That’s what health care costs represent. Early in the debate about the dramatic changes being considered, Pres. Obama changed the title from “health care reform” to “health insurance reform.” I guess he didn’t want to suggest that doctors weren’t properly caring for their patients, and thought by villifying the insurance companies America would get behind him.

This has not really happened. Mostly because people cannot support something they just don’t understand. Multiple bills are flying all aroud. The latest one from Sen. Reid, which he hopes to pass including the so-called “public option,” is not even available until the Congressional Budget Office tells us what the cost will be, after which the Senate leaders probably will say the CBO was wrong. Forget that during the Bush Administration they constantly relied on the CBO to bash the then President’s plans.

I don’t know how I feel about all this. But I do know I’d like to have some time to have smart people outside of politics look at the proposed bill and tell us objectively what it contains, and, more importantly, what the implications are of what it contains. Insuring uninsured children is a good idea. Getting coverage regardless of your history is a good idea. Penalties if you refuse to buy health insurance? Not so sure. Obama says, well, we require everyone to have auto insurance, why not this? My response: you can choose not to have a car. And I am very, very concerned about the cost. I am also very, very concerned about the slippery slope it might put us on to full on socialized medicine, which in the past Obama says he supports (the so-called “single payor system”).

But I can’t really say anything until we see the whole enchilada. What do you think?

Pres. Obama is in New York right now for a couple of fundraisers. Last night in front of an audience that included some folks in the world of finance, he chided them to join him in his effort to implement financial industry reform rather than fight his efforts to do so, as many have been doing.

Ever since the first bailouts of Wall Street firms with billions of dollars in loans, the world of finance has been in the sights of the Obama administration. The alleged greed of these folks is a big part of what caused all the problems we are now facing, in particular with regard to predatory lending practices convincing people to buy houses with mortgages they could not afford whose interest rates reset to much higher levels. Ignore that it all started with the Clinton administration’s effort to dramatically lower the lending standards at Fannie and Freddie back in 1998, and that the Bush administration continued to support and fan this. It’s just this idea that everyone should have a home went a little too far.

But yes, some people took advantage. Yes some lenders were predatory. But does this mean that the head of Goldman Sachs shouldn’t have a nice pay package? It’s a bit of a stretch I think. There is, of course, a much broader question of executive compensation in general in the US, which is dramatically higher, as a percentage of profit, than in just about any other country.

But the market forces are what they are. It takes what it takes to get great talent to join a company at a senior level. Would it be better if execs took a hit when things are bad more than they usually do? Probably. But how to fix that? The good old democratic way. If shareholders think a board is not exercising proper judgment in pay packages, it can simply throw the board out. Is that not easy? It’s not. But it can be done.

Why just pick Wall Street? Aren’t there a bunch of bad people in a lot of industries (real estate, construction, entertainment just to name a few)? But don’t those same industries have lots of good people? For most people business is about making money, and that is the core of our capitalist system. Let’s hope the regulators don’t tweak it too much.

As you may have noticed here, I try to provide a balanced view of the issues of the day. Apparently the right wing have gone all a-twitter (can we even use that word anymore?) because the President is taking 18 hours to go to Copenhagen to pitch Chicago for the 2016 Olympics. His wife, “the closer,” has been there already charming the folks with her bare arms.

We are competing against Rio di Janiero (there has never been an Olympics in South America) and other cities. The conservatives say he should not waste his time on this and that there are bigger problems to solve. The President says, look, I’m going to sleep on the plane, land and give a speech. He does have that nice bedroom on his jumbo. Whether some of his wife’s hometown supporters exerted some pressure on Obama given their history, etc., does not matter. There are big problems in Chicago, but one can say that about probably any major US city.

Why does this matter to the economy? The last few Olympics held in the States all made money. But they have also engendered American pride. And the President can walk and chew gum at the same time. Yes some have rightly criticized him for trying to do too many big things at once. But this is a relatively small thing, and I can’t blame him for giving back to the city that literally made him. So let’s support him and hope we can get the Olympics back. Go BO!

Those of us who live or work in Manhattan secretly dread it. UN Week. Every year around this time an amazing thing happens as the leaders of virtually every world country descend on the Big Apple. The good, the bad, the ugly, everyone from the residents of the axis of evil to mild-mannered Luxembourg, from the snappiest of three-piece suits to the silkiest of robes and turbans. And of course the US President. Amazing yes, but the traffic. As my grandmother, rest her soul, used to say, “Oy!” I give the NYPD tremendous credit for how they handle it. They set up special lanes for the motorcades that have semi-minimal impact as they go through. But there are times you just sit there. For 45 minutes. For the President to pass through. Mr. Obama apologized to the residents of New York for the difficulties. Whatever your political leanings, this guy likes New York, and that’s good and bad. He’s been here for several days. George Bush? He would jet in and out same day. It was a big deal for the guy to stay over. But enough about traffic.

