Preventive Spending

I am a huge Consumer of the junk which Greg Mankiw and the Doctor discuss, but still think that We should introduce some practicality to the Issue. Preventive medicine has no proven verification, and no one discusses how many Days of Life will have been gained by the expenditure of any reasonable figure–say $100,000. I would comment I am biased against Medicine, especially Preventive, and contend it probably has a worse Record than Cosmetic Surgery in actually saving Lives. You don’t take your vehicle into an Auto shop when it creaks and groans if you are smart; you wait until it doesn’t move anymore. Doctors, Clinics, and Hospitals are better inducing Add-Ons than is even your local GM dealer. I estimate that a good 70% of all medical testing consists of simple Salad Dressing, and has a worse Record of Detection of medical ailments as does Passing Out in a crowded Elevator. One should recognize my sensible bias, where visitation of a Doctor has never relatively altered either my health, or my sense of contentment at paying that much for that little.

Ask me if I believe this Hype. The federal government is spending a huge amount to gain practically nothing. No one has actually kept their Jobs, no one has actually kept their Homes, no one has actually reduced the loan contractions from the financial world; but We did spend a trillion dollars extra to make sure the economic plungers of the Past did not lose their capital stake, or their ability to create such havoc again. Everyone else is paying more to get less, and are worrying about where they are going to get the Credit rating sufficient to borrow enough to maintain their Standard of Living. The federal government will be the next one to economically fail through loss of their own Credit rating, and We can call the next Downturn the Fed Fed Recession. I keep hoping that my lack of Preventive Medicine will allow me to avoid watching it.

I actually wrote the Above before I read this article, though no one is going to believe that. It is nice to witness Others are equally concerned with current economic practice as I am. What worries me is the fact that it will likely not make any difference. You have about one chance in 25 of getting Majority agreement in D.C. that Spending should be curbed in any specific area, and no one will breathe any utterance of dollar amounts of reduction; they all fearing Voter reaction to the loss of any benefit granted–no matter how absurd. The only thing which will stop Excessive Spending is enforced stipulation that all future Spending must be within the collection of Tax revenues from higher Taxation. The real truth of the financial crisis is that corrupt Spending practices of the Government bled across to the financial sector, who developed a belief that they would never have to pay their bills through the simple issuance of Credit Default Swaps–which never had to same excellent Credit rating as Treasuries. It is indicative of modern life, though, that the Credit rating of both are rapidly descending. lgl