Forecasting

What Happened to Health Coverage Around 1980, What happened the Last Dozen Years and Why it Still Makes a Difference

December 12, 2011 Economics

Interesting chart (the second one) posted by Lane Kenworthy today and some interesting debates and here on when the US healthcare system performance began to look different from the rest of the world. Kenworthy’s chart depicts the relationship between health expenditures per capita and life expectancy. Here’s my contribution from a while back, while I […]

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Yes, Rockland County is in Trouble

December 9, 2011 Budget

Yesterday, after taking a quick look at the budget numbers and actions for 2012, I asked the question, is Rockland County (NY) in trouble? The answer is yes. This morning, the NYS Comptroller released the following (the emphases are mine): DiNAPOLI: POOR BUDGET PRACTICES HURTING ROCKLAND COUNTY County Has Incurred Large Debt and General Fund […]

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“We’re on a Roll”

December 2, 2011 Budget

How could, “we’re on a roll,” not be the quote of the day for budget geeks, especially in New York? Last night, New York Citizen One (formerly Albany Citizen One, but now renamed in honor of her expanding empire) attended the Audit & Finance Committee of the Albany County Legislature as they finalized their budget […]

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Effect of Debt Ceiling Compromise on Economic Forecasts

August 2, 2011 Economics

My working assumptions have been that any deal on the debt ceiling would impair an economic recovery. The estimates are now beginning to come in. Here’s Macroadvisors, Debt Ceiling Deal: Little Fiscal Drag in ’12, Big Risk in ’13. And here’s Brad DeLong’s response. We’ll add more as we find them.

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Amazon’s First Hire

June 15, 2011 Business

Not sure that this story is a perfect fit here, but it’s still a good one. From Geekwire, Meet Amazon.com’s first employee: Shel Kaphan. And this should certainly count as a quote of the day as he describes made the work fun at the beginning: One of the things that attracted me in the first […]

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