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Tuesday, July 31, 2012

The Only International Economic Policy That a Country Needs: "Mind Your Own Business and Set a Good Example."

The Only International Economic Policy That a Country Needs: "Mind Your Own Business and Set a Good Example."

The international economic scene is dominated by state interventions at all levels. Daily we read of disputes over exchange-rate manipulation, protectionist tariffs followed by retaliatory tariffs, highly regulated free-trade blocs that erect trade barriers to nonbloc nations, bilateral trade agreements, and more. For instance, Great Britain is a member of the European Union (EU) but not of the European Monetary Union (EMU), meaning that it abides by all the regulations and pays all the assessments to remain a member of the EU in order to trade freely with the other members of the 27-country EU. But it does not use the common currency, the euro, which is used by only 17 of the EU members. British industry chafes at the many seemingly meaningless and bizarre regulations that raise the cost of British goods just so Britain can trade freely within the EU. Some regulations are so onerous that some British manufactures will be put out of business. The pro-EU faction in Britain, such as the leadership of the three main parties — the Conservatives, Labour, and the Liberal Democrats — recognizes the damage but proposes to lobby for special exemptions on a case-by-case basis. The anti-EU faction, led by the United Kingdom Independent Party (UKIP), wants Britain out of the EU entirely, arguing that the cost of membership is too great and that the loss of sovereignty is unconstitutional. The same debate can be seen within every EU nation to some degree.

By now everyone is aware of the euro debt crisis — that is, that many members of the EMU are massively in debt. Lower borrowing costs and the ability of members to monetize their debts through the European Central Bank (ECB) by way of their captive national central banks created incentives that proved too powerful for governments to resist, so they embarked on profligate spending programs at the governmental level and enjoyed, briefly, a property boom that has come crashing down. Their way out of this mess is unclear. Some economists propose raising taxes and cutting programs, commonly called "austerity." Others have called for these countries to leave the EMU, reinstate their own national currencies, and devalue against the euro, supposedly to restore "competitiveness." Others have called for outright default on their euro-denominated debt.

The common assumption behind any discussion of these debates and crises is that a country cannot stand alone in the world and needs to negotiate trade and monetary terms with its trading partners, who may require the country to adopt measures that are antithetical to its interests. Is this really the case? Is it possible for a nation to free itself from all international agreements, manage its own currency as its sees fit, and trade robustly with the rest of the world?

No Country Can Harm Another Economically without That Country's Consent

In order to accept the wisdom of international noninterventionism in economic affairs, one must understand that no country (or bloc of countries, such as the EU) can harm another economically without that country's consent, meaning its tacit compliance. In other words, a country can adopt its own trading and currency policies and need not be influenced or harmed by the actions of any other country. But first of all, we need to understand the definition of "harm."

In his book No Harm: Ethical Principles for a Free Market, Dr. T. Patrick Burke explains that harm consists only in physical harm or the threat of physical harm. It is not characterized by discrimination or a demand for special trading terms. The most common example of real, physical harm is war. War destroys the assets of others. Likewise, blockades cause real harm, because the blockaded nation is threatened by the destruction of its outgoing or incoming goods. Because it does not choose to fight to break the blockade or is powerless to do so does not mean that it is not harmed. However, a refusal of one country to allow its citizens to trade with another — for example, the EU's recent restriction on its members that prevents them from importing Iranian oil does not harm Iran. An internal example would be for a person to refuse to trade with a local merchant, due to some personal disagreement. That merchant is not harmed by the trade that he does not enjoy. Dr. Burke explains that the victim of discrimination is left in the same position as before the act of discrimination and that no nation or individual can claim to be entitled to the trade of another.

In fact the discriminating nation or person causes himself some extra cost and, therefore, harms only himself. Consider that an individual most likely must travel farther and pay more for goods or purchase inferior goods that he refuses to buy from his local merchant with whom he is feuding. At the nation-state level the European Union harms its own citizens, for they must pay more for oil, buy inferior oil, or suffer some kind of inconvenience. Otherwise, why would they have purchased Iranian oil in the first place? One could even go so far as to say that the EU wages war against its own citizens and not against Iran, for, undoubtedly, there are police sanctions that the EU would employ against its members for violating the Iranian trade prohibition that must rest on the threat of violence.

