Once again: it's not about ideology
February 25, 2010
– Comments (3)
The worst "reform" ever, all but given up for dead, is suddenly making a surprising comeback. As Republicans are quietly drinking champagne while making rabid protests in public, the Caps community again finds itself divided by the ideological lines. We again seem to be willing to debate the Evil Big Government vs. the Evil Big Business despite the fact that obamacare has been set up from the very beginning as a giant ripoff scheme having nothing to do with either Socialism or laissez faire.
When you see a stock, there is a hard way to analyze its investment potential and there is an easy way. You can explain why you think we are in a secular bull or in a secular bear market, why you believe the PEG ratio is high or low, and what PE multiple would be most appropriate for this company. Or you can simply notice that the CEO's name is Bernie Madoff, and stop your analysis there. It is clear that in this particular case your investment prospects do not depend on the usual financial metrics, market trends, or Elliott charts, but are entirely determined by the name of your CEO.
To form an opinion about obamacare, you don't need to debate whether government can run the system better than HMOs or whether HMOs can run it better than government. All you have to do it to notice that the particular government that proposed the bill is owned by HMOs lock, stock, and barrel, that under the plan we would spend an extra trillion dollars for the same number of operations/hospital visits as before, that it cannot be sold to consumers without prohibitive fines, and that HMO stocks are hovering near their 52-week maximums. What else do you need?
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