October 5, 2008 – NewMexiKen

Best factoid of the day, so far

“[I]nsurers selling individual health plans spend 29 percent of the premiums they receive on administration, largely because they employ so many people to screen applicants. This compares with costs of 12 percent for group plans and just 3 percent for Medicare.”

Paul Krugman

Tough schedule

Number 5 Texas plays #1 Oklahoma, #2 Missouri, #17 Oklahoma State and #7 Texas Tech in the next four weeks. I’m wondering if anyone has ever played four ranked teams in four weeks before (and three of them top 7 teams).

Rankings from USA Today poll. Texas also plays #15 Kansas later in the season.

Ten Reasons I Hate the Balloon Fiesta

NewMexiKen likes the Balloon Fiesta and thinks it truly an event worth attending from time-to-time. That said, I still find ‘Burque Babble’s annual “Ten Reasons I Hate the Balloon Fiesta” amusing and point on. Here’s the 2008 Edition.

The original 2005 Edition.

It rained hard all night and both last night’s and this morning’s Balloon Fiesta events were cancelled. (About a 1/2-inch at Balloon Fiesta Park, more like an inch-and-a-half here at Casa NewMexiKen a thousand feet higher.) It was a very wet football game last night, but we held on until the fourth quarter, when very few were left at University Stadium. The Lobos won 24-0 and are now 3-3.

FDIC

The limit on insured accounts under the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) was raised to $250,000 by the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (which the President has signed). The increase is effective immediately but returns to $100,000 after December 31, 2009.

The increase applies to federal credit unions as well.

What Is Insured?
You are probably familiar with the traditional types of bank accounts – checking, savings, trust, certificates of deposit (CDs), and IRA retirement accounts – that are insured by the FDIC. Banks also may offer what is called a money market deposit account, which earns interest at a rate set by the bank and usually limits the customer to a certain number of transactions within a stated time period. All of these types of accounts generally are insured by the FDIC up to the legal limit of $250,000 and sometimes even more for special kinds of accounts or ownership categories.

FDIC-Insured

Checking Accounts (including money market deposit accounts)

Savings Accounts (including passbook accounts)

Certificates of Deposit

Not FDIC-Insured

Investments in mutual funds (stock, bond or money market mutual funds), whether purchased from a bank, brokerage or dealer

Annuities (underwritten by insurance companies, but sold at some banks)

Stocks, bonds, Treasury securities or other investment products, whether purchased through a bank or a broker/dealer

FDIC

Have some fun

Did you listen to the podcast mentioned in the previous post?

If not, do it.

Then you can watch this.

Was The Bailout Bill A Good Idea?

“‘And the more I report it, the more scared I have been,’ Davidson tells This American Life host Ira Glass as part of a one-hour special report on the last week of financial turmoil.”

I strongly urge you to take 12 minutes and listen to the exchange between Ira Glass and Adam Davidson about the bailout. It’s a down-to-earth review of what the bill does, what it should have done instead perhaps, and its importance.

Listen online or iTunes Podcast.

The last six minutes of the 18 minute podcast are interesting too, but the first 12 minutes are essential.

Do yourself the favor of listening. 12 minutes.

Worst President Ever

George Walker Bush is not a stupid or a bad man. But in his conduct as president, he behaved stupidly and badly. He was constrained by neither the standards of conduct common to the average professional nor the Constitution. This was not ignorance but a willful rejection on Bush’s part, in the service of streamlining White House decision-making, eliminating complexity, and shutting out dissenting voices. This insular mind-set was and is dangerous. Rigorous thinking and hard-won expertise are both very good things, and our government for the past eight years has routinely debased and mocked these virtues.

President Bush was unmoved by any arguments that challenged his assumptions. Debate was silenced, expertise was punished, and diversity of opinion was anathema, so much so that his political opponents–other earnest Americans who want the best for their country–were, to him and his men, the moral equivalent of the enemy. It is important to note just how different such conduct has been from the conduct of other presidents from both parties.

From a Ron Suskind piece in Esquire. He explains.

Day: October 5, 2008