Regulatory and Monetary Interventions Harm Only Those Who Impose Them

I will continue to use the EU case as illustrative of my thesis that a nation cannot be harmed except by its own consent. The EU has adopted many onerous regulations on trade in goods and services with which its members must comply as a condition of EU membership. The EU has erected trade barriers for many goods and services against non-EU members. For example, the EU prohibits the importation of most agricultural products from Africa. Either there is an outright prohibition against importing African foodstuffs or the African nations cannot comply with complex and onerous regulations such as the prohibition against genetically engineered food. A country that wishes to trade with the EU either complies with EU demands or must find buyers elsewhere.

This practice does not fall into the Burkean definition of harm as regards Africa. It does, though, constitute harm to citizens of the EU. African countries are left in the same position as before: remember, no one and no nation has an entitlement to the trade of others. But we must assume that the EU prohibits African foodstuffs because its citizens would have purchased them in the absence of the prohibition; otherwise, the prohibition would not be necessary. Therefore, the EU regulations or prohibitions against the importation of African foodstuffs harm only EU citizens themselves. The African nations are perfectly free to pursue sales elsewhere in the world, although it is true that their standard of living would have been higher without the EU regulations and prohibitions.

The same is true of currency interventions. The United States has complained for some time that China intervenes in its own currency markets to hold down the value of the yuan in order to increase export sales. The US position wrongly claims that it is harmed because domestic companies lose sales to cheaper Chinese goods. But this is wrong. Viewed from the standpoint of justice, domestic companies do not have an entitlement to domestic sales. And viewed from a practical standpoint, America enjoys an outright subsidy from China. China sells the United States goods below cost and causes its own citizens to suffer higher prices; that is, higher Chinese domestic prices are caused by its currency intervention that gives American importers more yuan than the free-market rate, which is based on purchasing-power parity. As I explained in a previous essay, currency interventions to spur exports are paid by the exporting country's own citizens in the form of higher domestic prices. Should America foolishly prohibit the importation of Chinese goods, either by quotas or tariffs, it would cause harm only to its own citizens, who would be forced to pay higher prices, in addition to other economic dislocations.

Conclusion

The only international economic policy that a country needs is to mind its own business and set a good example to the rest of the world. A just economic policy for a free and prosperous nation would be based on the twin pillars of unilateral free trade and nonintervention into its own markets. This means a complete elimination of domestic regulations that attempt to set quality and safety standards (for the market will do that by itself) and complete abdication of manufacture and management of money.

It does not need to join a trade bloc or negotiate trade terms with other nations. If a trade bloc such as the EU sets import standards different from one's own domestic standards, each exporting company can decide for itself if the rewards for meeting the importing bloc's standards warrant the extra cost. It is not an issue for the exporting nation's government to decide. Furthermore, the exporting nation does not have to concern itself about importing from a country or bloc of countries that refuses to accept the exporting nation's goods in return. After purchasing goods from the protectionist nation or bloc of nations, that nation's currency will find its way back into its economy in the form of export demand from some other nation that accepted the currency in payment for some other good or service or it will receive a capital investment. If the currency never finds its way back to the nation that adopted unilateral free trade and is held indefinitely in the coffers of some foreign bank or central bank, that nation has simply been on the receiving end of a gift. An analogy would be that of a friend or neighbor who sells you something and then never cashes your check.

Prosperous nations have always been great trading nations, for they benefit from the expansion of specialization to a wider and wider extent. Robust trade depends on freedom to trade with the world under mutually agreeable terms of those participating in the trade, not on governments. All trade, especially international trade, depends on an internationally accepted medium of exchange. The most accepted mediums of exchange throughout the world are gold and silver. This acceptance is not based on government coercion but on market acceptance. Those wise statesmen who wish to see their nations prosper will adopt unilateral free trade, laissez-faire capitalism, and sound money. International cooperation among governments is not required; the market (meaning the people) will do the rest.

Fuente:

Saludos
Rodrigo González Fernández
Diplomado en "Responsabilidad Social Empresarial" de la ONU
Diplomado en "Gestión del Conocimiento" de la ONU
Diplomado en Gerencia en Administracion Publica ONU
Diplomado en Coaching Ejecutivo ONU( 
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Monday, July 30, 2012

4 fundamental questions for business intelligence

4 fundamental questions for business intelligence

When setting up a business intelligence project, most people tend to start with systems, people and processes. It is very common to consider the 'hows' before the 'whys'. Taking a step back and asking some more fundamental questions may be more beneficial.

