The Nation's Financial Condition

[a fan]

$3,000

Yoooooo, shop by me had a 15yr Pappy in a glass case. I'm going to let you guess what these dirt merchants were offering it for...

$1,699! What a fng joke. From call is 04-2015 I would get 2-3 paper bottles a year across the 10-23 spectrum. Can’t recall ever paying much more than $150 for any I know the whole bourbon rich tool thing last decade but that’s just absurd. I could buy a top shelf entrepreneur at the St Regis in Buckhead and a bottle of blue label for the same amount!

Some (some) of there liquor stores are REALLY regretting the across the board gauging they did over the last few years. Lost a TON of long time liquor buyers playing these games. And now many of them are on their way out of business.

https://www.cpr.org/2024/09/02/liquor-s ... ng-demand/

We did an event at the St. Regis Buckhead before Covid. Swanky.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Stop speculating about what I want & what my position is. I've told you multiple times.
I never claimed that Galera is cost effective YET.

Oh, I know.....you just did it in a roundabout way.....you want the .gov to step in and force insurers to carry an expensive test that is NOT cost effective.

You want your monopoly to bully Insurers, using the government as a tool to cheat the free market. All I'm doing it repeating what YOU told us you wanted. You want fat .gov contracts for a test that is plainly too expensive for private insurers.

I do not expect the govt or private insurers to cover the Galera test until it is FDA approved & proven effective, THEN govt & private insurers can negotiate a cost effective price with GRAL that makes it widely available.

You don't get it: why are you on here DEMANDING that the government FORCE insurers to carry what is clearly an overly-expensive test?

You're SUPPOSED to be for market forces, remember? Why are you insisting that the .gov get involved?

Lobbyists are necessary to make the case to govt......

Again, this shows you like big government just fine....so long as it lines your pockets.

If it doesn't? Then you're on here complaining about it. Remember your complaints about "throwing money at education"? That's because you already have your .gov education, so you don't care about proper spending levels anymore. And that's fine.

What you want is a "Selfish-ocracy", where the .gov is Old Salt's personal cash register, and it's plainly how you judge Federal Spending: if it lines your pockets, you think .gov is good. If it dares to help anyone else? You're on here complaining about Big Government.

And that's fine. It's why you are a Republican. Most of you think like this in 2024. But I'm not going to not point out this constant hypocrisy....and point it out politely.

You are a dishonest manipulator of my words & my position.

How many times do I need to restate my position that govt & private insurers should not cover the Galera test until it is FDA approved, mass produced & can be offered at a cost effective price for the general public, at all income levels.

IMHO -- the govt did not need to do anything other than stay the hell out of the way & allow ILMN to acquire GRAL, so ILMN could then conduct the tests to earn FDA approval & bring Galera to market in quantities that enable an affordable price.

Lobbyists are neeeded for protection from agenda driven drones like Khan & less capable competitors (like the EUro whiners) who helped sabotage the merger. I don't want the govt to do anything other than administer the FDA approval process. If Galera meets expectations & earns FDA approval, market forces will take care of the rest without govt meddling. Thanks to Khan's meddling, it's not yet assured that GRAL has the capital to secure FDA approval & increase production sufficiently to bring down the price to where it can be widely covered.

If Galera proves effective & mass production brings the price down, public pressure will force both govt & private insurers to cover it.
Only then may it need to be a mandated benefit if insurers refuse to cover it.

When I read this my first thought was that you didn’t know what you were talking about. Grail doesn’t need Illumina to run test. They have the IP not Illumina. Illumina’s value add would be in commercializing the drug once it became marketable. A lot of biotech deals take place during phase 3 in the hope that getting to market is imminent. As you pointed out, Illumina’s lobbying might is also valuable (as is its ability to foreclose on potential competitors). But the part about Illumina conducting tests is WRONG. Anyway, here is some news on Galera:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanc ... 1/fulltext

The Orphan Drug we were involved with was 95% effective…..the prescription costs was over $500,000 a year per patient. It was a life saving drug for sure.

[PizzaSnake]

$3,000

Yoooooo, shop by me had a 15yr Pappy in a glass case. I'm going to let you guess what these dirt merchants were offering it for...

