Bait and switch: How the “public option” was sold
It’s not a big surprise that the “public option” health care being pushed by Obama is not the one he promised in his campaign. My question: Why don’t we just have Medicare for all? If people don’t like it, they can always get private insurance (as they do in France).
Details Emerge of Atrocious CA Budget Deal
It’s still a mess. Click through to this Sacramento Bee story for details.
In other news …
Americans Repaying Debt Most Since ‘52 Spurs Savings
For the first time since Harry S. Truman was in the White House, Americans are paying back their debts, a phenomenon that just might help keep interest rates low as the Treasury sells a record $2 trillion of bonds and rising unemployment increases U.S. savings. While the proportion of consumers without jobs rose to 9.5 percent last month, household borrowing fell to 128 percent of the average family’s after-tax income in the first quarter from a record 133 percent a year earlier, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The total debt of individuals, nonfinancial companies and federal, state and local governments grew at a 4.3 percent pace at the start of the year, down from a peak of 9.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2005, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. estimated.
China Seeks to Lessen Its Reliance on US$ Through Aggressive Acquisition of Real Assets
From the Financial Times, hat-tip Jesse at Café Americain:
Beijing will use its foreign exchange reserves, the largest in the world, to support and accelerate overseas expansion and acquisitions by Chinese companies, Wen Jiabao, the country’s premier, said in comments published on Tuesday. “We should hasten the implementation of our ‘going out’ strategy and combine the utilisation of foreign exchange reserves with the ‘going out’ of our enterprises,” he told Chinese diplomats late on Monday.
Qu Hongbin, chief China economist at HSBC, said: “This is the first time we have heard an official articulation of this policy … to directly support corporations to buy offshore assets.” China’s outbound non-financial direct investment rose to $40.7bn last year from just $143m in 2002.
Oil Snaps Five Days of Gains as Industry Report Shows U.S. Supply Increase
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