Cost
Any piece of information can be captured. Is it financially feasible to do so? Compare the costs to the anticipated benefits of acquiring the information. What people generally miss from a good cost benefit analysis is the cost of acquiring the money. This will depend on how your organisation is funded. If you have shareholders, the cost of acquiring money (dividend payments) is probably far more expensive than loaning from a bank (interest rates). But when you factor in financial acquisition costs, your benefit analysis may be far less than you thought. As new technologies become established, their cost comes down. Could you wait until this happens or are you losing a potential opportunity to gain an advantage over competitors?

Ethics
Is it ethically appropriate to collect the information? Do your customers or colleagues know you are capturing this information? Do they have a right to know? If they found out, what would their reaction be? What are the rules about this information? What are the regulatory obligations and constraints? 

Ownership
Who will own this new data? Ownership and accountability should be ascertained right at project inception. I guarantee that as soon as something has been built without an accountable owner agreed beforehand, your colleagues will head for the hills. If they can get something built without being held accountable, then they will. Without an accountable business owner, it becomes so much harder to get cooperation from the rest of the organisation when the data requires remediation. 

Access
This is like accountability, only the other way round. A new report or data set becomes available and EVERYONE wants access. Do they really need it? Is the information politically sensitive? Could the performance of other colleagues be derived from this information? What could be the repercussions of general circulation? How valuable would the insight be to an external company? How vulnerable is this data to theft?

Consider carefully before you start. There are inherent risks - both financial and human - to collecting new data that need to be carefully considered.
Fuente:

Saludos
Rodrigo González Fernández
Diplomado en "Responsabilidad Social Empresarial" de la ONU
Diplomado en "Gestión del Conocimiento" de la ONU
Diplomado en Gerencia en Administracion Publica ONU
Diplomado en Coaching Ejecutivo ONU( 
  • PUEDES LEERNOS EN FACEBOOK
 
 
 
 CEL: 93934521
Santiago- Chile
Soliciten nuestros cursos de capacitación  y consultoría en GERENCIA ADMINISTRACION PUBLICA -LIDERAZGO -  GESTION DEL CONOCIMIENTO - RESPONSABILIDAD SOCIAL EMPRESARIAL – LOBBY – COACHING EMPRESARIAL-ENERGIAS RENOVABLES   ,  asesorías a nivel nacional e  internacional y están disponibles  para OTEC Y OTIC en Chile

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

lawyerschile The Right to National Bankruptcy

The Right to National Bankruptcy

Mises Daily: Wednesday, July 18, 2012 by

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People like me who believe the government should play a less active role in subsidizing healthcare costs are often asked the question "Do you believe healthcare is a basic human right?"

While this is an important philosophical question to ponder, it often lends itself to unexamined answers and political demagoguery. The imprecise answer "yes" to this question by most governments around the world (including the United States) has served mainly to accelerate healthcare-cost growth and benefit the medical-industrial complex at the expense of the public. To appreciate this point, one must consider the reality of what having a right to healthcare, as it is presently understood, actually means, and then consider who wins.

Does it mean that someone in a motor-vehicle accident has a right to emergency surgery that could save his life?

Does it mean that a teenager with leukemia has a right to potentially life-saving treatment?

Does it mean that a 60-year-old experiencing a major heart attack has a right to emergent therapy?

Does it mean that this same 60-year-old, after the heart attack is over, has a right to a cardiac rehabilitation program, routine office visits with a cardiologist, routine lab work, routine studies to monitor cardiac function, and life-long medications to control blood pressure, cholesterol, and diabetes knowing that doing these things will not eliminate the risk of another event but rather reduce it by a few percentage points a year?

Does it mean that this same person, 12 years down the road, has a right to an implantable cardioverter defibrillator, cardiac resynchronization therapy, and a left ventricular assist device for destination therapy when he eventually develops end-stage heart failure?

The above examples highlight the difference between health emergencies, which would qualify as insurable events, and other scenarios that fall under the category of health maintenance related to the progression of chronic illness, which would not be properly insurable under any rational insurance scheme. As it currently stands, all of the above cases are covered under most private insurance (now a requirement with the new healthcare law) and all public insurance plans. The right to healthcare has become synonymous with the right to medical insurance that covers all health related expenses — that's a big economic problem.