The intractable Mideast crisis was center stage this week, as it usually is during UN Week. Qaddafi annoying everyone by talking 90 minutes instead of his alloted 15, having the nerve to interfere with lunch. Some called it rambling and eccentric, others said it was detailed and in-depth.  Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad slightly softening his rhetoric and deciding not to mention his repeated assertion that the Holocaust did not happen and, oh yeah, Israel should be wiped off the map if at all possible, and oh yeah, we’re building nukes whether the rest of you guys like it or not. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu telling the delegates they should be ashamed for letting the other two guys in at all.

Where the Mideast problem goes a big chunk of the world economy goes. It’s mostly, well maybe almost all, about oil, for those of you who’ve been living under a rock. And yes, kind of a little about religion and ideology. A bunch of US Presidents have tried and failed to solve it, despite a few notable breakthroughs.  The moderate Arab states secretly are OK with Israel existing if both sides would just leave each other alone. But they do it secretly cause their whole oil cartel would fall apart if they upset the radical Arab states. And the moderates also know that any violence or nuking by the radicals also would destroy their trillion dollar enterprise because we would stop doing business with them and, well, maybe nuke them back.

So the good news is that no one has nuked each other, and the violence so far has been mostly limited to Israel and the Palestinians, not counting Iraq and Afghanistan for this purpose, although one can argue there is a connection. I am not an expert on this scene, I admit. But it seems to me that if Israel and Hamas can acknowledge each other’s right to exist in peace, and allow passage so that people of all faiths can visit their sacred sites, can’t that work? Israel should be able to defend its borders, and it’s not at all clear why they are required to give back land they rightfully possess. But if that’s what it takes to have a true, lasting peace, they should do it – the problem of course being once you give the land back, if things don’t work out violence continues and yet the land is gone. Unfortunately the Palestinians benefit in a way from the continued violence. Their Arab patrons keep giving them money and they can control their people more forcefully “in time of war.” Israel really does not benefit. Maybe we are close. Unfortunately I don’t think so, and the instability damages not only our psyche, but our ability to conduct commerce.

Some feel President Obama believes that only “big government” can solve the nation’s problems. Others think he’s only temporarily increasing its size to help the economy, and after all, George W. Bush is the one who sent the deficit above $1 trillion. And everything in between.

When I was in Washington in early February I saw it already. With the economy elsewhere in tatters, a ton of new construction was going on and there was clearly a feeling of economic revival of sorts. This is good for lots of people, but in particular lawyers. According to the ABA Journal online, the government needs to hire 270,000 lawyers. That’s a whole lot! The report also indicates that there are five other “mission critical” areas where a lot of hiring is coming, including the medical, law enforcement and technology fields. It’s not all about the stimulus, in many cases there is simply an aging government worker population and many are beginning to retire.

Even with so many lawyers out of work, the report suggests it may still be difficult for the government to lure lawyers away from much higher-paying private sector jobs. Given the resumes I see from talented attorneys without jobs, I think this may be the best hiring moment for the government in a long time.

It’s finally happened. When we started what was then known as Crisis Post, our hope from the beginning was to outgrow our name when the economy began to rebound. Frankly, in March 2009 when we started, it seemed like we would be Crisis Post for quite awhile indeed.

Well, I am pleased and relieved to officially change the name of my humble blog to Rebound Post.  Don’t worry, the old crisipost.com URL will still connect here. We will remain your source for information on the economy,  the President and his economic policies, Wall Street, scammers, reverse mergers and other alternatives to traditional IPOs, the legal industry, the world scene and just plain musings- now focused more on thoughts connected to the now recovering economy and stock market. I know it seems like an eclectic and disjointed set of topics. I pretty much don’t care as it is a list of things I am interested in and enjoy writing about. I hope you find some (or all!) areas of our focus that will strike you as kinda interesting.

As you may have discerned from my posts, I am a diehard optimist. Gets me in trouble sometimes as I too often believe good things are around the corner. In the last year that optimism has been tested for sure. In this process I would say I’ve evolved into more of a rational optimist. Hoping for good things always but realizing more than ever the reality that there are times that just ain’t so great after all.

I have appreciated all your support, your emails and welcome those who came from our sister blog, www.reversemergerblog.com. If you have any interest in considering a sponsorship of our site, with banner ads, etc., of course let me know!

Now let’s go economy……

Yesterday Fed chair Ben Bernancke said the recession is “very likely over.” Unfortunately, we usually don’t know the start or end dates of a recession until months after it actually occurs. But he warned that we will not feel like we are in recovery for awhile and that the rebound likely will be very slow.

Now some questions for the President: do we still need the rest of the stimulus? Might it be worth considering scaling back the stuff that doesn’t start until next year? Are we still worried about a “double dip” in which another mini-recession comes now before the real recovery? What about the government being in the car and bank business? Maybe Obama should set an outside date by which he intends to exit the government’s ownership, either with new funds raised to buy out the government or transitioning some of the invested money into loans vs. equity investments. How can the government regulate these huge industries and companies when it also owns them? This is going to become a difficult conflict at some point. And the TARP money loaned to so many companies? We should push harder to get more of that repaid, no?

