In this edition we wake up to The Wall Street Journal. Which is sort of like waking up to a steaming mug of hot cocoa on a cold day, but without the steaming, or the cocoa, or the mug, or any of the associated good feelings, and with a lot more talk of markets. • Peter Orzsag: Health care costs will be the primary determinant of our budgetary future. Today, we spend 4 percent of our GDP on Medicaid and Medicare. By 2050, that's projected to rise to 20 percent. And the outlook in the private sector is the same, which will wreak havoc on incomes, businesses, and employment contracts. Bottom line: Get health costs under control, and our financial future is fine. Fail, and we go bust. This is the must-read of the day. • Alan Greenspan:: This is definitely your self-serving op-ed of the day. "Virtually overnight," writes Greenspan, "the seemingly insatiable desire for financial risk came to an abrupt halt as the price of risk unexpectedly surged." How "abrupt!" How "unexpected!" Who could've predicted this!? And if that wasn't enough, "the root of the current crisis, as I see it, lies back in the aftermath of the Cold War, when the economic ruin of the Soviet Bloc was exposed with the fall of the Berlin Wall." That's useful, because you actually have to go back to the end of the Cold War to find a time when Greenspan wasn't chairing the Federal Reserve, and so wasn't in a position to sate the desire for risk, or regulate the subprime market. For a longer exploration of Greenspan's role in all this, read Bob Kuttner's article, The Fed as Enabler. Merrill Matthews: The problem with health insurance is that it covers health problems. If, instead of having regulators force them to cover health problems, insurers could construct "coverage" plans that didn't cover health problems, but were still advertised as if they did, the health care system's problems would be solved! Safe to skip.