Friedrich Hayek wrote,

There is no objective standard for judging how much care and effort are required in a particular case; also, as medicine advances, it becomes more and more clear that there is no limit to the amount that might profitably be spent in order to do all that is objectively possible. Moreover, it is also not true that, in our individual valuation, all that might yet be done to secure health and life has an absolute priority over other needs. As in all other decisions in which we have to deal not with certainties but with probabilities and chances, we constantly take risks and decide on the basis of economic considerations whether a particular precaution is worthwhile, i.e., by balancing the risk against other needs.

Many who push the idea that healthcare is a right strive to eliminate all personal economic considerations that ultimately affect how an individual would balance health risks against other needs. They believe one should not have to balance such things. They strive to eliminate the distinction between health emergencies, which are insurable events, and health maintenance, which cannot be properly insured against. They incorrectly believe that all healthcare decisions are a matter of life and death. This is a tremendous boon to the medical-industrial complex.

Those who strive to eliminate the economization of healthcare decisions believe they are saving people. They are not. Regardless of their intentions, they are simply accelerating healthcare-cost growth. The equation that medical care equals health is mostly incorrect.

Medical care actually plays a limited role in determining our state of health. Many studies support this. The most important was the RAND Health Insurance Experiment, a large 15-year study that examined how different levels of cost sharing, ranging from none to 95 percent, affected both the use of medical care and health outcomes.[1] The results showed that cost sharing consistently reduced spending because patients actually sought less treatment. Those who had free care spent an average of 50 percent more per person per year than those with the highest level of cost sharing. However, despite differences in treatment, cost sharing had no adverse health effects. There were no significant differences between those with free care and those with cost sharing on any major health outcomes (figure 1).

Figure 1[2]
Figure 1

What about the idea that as a society we should pay for health-maintenance services upstream to save on downstream healthcare costs? It sounds good but the data as presented above suggests the opposite — with few exceptions, paying for health maintenance upstream simply increases costs upstream without significantly impacting health downstream. This is true whether we are talking about primary or secondary prevention measures. In a previous article I wrote that

very few healthcare goods and services immediately impact whether an individual lives or dies and most of their benefits will go unnoticed. Instead, most of these goods and services, whether consumed in the inpatient or outpatient setting lower the medium or long-term risk of something or another by a few percentage points and in the end, we still die anyway. The value of this risk reduction is ultimately subjective.

This point cannot be emphasized enough.

Despite the above facts, benefit expansion continues unchecked, and this explains much of the extraordinary growth in healthcare costs over the last several decades (figure 2).

Figure 2[3]
Figure 2

The data from Kotlikoff and Hagist clearly demonstrate that healthcare-cost growth is a worldwide problem.[4] And as the figure further demonstrates, the bulk of this cost growth is attributable to benefit expansion to cover an ever-increasing amount of goods and services related to health maintenance. The real winner of this benefit expansion is the medical-industrial complex.

The cost growth we see in healthcare is clearly not the result of unfettered free markets. While many make the spurious claim that the United States enjoys a free-market healthcare system, they do not argue this for most of the other countries included in Kotlikoff's analysis.[5]

Therefore, the argument that extraordinary healthcare-cost growth in the United States results from the free market is easily disproven. Rather, it results from benefit expansion that is either directly subsidized by or regulated by the government just as in the other countries studied.

In fact, one of the main reasons America enjoys the highest healthcare costs per capita and the most excessive healthcare-cost growth is because we have the most generous healthcare entitlement in the world: Medicare.

Kotlikoff and Hagist analyzed the ratio of healthcare spending based on age group and found that for individuals 65 and older the United States significantly exceeds all the other countries (figure 3).

Figure 3[6]
Figure 3

As figure 3 demonstrates, Medicare is the most profligate entitlement program in the world. In a review of the literature, Levy and Meltzer identified three high-quality studies examining the Medicare population and the effect Medicare had on health outcomes. They found that "Medicare increases consumption of medical care and may modestly improve self-reported health but has no effect on mortality."[7] Finkelstein and McKnight used data from the 1960s to see whether geographic areas with lower insurance coverage rates prior to the enactment of Medicare experienced improvements in mortality following the enactment of Medicare relative to areas with higher pre-1965 coverage rates. They found that while hospital utilization and spending increased significantly, "In its first 10 years, the establishment of universal health insurance for the elderly had no discernible impact on their mortality."[8] These findings are consistent with those of the RAND health-insurance experiment and reinforce the notion that medical care plays a relatively limited role in one's overall health.

