Tag Archives: markets

The Cruz Amendment

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Senator Ted Cruz (R, TX) has a provision in the latest Senate health bill that’s on offer, one that would allow sellers of actual health insurance to sell non-Obamacare compliant policies on the condition that they also sold Obamacare compliant plans on the ObamaMart.  The idea, and it’s a sound one, is that those plans, better tailored their customers’ needs, would soon have commensurately lower premiums, deductibles, and copays and thereby be more affordable.

Health plan sellers don’t like it, though.

While this setup could offer healthy people less expensive policies, insurers and actuaries say it would likely prove dysfunctional over time, pushing up rates and reducing offerings for people buying the compliant plans.

That’s a market decision, though; nothing in the provision or in the overall bill would require the plan sellers offer fewer compliant plans or at higher premiums.

Aside from that, those non-compliant plans would be better tailored—market forces would require it—have fewer items covered that a plan purchaser doesn’t want or need—market forces would push plan sellers to stop forcing contraceptive coverage on men and geriatrics or prostate cancer coverage onto women—and they would, as advertised, have much lower premiums, smaller deductibles, and lower copays.

They would also attract customers, low income and others, from those ObamaMart plans into the non-compliant market because those better tailored and cheaper plans would better suit their needs, too.

Maybe the health care coverage welfare plan providers—sorry, the health insurance companies—don’t want the noise of competition; maybe they prefer the steady, safe income of government subsidies in the form of customers trapped in their protected monopoly in the health “insurance” industry.  Maybe that’s why so many of these companies are leaving ObamaMarts, leaving folks with few plan choices or no plans to buy at all—because the industry as Obamacare has changed it is so sound.

On the other hand, the Progressive-Democrats in Congress should jump on this provision with both feet.  Obamacare plans are terrific, they insist.  Surely, in their wonderfulness, these plans would win resoundingly in the competition of the market place.  Especially with so many of those plans still subsidized through other provisions in the bill.  Wouldn’t they?

The PRC and Northern Korea

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The People’s Republic of China trade relations with northern Korea appear to be robust and growing, despite efforts by President Donald Trump to get PRC President Xi Jinping to do more to curb his dog.  Imports from northern Korea have actually fallen 13.2% in the first six months of this year compared to the first six months of last year, but exports have risen 29.1%, for a net increase in trade over 10%.

Huang Songping, representing the PRC’s customs agency, said

As neighbors, China and North Korea maintain normal business and trade exchanges[.]

That’s a pretty clear statement of how interested the PRC is in helping put an end to northern Korea’s nuclear weapons program, contra PRC chit chat and Trump’s efforts to use diplomatic measures involving the PRC to end to it.

Now it’s time to move on without the PRC’s involvement—other than expanded sanctions on PRC companies and persons who do business with the gangland.  Other measures, both diplomatic and military, do not need to include the PRC.

There’s a Hint

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This is the subhead on a Wall Street Journal article over the weekend:

New registrations of company’s vehicles dropped to zero from 2,939

This happened to Tesla’s electric car sales in Hong Kong, but it’s a lesson that’s universal.

Not a single newly purchased Tesla model was registered in Hong Kong in April, according to official data from the city’s Transportation Department analyzed by The Wall Street Journal.

The March sales figure was that 2,939, albeit the number is artificially high: it occurred after the subsidy’s end had been announced, but before the end was to take effect.  The drop to zero, though, is not at all artificial.

The reason for the collapse?  Hong Kong taxing authorities ended the tax break folks got for buying a “green” car.  It’s not just that side of the world:

Last year in Denmark, an incentive program expired and was replaced with a less generous one. New car-registrations for all-electric vehicles of all brands fell 70% in 2016 in the country to 1,373 vehicles, while across the European Union the number grew by 7% to 63,278 vehicles. In the first quarter of this year, only 48 all-electric vehicles were registered in Denmark.

In the rest of Europe, existing “incentive programs” were unchanged in the period.

Here’s the hint: if a technology can’t sell in a free market without government subsidy, it’s not ready for sale; it’s not economically viable.  Full stop.

In the US, the tax subsidy remains in place in the form of a $7,500 tax credit for each Tesla or other electric car bought.  Who do you suppose is actually paying those $7,500?  Anyone? Bueller?  Bueller?

Payback

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The European Union is pushing for it over Great Britain’s appalling effrontery in choosing to go out from the EU.

The European Union’s Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier on Thursday gave a stark warning to officials in London that the UK won’t have “frictionless trade” with the bloc after it leaves.

… Mr Barnier said that he isn’t sure that the EU position is “fully understood across the Channel.”

Barnier added

In practice, “no deal” would worsen the “lose-lose” situation which is bound to result from Brexit. And the UK would have more to lose than its partners[.]

Lose-lose.  And the Brits will lose more.  Barnier and his EU comrades will make sure of it.

You shouldn’t have voted to leave.  Pay up, sucka.  The rest of you in the EU, pay attention.  If you try to leave, we’ll make you pay, too.

An Area for Sales Increases

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We must be on the right track.  Now it’s time to push the pace.  The People’s Republic of China doesn’t want us to sell to the Republic of China the wherewithal to defend itself against aggression, not even the pittance that is the $1.4 billion arms deal that the Trump administration is contemplating.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang on Friday said Washington should immediately stop the sale to avoid harming relations with Beijing.

He said the deal would severely damage China’s sovereignty and security interests and runs contrary to Washington’s commitment to a “one-China” policy.

That’s risible.  Leaving aside whether good relations with the PRC should come at a cost as steep as meekly abandoning an ally and friend would be, what’s harming those relations is the PRC’s constant drumbeat of threat against the RoC; the PRC’s occupation of international waters and of islands that belong to the sovereign nations surrounding the South China Sea to the east, south, and west (although the RoC has conflicting claims to some of those islands); and the PRC’s aggressions against Japanese islands in the East China Sea.

Further, there’s no threat to any “one-China” policy.  There’s only one China on the Asian mainland, and there’s only one China on the island of Taiwan.  No one is arguing otherwise.

Our next step should be to help the RoC to upgrade their defense forces and equipage into something that truly can defend the nation.