While Washington and the news are busily distracted by Pres. Jimmy Carter suggesting that much of the opposition to Pres. Obama is racially driven, and by the Congress rebuking Rep. Joe Wilson’s inappropriately blurting out “you lie” to the President during his speech to Congress (even though the President had accused his critics, sitting before him, of lying multiple times during his speech), the deficit is ballooning out of control. We should have that discussion about race, but let’s also focus on where we want to be a year or two from now.

A year ago tomorrow, Lehman Brothers Holdings, Inc. filed for bankruptcy. That was a very scary day for all of us, but in particular those of us whose livelihoods are connected to Wall Street.

But a few days later, the rumor started. Goldman Sachs may not make it. There was a fear of a run on the brokerage firms. Similar whisperings about Morgan Stanley. Many felt that if this happened a cataclysmic collapse of our entire economic system could follow. I really started wondering if the US would simply cease to be able to function as an economy, and how we could have gotten to that point.

As I watch Pres. Obama on TV speaking right now about the financial system at Federal Hall in downtown Manhattan, I am remembering those few freak out days. Luckily, on September 21, both Goldman and Morgan Stanley agreed to be regulated as banks and this ensured they would not, in fact, collapse. Both have returned to profitability and this is good.

The President seems ready to roll out “reforms” of the financial system regulatory environment. He is not being greeted with great cheers from those sitting steps from Wall Street listening to him. He is giving them a little trip to the woodshed, claiming the free market is good, but the lack of regulation a year ago may well have been a major cause of the meltdown and the naysayers best come aboard with his plans.

Many of the wealthiest Wall Street leaders are Democrats. But they always strongly resist any left-leaning efforts to add more regulation to the financial system. But this time it looks like they are going to have to accept it, in some form. It is a shame that a group of fraudsters causes the entire sector, including the tons of legitimate players, to pay the price.

Happy 09-09-09 everyone. My father was an orthopedic surgeon who built his practice mostly in the 1950s and 1960s, before Medicare and Medicaid. He treated you without asking about your ability to pay. Those that paid made up for those that didn’t, and that was that. Did every doctor do that then? No. Did many? Yes. Would such an approach work today? Heck no. My Dad, rest his soul, got out of medicine in the late 1980s, a good time to quit.

So now something that has been debated since the days of Teddy Roosevelt hits another critical moment as B. Obama goes before a joint session of Congress to tell people why health care reform should be passed. Here’s the thing. Most everyone agrees that health care reform should be passed. Of course there’s no agreement on how to do it. Politics has, shockingly, gotten in the way. Without writing for seventy-seven paragraphs, how to do it?

I think those to the right have some good ideas, the most logical of which is – do it part by part. Most Americans, in hindsight, have questions about how the massive stimulus bill got passed and now probably regret parts of it. The items are, as we lawyers say, severable. Tackle uninsured children as one bill. Medicare waste and efficiency in another. Some form of insurance competition enhancement (if all can agree on this) in another. But rushing through multi-thousand page bills that are not read by those voting on them really doesn’t make sense. Maybe in a crisis like when the TARP or stimulus bills were passed, but this is not a crisis. We have time to do it right. Obama wants it done now. Why? So it doesn’t complicate next year’s mid-term Congressional elections. There’s no other reason it can’t be done carefully, with normal debate in committees, with members of the public having a right to have their voices heard in the process.

As mentioned in past posts, the President unfortunately has shown his political self in this process, with spin that most of us realize is less about what he feels in his heart but what he wants to achieve politically. And many feel he has done it badly. He has never made clear what exactly he wants and what is a dealbreaker. When you are in the Senate this cat and mouse game is the normal give and take of negotiating bills. When you are President you can be neither cat nor mouse, but need to be a lion. He has not shown his lion side yet.  Maybe that will be tonight….we shall see…

I took this past week off to spend some quality time with the family. It was great and in today’s world both fun and economical.

But what happened while I was gone! The market down 1% for the week (though it went up the last couple days). Unemployment hitting its highest rate since 1983, even though the rate of layoffs has slowed nicely. But it’s been a tough road. Almost 7 million jobs lost since December 2007, the official beginning of the recession. The Wall Street Journal seems to think that more jobs will start getting created next year, but probably not much before then. I love the Yogi Berra-type quote from the Vice President about this news: “Less bad is not good…that’s not how President Obama and I measure success.”

But the Journal makes clear the economy is “pulling out of the deepest downturn since the Great Depression.” But as we have mentioned many times, unemployment is a lagging indicator, so things may be getting better even while unemployment figures remain bad. Health care is growing. Retail and business service job losses were noticeably reduced. There is still sluggishness in the construction and manufacturing  areas. And yes, Wall Street is very much waking up.

So let’s start the new “school year” off well, with stronger confidence in what is to come. The health care debate, yes, will impact on everything economic. But it does seem that it will be difficult to pass something as sweeping as Obama initially thought. Watch this space, as they say. To all my American friends, a safe, happy and sunny Labor Day weekend.