It should be clear from what has been outlined above that benefit expansion to include an ever-increasing and complex array of mostly nonemergent medical goods and services is responsible for the extraordinary healthcare-cost growth we see in the United States and around the world.

Now I would like to return to the question of rights. What exactly does the right to healthcare entail: only services that provide an immediate and tangible life-saving benefit? Should it also include those that have a significant and tangible impact on the quality of one's life? How about those services that can decrease one's risk of dying by 50 percent a year or 25 percent or 5 percent or 0.5 percent? What about services that cost $35,000 per quality-adjusted life year saved — or how about $250,000? Why not just anything even tangentially associated with one's health like having a higher salary, living in a bigger house, or driving a nicer car? As far as that goes, let us be reminded by Hayek, there is no limit. As a physician, I can attest to that.

To be clear, I do not believe healthcare is a right. I believe in the nonaggression principle and thus the provision of medical goods and services at the involuntary expense of someone else (and yes, taxes are involuntary unless you personally volunteer to pay them) is actually a rights violation. But I can accept a basic level of healthcare coverage as a condition or provision of democratic citizenship; however, it should be limited to true health emergencies. And even in the case of emergencies, therapies must be limited by some objective and well-defined formula such as cost per quality-adjusted life years saved cannot exceed X. Anything outside this scope should have to be paid for through personal savings or provided by charity. This must be the case if there is any chance to make such a provision economically feasible over the long run. It would also preserve the market function for the vast majority of medical goods and services making them more affordable and accessible for everyone.

In closing, I want to briefly discuss the recently upheld Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) and its implications for healthcare-cost growth in the United States. Its proponents professed two main intentions: (1) to insure the uninsured, and (2) to bend the healthcare cost curve down. While it will achieve the first objective, it will certainly exacerbate the problem of healthcare-cost growth — achieving the exact opposite of its stated intentions.

Keehan and colleagues, from the Actuary Office of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), recently published national healthcare spending projections through 2020. According to the authors,

In 2014, national health spending growth is expected to reach 8.3 percent when major coverage expansions from the Affordable Care Act of 2010 begin. The expanded Medicaid and private insurance coverage are expected to increase demand for health care significantly, particularly for prescription drugs and physician and clinical services.[9]

The findings from the Actuary Office enforce the ideas presented throughout this paper — that subsidizing medical care in the PPACA will significantly increase consumption and thus cost growth. This will come almost entirely from nonemergent services and administration costs, as figure 4 demonstrates. Even the "hospital-care" cost growth included in the figure will come from nonemergent hospitalizations for things such as "same-day" procedures, which are not life saving.

Figure 4[10]
Figure 4
*NHE = national health expenditure

Overall, the PPACA will not affect health outcomes, but it will increase healthcare costs for everyone. The only thing clear about the right to healthcare is that it is synonymous with the right to national bankruptcy.

Notes

[1] Joseph P. Newhouse and the Insurance Experiment Group. Free for All? Lessons from the RAND Health Experiment. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Laurence Kotlikoff and Christian Hagist. Who's Going Broke? Natl Bur Econ Res. Work Pap 11833.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Levy, H; Meltzer, D. The Impact of Health Insurance on Health. Annu. Rev. Public Health. 2008;2008:399–409.

[8] Finkelstein, A; McKnight R., "What Did Medicare Do (and Was It Worth It)?" (2005). Natl Bur Econ Res Work Pap 11609.

[9] Keehan SP, Sisko AM, Truffer CJ, et al., "National Health Spending Projections through 2020: Economic Recovery and Reform Drive Faster Spending Growth." Health Affairs, Aug;30(8):1594–605.

[10] Ibid.




Saludos
Rodrigo González Fernández
Diplomado en "Responsabilidad Social Empresarial" de la ONU
Diplomado en "Gestión del Conocimiento" de la ONU
Diplomado en Gerencia en Administracion Publica ONU
Diplomado en Coaching Ejecutivo ONU( 
  • PUEDES LEERNOS EN FACEBOOK
 
 
 
 CEL: 93934521
Santiago- Chile
Soliciten nuestros cursos de capacitación  y consultoría en GERENCIA ADMINISTRACION PUBLICA -LIDERAZGO -  GESTION DEL CONOCIMIENTO - RESPONSABILIDAD SOCIAL EMPRESARIAL – LOBBY – COACHING EMPRESARIAL-ENERGIAS RENOVABLES   ,  asesorías a nivel nacional e  internacional y están disponibles  para OTEC Y OTIC en Chile