“Federal Reserve policy makers said last Wednesday that the recession appeared to be hitting bottom. Among the end-is-near indicators was consumer spending, which they said had begun to stabilize.”
-NYT 16/09/09
Quite right.As joblessness increases or at least not showing signs of decreasing,spending will be less-less demand.At the same time, stimulating the economy with out clearly identifying the area for spending shall fuel inflation,for example spending on non essential goods.It is also also pertinent to note that spending anticipated income based on present needs or expenses, mostly avoidable, must be curbed.In other words, plastic money culture must slowly give way to good old system of spending ‘what you have less savings’. Unless this fundamental concept is adhered to, inflation shall lead to deflation and deflation to inflation, the cycle shall continue.High incentive for savings shall go a long way in bailing out economy.
Category: Economy
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China appears to retreat?
“The Chinese government dropped explosive espionage charges against executives of a foreign mining giant, the Anglo-Australian Rio Tinto, after a global corporate outcry. And on Thursday, the government said it had backed off another contentious plan to install censorship software on all new computers sold here.”
NYT 13/09/09There is always a sting and a string attached to whatever China does.China is not backing down, but waiting to pounce at an opportune moment.Though unpublished, the current China economic boom is not as much as it wants the world to believe in.At least in countries like US,Economy is open for every one to see and comment;unemployment is being critically discussed.In China except the Statisticians and the top echelons of the Central Comitte, no body knows anything about what exactly is taking place.When there is a protest due to cut back in jobs, it is labelled as rioting among ethnics and suppressed.China is back tracking because it needs West much more than West needs it.Time the West realizes that and apply economic pressure to bring China to acceptable form of behavior,political,human rights and economic.
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Health care-cost of Medicine.
As I see it the major cost factor is the cost of medicines.Pharma
companies must be asked to donate at least 1% of their turn over to
healthcare programme
http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/55847/
———————————————–
Cost of Medicine in Health Care
by Venkata Ramanan[Comment posted 2009-08-07 05:36:23]
Referring to Bob’s statement on cost of medicine in health care, I
furnish statistics here below.
“Of each dollar spent on health care in the United States 31% goes to
hospital care, 21% goes to physician services, 10% to pharmaceuticals,
8% to nursing homes, 7% to administrative costs, and 23% to all other
categories (diagnostic laboratory services, pharmacies, medical device
manufacturers, etc.[7] Reports on the percentage of costs that go to
profits varies from 25-30%.”
(Linkhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_the_United_States#Health_care_spending)GDP of USA is:GDP (purchasing power parity): $14.29 trillion (2008
est.) $14.11 trillion (2007) $13.83 trillion (2006)
GDP (official exchange rate): $14.33 trillion (2008 est.)(
source;http://flagcounter.com/factbook/us)One can see where the Dollar goes.Why do not the Hospitals,Physicians
,labs and the Pharma industry contribute?
other than pharma Industries,others could charge less or do pro bono
service.pharma, I still can contribute 1% of their Turn over.
Let’s see what Pharma companies make in terms of US $
The following is a list of the 20 largest pharmaceutical and biotech
companies ranked by healthcare revenue. Some companies (eg, Bayer,
Johnson and Johnson and Procter & Gamble) have additional revenue not
included here. The phrase Big Pharma is often used to refer to
companies with revenue in excess of $3 billion, and/or R&D expenditure
in excess of $500 million.
