“God heals, and the doctor takes the fee.”
Can I Get Your Co-Payment? And Your Deductible and Co-insurance Fee? And Your First-Born Child?
The routine at the doctor’s office used to end by patients forking over the $20 or $35 co-pay at the receptionist’s desk. Weeks later, patients could expect a letter in the mail from their insurers, filled with inexplicable details regarding how much more the patient had to pay—10 percent of one set of charges, 50 percent of another, …
Life on the other side of cash for clunkers
From Zeit Online (clunky translation mine):
In Germany the government-promoted auto boom is gradually coming to an end. Thanks to cash for clunkers (Abwrackprämie) the number of new-car sales in July was, at 340,000 vehicles, still 30% higher than the previous year’s level, reported the Federal Motor Vehicle Office
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All Aboard the Freeloader Bus
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has proposed to make cross-town Manhattan buses free, but not necessarily because he wants to give riders a financial leg up. He’s worried about how slow the buses are. The theory is that if riders don’t have to fumble around for their MetroCards, the buses could “speed” along through cross-town traffic.
Are credit-card companies getting their groove back?
One of the nicer effects of the credit crunch has been less junk mail from card companies looking to sign you up. Is that trend ending? The good folks at Synovate, a firm that tracks who mails what, made this chart. There was a long, hard fall in the number of credit card offers going out—but that drop slowed substantially in the …
Salvage Grocery Stores: Who Cares About Sell-By Dates if You’re Saving Money?
Sell-by dates, schmell-by dates. The discount, or salvage, grocery store is filled with merchandise that’s marked with sell-by dates that came and passed sometime before the recession was called a recession. You know what? The food inside most super-packaged containers is still fine—and it’s often 50 percent cheaper than the stuff in …
It’s a Deal: Free Entrée Salad at Denny’s
To promote three new salads (cranberry pecan chicken salad, baja chicken salad, prime rib & bleu salad), Denny’s is offering them for free—with the purchase of another entrée and two beverages. The offer is valid through August 9, and a coupon is required. Print it here.
‘No Free Lunch’ vs. ‘The Price is Right’
Economist Dick Thaler has a new FT opinion piece that says nice things about (and quotes extensively from) The Myth of the Rational Market. (Thanks, Dick!) In it, he makes the case that the efficient market hypothesis consists of two main ideas, “No Free Lunch” and “The Price is Right,” that have met very different fates over the past …
Prices for Solar Panels Are No Longer Sky High
Is solar power in your future? The combo of new government tax credits and incentives and manufacturers dropping prices to entice customers in a down market means that it’s less expensive than ever to equip your home with solar panels. That doesn’t mean it’s cheap. That also doesn’t mean solar power makes sense in all homes and …
Cheapskate Wisdom from … Macy’s CEO Terry Lundgren
“The only way customers are going to start buying at full price again is when they can’t have their way on discounts.”
Alan Blinder still likes cash for clunkers, mostly
For my previous post on the economics of cash for clunkers, I tried to get Alan Blinder’s take—since the whole danged thing was his idea—but didn’t hear back from him on time. Now I’ve just gotten this e-mail from him:
I always thought that cash for clunkers would be an effective stimulus, but it seems to have exceeded expectations.
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The (confused) economics of cash for clunkers
It all began a year ago with a suggestion from a prominent economist. Wrote Princeton University’s Alan Blinder in the July 27, 2008 New York Times:
Economists and members of Congress are now on the prowl for new ways to stimulate spending in our dreary economy. Here’s my humble suggestion: “Cash for Clunkers,” the best stimulus
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