On the market for health insurance, particularly the market for small-group or individually purchased insurance.Īfter months of hard work, for example, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners on Oct. These questions are germane as regulators are busy implementing the Affordable Care Act, which imposes a series of stringent new regulations How does competition work in the health insurance market? Do more competitors in a market area - say, a state - invariably mean a better deal for the insured? He has some financial interests in the health care field. Reinhardt is an economics professor at Princeton. the Treasury’s biggest sell-off of all - has proved particularly contentious in Washington this week. Where the taxpayers will come out on A.I.G. Life insurance business this month, in an initial public offering in Hong Kong, one of many interlocking steps that must be taken sold 58 percent of the stock of its biggest international The government has begun selling its stake in Citigroup, a process that could take until early next year to complete. General Motors, which got the most money from the government, is expected to begin a road show next week, to promote an initial public offering But the total could be better or worse, depending on how the market receives the stocks of General Motors, Citigroup and the American International Group. Most of the taxpayers’ losses will be concentrated in the Treasury’s housingįinance program and the auto companies. The Treasury has said it expects to lose about $29 billion on its many rescues, not counting Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which were put in conservatorships outside the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Will depend on how those stocks perform in coming months. The Treasury is in the process of selling its stakes in three of the companies that it spent the most money bailing out in 20, and much Taxpayers have an unusual reason to watch stock prices this fall. But given the trade war that ensued after similar sentiment reigned in the form of 1930’s Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, it seems unlikely that additional protectionism will get us out of this funk. It’s no wonder, then, that calls for protectionist measures have been so strong. “If we could figure out a way to shift consumption from imported good to domestically produced items, a whole bunch of our economic problems would be somewhat mitigated,” wrote Dan Greenhaus, theĬhief economic strategist at Miller Tabak and Company. Means net exports were a drag on the gross domestic product, and subtracted the second-largest amount from output since the mid-1980s. Exports increased last quarter by a 5 percent annual rate while imports rose 17.4 percent. Getting jobs, and therefore their income isn’t growing much, how can they reasonably be expected to spend much more?įinally, to the extent that consumers are spending more, it seems they are more attracted to foreign-made goods. That debt is likely to hold back additional spending.Īdditionally, job growth has been weak to nonexistent in recent months. That was the fastest consumption growth rate since the fourth quarter of 2006.īut there are reasons to worry that such fast-paced growth may not be sustainable.įor one, consumers are still buried under mountains of debt, and no one knows exactly how much more deleveraging households will have to go through before their debt levels become manageable. The fact that consumers spending last quarter increased at an annual rate of 2.6 percent can generally be seen as good news, considering that we need growth anywhere we can find it (and considering that theĮconomy is still consumer-driven). Economic output grew at an annual rate of 2 percent in the third quarter, largely driven by growth in consumer spending.
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