On Friday, the House of Representatives passed its climate change bill by a slim margin. The bill’s key feature is a cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gases. That system would set national emission limits and would require affected emitters to own permits (called allowances) to cover their emissions. The number one thing you should know about this [...]
Archive for June, 2009
Big Money in Cap-and-Trade
Posted in Auctions, Budget, Energy, Environment, Politics, Regulation, tagged Auction, Budget, Cap and Trade, CBO, Climate Change, Politics, Regulation, Taxes on June 30, 2009 | 9 Comments »
Paying for Health Reform III
Posted in Budget, Health, Politics, tagged Budget, Health, Politics on June 29, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Last week I published two posts expressing concern about how Congress might pay for proposed health reforms. The first post argued that policymakers should focus on the trajectory of new spending and offsets, not just the cumulative 10-year budget scores. The second post expressed concern that the offsets used to pay for health reform may [...]
Progress on Auctioning TARP Warrants
Posted in Auctions, Finance, tagged Bank of America, Banks, Budget, Chrysler, Citigroup, GM, TARP, Warrants on June 26, 2009 | 3 Comments »
Ten major banks repaid almost $70 billion to TARP in recent weeks. But they aren’t free from TARP just yet: Treasury still owns warrants to purchase their common stock. I’ve previously argued that Treasury ought to auction these warrants to the highest bidder. Auctions would (a) be transparent, (b) provide full, fair value to taxpayers, [...]
The Subsidies in TARP
Posted in Budget, Finance, tagged Auto, Bank of America, Budget, CBO, Chrysler, Citigroup, Finance, GM, Housing, TARP, Warrants on June 26, 2009 | 3 Comments »
How much is TARP costing American taxpayers? We know that Congress originally authorized up to $700 billion in TARP investments. And we know that $439 billion has been committed to various programs. But how much of that money are taxpayers likely to see again? And to what extent will they be compensated for making those [...]
Catherine Zeta-Jones & Consumer Finance
Posted in Behavioral Economics, Finance, Internet, Regulation, tagged Behavioral Economics, BillShrink, Catherine Zeta Jones, Finance, Regulation, T-Mobile on June 24, 2009 | 4 Comments »
Catherine Zeta-Jones has an important message for policymakers who want to help consumers make better financial decisions. Really. Let’s go to the video: I should emphasize that the message is not that economists are bow-tie-wearing geeks who should be sprayed with garden hoses. That may be true, but it isn’t CZJ’s message to policymakers. No, [...]
Health is an R&D Problem
Posted in Budget, Health, tagged Budget, Health, R&D on June 23, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Our health care system is notoriously inefficient. Spending is too high, while quality is too low. Some patients undergo expensive treatments that provide little or no benefit. At the same time, other patients don’t receive some inexpensive treatments that could materially improve their health. When I was CFO of a medical software start-up back in [...]
Paying for Health Reform II
Posted in Budget, Health, tagged Budget, CBO, Health, Politics on June 22, 2009 | 8 Comments »
Yesterday, I suggested that policymakers should take care in how they pay for any health reform. Paying for reform over the next ten years, which appears to be the consensus budgetary goal, is laudable but not enough. Policymakers should also make sure that reform doesn’t worsen the longer-run trajectory of our over-stretched federal budget. As [...]
Paying for Health Reform
Posted in Budget, Health, tagged Budget, CBO, Health, Politics on June 21, 2009 | 8 Comments »
Lawmakers want to be sure that health care reform — if it happens — won’t worsen the deficit over the next ten years. That’s laudable, but it’s not enough. There’s a risk that reform could be paid for over ten years, yet still worsen our long-run budget crisis. Policymakers should therefore focus on the long-run [...]
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