazon, Walmart or new entrants ignore such a vast market? That would be the case under Dave’s Plan.

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Wrong Turns on Major Problems at Year end

Dave Davis Commentary, Dave's Healthcare Plan, Policy, Uncategorized

The news  late in the year seems to be filled with actions which if not handled well could lead to decades of  loss and danger.  Our confusion as to goals and relationships in the middle east highlighted by the Khashoggi murder, a Federal judge declaring Obama Care unconstitutional bringing healthcare front and center and the Harvard discrimination case shining light  on  discrimination against Asians all need close attention.

The dilemma posed by the apparent murder of  the Saudi Journalist
Jamal Khashoggi for the United States was all too predictable.  After all, in our posts SSSHHH! A MIDDLE EAST POLICY ON THE QT  and SSSHHH! MORE MIDDLE EAST POLICY ON THE QT  we warned committing completely to either the Sunni or Shia blocks in the Middle East was not in our interest.  What was in our interest was letting the Moslem civil war continue to exhaustion.  Neither side shares our values. Both operate in a different world of times gone by.  As we have pointed out, we have important interests in the Middle East, the survival of Israel, prevention of minority genocide, our relationship with the modernizing Kurds and the free flow of oil.  The ascendancy of either side in the Moslem civil war would continue and probably worsen the threat those interests.  While our present arrangement with the Kurds in Syria isn’t quite what we recommended, it shows what could be accomplished by a Kurdish connection. For a small (2,00+troops) contingent, we control nearly  a 1/3 of Syria ,blocking an Iranian land bridge to the Israeli border. This earns us a seat at the table over the future of Syria and by extension the middle east.  Many people have gained a measure of safety. All this is imperiled by the Trump administration. First by tying itself much to close to the Saudi crown prince strongly associates us with his odious policies.  We can back the Saudis against Iran without  condoning the actions of a medieval monarchy.  Instead, Trump wants an immediate withdrawal of all our troops in Syria. This would be disastrous to our now favorable position. It would stab the Kurds in the back and by extension expose minorities such as Christians and Yazidis to genocide by a reconstituted ISIS or other radical Moslems and bring Iran’s Shia coalition right to Israel’s border.  By giving a great victory to Putin, it could well encourage him in other dangerous adventures. This is the direct opposite of what we have advocated. If the administration continues down this road, it will not end well.

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To a More Thoughtful Future

Dave Davis Commentary, Policy, Uncategorized

As we approach the end of one year and the beginning of a new one, we hope to introduce a little logic, common sense and a different perspective in dealing with some of our pressing problems real or perceived. Reality however seems to be sorely lacking in so many important policy areas.  Take climate change for instance. Two threads emerged lately from the climate alarmists, we face a dire economic future because of climate change and it’s already too late to do anything about it.  The economic doom forecast is based on the Fourth National Climate assessment.  Its prediction of a reduced GDP in 2090 has been heralded in much of the press as leaving our children and grandchildren with a very gloomy future.  Worse, Steven Mufson the energy correspondent for the Washington Post tells us it’s already too late to do anything about it. To be a successful religion the Church of Mother Earth (Pacha Mama) it must give some hope of redemption, but no we’re doomed.  Redemption and hope for the future will have to be found elsewhere.  Luckily, there is actually reasons for hope.  The theoretical physicist Stevin Koonan, who served as Energy under Secretary in the Obama administration doing the math points out the worse case scenario in the Climate assessment the economy would only put us “two years behind where it would have been absent man-caused climate change.”  Put that way the worse case doesn’t sound all that bad.

Will we really experience the worse case?  Maybe, but it’s an ill wind that doesn’t blow any good.  While governments  much as Canute with the tides have failed to stop climate change, people are adapting on their own to the perceived future.  The Wall Street Journal reports due to a longer growing season farmers in Northern Manitoba, Canada    are switching from wheat to higher yielding corn and soybeans.  Good for them.  Now we want you to go to a globe and see how much of the world’s land mass is above and below the respective 56th parallels.  A map while favoring our point (especially a Mercator Projection) would have distortions.  Increasing arable land is a good thing.  Also what treasures of natural resources will now become recoverable at a reasonable cost?  What is under all that Greenland Ice?  Not only may we have more access to stuff the world needs but for Canada and Alaska and others we will have the long sought Northwest Passage to move it all to the World Markets.  Don’t believe the Passage exists, book one of the 10 Best Northwest Passage Cruises offered by Northwest Passage Cruises and Tours.

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