Revenue Rank 2008 Company Country Total Revenues (USD millions)
Healthcare R&D 2006 (USD millions) Net income/ (loss) 2006 (USD
millions) Employees 2006
1 Novartis Switzerland 53,324 7,125 11,053 138,000
2 Pfizer USA 48,371 7,599 19,337 122,200
3 Bayer Germany 44,200 1,791 6,450 106,200
4 GlaxoSmithKline United Kingdom 42,813 6,373 10,135 106,000
5 Johnson and Johnson USA 37,020 5,349 7,202 102,695
6 Sanofi-Aventis France 35,645 5,565 5,033 100,735
7 Hoffmann?La Roche Switzerland 33,547 5,258 7,318 100,289
8 AstraZeneca UK/Sweden 26,475 3,902 6,063 50,000+
9 Merck & Co. USA 22,636 4,783 4,434 74,372
10 Abbott Laboratories USA 22,476 2,255 1,717 66,800
11 Wyeth USA 20,351 3,109 4,197 66,663
12 Bristol-Myers Squibb USA 17,914 3,067 1,585 60,000
13 Eli Lilly and Company USA 15,691 3,129 2,663 50,060
14 Amgen USA 14,268 3,366 2,950 48,000
15 Boehringer Ingelheim Germany 13,284 1,977 2,163 43,000
16 Schering-Plough USA 10,594 2,188 1,057 41,500
17 Baxter International USA 10,378 614 1,397 38,428
18 Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Japan 10,284 1,620 2,870 15,000
19 Genentech USA 9,284 1,773 2,113 33,500
20 Procter & Gamble USA 8,964 n/a 10,340 29,258
Source: Top 50 Pharmaceutical Companies Charts & Lists, Med Ad News,
September 2007[21]
[edit]Market leaders in terms of sales
The top 15 pharmaceutical companies by 2008 sales are:[22]
[23]
Rank Company Sales ($m) Based/Headquartered in
1 Pfizer 43,363 US
2 GlaxoSmithKline 36,506 UK
3 Novartis 36,506 Switzerland
4 Sanofi-Aventis 35,642 France
5 AstraZeneca 32,516 UK/Sweden
6 Hoffmann?La Roche 30,336 Switzerland
7 Johnson & Johnson 29,425 US
8 Merck & Co. 26,191 US
9 Abbott 19,466 US
10 Eli Lilly and Company 19,140 US
11 Amgen 15,794 US
12 Wyeth 15,682 US
13 Teva 15,274 Israel
14 Bayer 15,660 Germany
15 Takeda 13,819 Japan
( source;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmaceutical_industry)
I think pharma companies can contribute.
http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/55847/)comment:
Health Care Budget
by Venkata Ramanan[Comment posted 2009-08-07 05:45:55]
I forgot to include Medicare budget in my comment.
‘national health spending totaling around $2.5 trillion in 2009, and
projected to grow to $4.4 trillion by
2018’,(http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/158463.php))
.14 trillion US $ is not a small amount in a budget of% 2.5 trillions. -
Present Economic System in US.
The fact that the style of Economy hitherto followed by the US (let us not go by names yet), has been found wanting in that the system is showing signs of problems it seems not capable of handling..There is slump in Demand,you announce fiscal stimulii. demand does not pick up,deflation starts.Lower profitability, loss, closure of companies, loss of jobs.From the economic one , the problem has become a social one(though both can not be separated).
The day when the Govt. decides to go in for stakes in Private enterprises, it no longer is called a free market economy.Ultimately, this is what free market economy has so far ignored-any economic accrual must ensure that there is distribution of it among the society.This has not been felt in the US till now.Now that the jobs are being lost, people are questioning even the salaries of CEOs , which was unthinkable till a few years ago, as people were convinvced that a man earns in commensuration with his skillset and hard work..When people lose jobs, for no known fault of theirs, they question the earnings of others in the system.That is how and why the present reaction in the society and that is how the problem has moved into the social realm.
Nor the Economic model pratised by USSR seems to have worked either.; the end results have been the same;USSR’s disintegrtation has this as a major reason ,because, they concentrated in distributing wealth instead of creating them, while in the US system, wealth was created without distributing.Both lead to social unrest.
The 30% undecided’s reflect the thinking that both freemarket and communist economic models have not been found to be delivering the goods.
India chose a midway-joint sector,where state participation was resorted to in core and essential services/goods, reasonable distribution of wealth was attempted..Priority was given to Agriculture, Manufacturing..This has helped the economy grow.Now India is slowly switching to US freemarket model,without abandoning distribution of wealth (under manageable proportions).As of now, this seems to be paying off..Nobody knows what is in store in the future.
Both free market Keynesian economic model and that of Marx and Engels have not delivered.Time to try new models to get out of the impasse. -
Charging for on line content browsing by Newspapers.
Life line of news paper is advertising and for certain measure price.But the price has to be affordable.Ad industry is slowly, but steadily shifting to on line, for print media that earning is blocked.The conception that on line does not cut into news paper reading does appear to be correct.At a personal level, I have switched over to on line because,I can skim through fast,select, and more important I can interact and air my views and Price factor plays a very minor role..So if the content is good and more interactive the contents, more will be my shift to online.This is from the Reader’s perspective.People who still think on line will not cut into print media are deluding themselves.When all said and done , bottom line of the enterprise is viability.The options are ,charge search engines for news,charge nominal fees from the reader per annum.After all, people do pay to watch porn, not withstanding free down loads,Why not for good journalism?The criteria is good, healthy and interactive content.
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