$1,699! What a fng joke. From call is 04-2015 I would get 2-3 paper bottles a year across the 10-23 spectrum. Can’t recall ever paying much more than $150 for any I know the whole bourbon rich tool thing last decade but that’s just absurd. I could buy a top shelf entrepreneur at the St Regis in Buckhead and a bottle of blue label for the same amount!

Funny money supply is tightening up. This too shall pass.

Interesting how everything is corrupted by money.

https://virginiamercury.com/2022/07/13/ ... f-bourbon/

[Farfromgeneva]

$3,000

Yoooooo, shop by me had a 15yr Pappy in a glass case. I'm going to let you guess what these dirt merchants were offering it for...

$1,699! What a fng joke. From call is 04-2015 I would get 2-3 paper bottles a year across the 10-23 spectrum. Can’t recall ever paying much more than $150 for any I know the whole bourbon rich tool thing last decade but that’s just absurd. I could buy a top shelf entrepreneur at the St Regis in Buckhead and a bottle of blue label for the same amount!

Some (some) of there liquor stores are REALLY regretting the across the board gauging they did over the last few years. Lost a TON of long time liquor buyers playing these games. And now many of them are on their way out of business.

https://www.cpr.org/2024/09/02/liquor-s ... ng-demand/

We did an event at the St. Regis Buckhead before Covid. Swanky.

All those hot40yr old women in dinner gowns are “transactional” - at the St Regis

[youthathletics]

$3,000

Yoooooo, shop by me had a 15yr Pappy in a glass case. I'm going to let you guess what these dirt merchants were offering it for...

$1,699! What a fng joke. From call is 04-2015 I would get 2-3 paper bottles a year across the 10-23 spectrum. Can’t recall ever paying much more than $150 for any I know the whole bourbon rich tool thing last decade but that’s just absurd. I could buy a top shelf entrepreneur at the St Regis in Buckhead and a bottle of blue label for the same amount!

Some (some) of there liquor stores are REALLY regretting the across the board gauging they did over the last few years. Lost a TON of long time liquor buyers playing these games. And now many of them are on their way out of business.

https://www.cpr.org/2024/09/02/liquor-s ... ng-demand/

We did an event at the St. Regis Buckhead before Covid. Swanky.

All the Middle Easterns are buying the hell out of liquor stores in DC and MD. I am beginning to wonder if liquor stores are going to be the new Mattress Stores...which are always going out of business but seldom do; I have a sneaky suspicion they are mafia owned for laundering money.

[Farfromgeneva]

$3,000

Yoooooo, shop by me had a 15yr Pappy in a glass case. I'm going to let you guess what these dirt merchants were offering it for...

$1,699! What a fng joke. From call is 04-2015 I would get 2-3 paper bottles a year across the 10-23 spectrum. Can’t recall ever paying much more than $150 for any I know the whole bourbon rich tool thing last decade but that’s just absurd. I could buy a top shelf entrepreneur at the St Regis in Buckhead and a bottle of blue label for the same amount!

Funny money supply is tightening up. This too shall pass.

Interesting how everything is corrupted by money.

https://virginiamercury.com/2022/07/13/ ... f-bourbon/

I’m sure it’ll deflate my (my father) sports card and memorabilia collection value but that’s mostly an insurance issue for me. (I’m probably better off arbitraging the latency in repricing highly esoteric and illiquid assets (intangible or things like art or sports cards) with respect to insurance and forcing a high value “put” on the insurer and then buy the stuff in 24mo from bloodied divorced dads and whatnot).

[old salt]

Stop speculating about what I want & what my position is. I've told you multiple times.
I never claimed that Galera is cost effective YET.

Oh, I know.....you just did it in a roundabout way.....you want the .gov to step in and force insurers to carry an expensive test that is NOT cost effective.

You want your monopoly to bully Insurers, using the government as a tool to cheat the free market. All I'm doing it repeating what YOU told us you wanted. You want fat .gov contracts for a test that is plainly too expensive for private insurers.

I do not expect the govt or private insurers to cover the Galera test until it is FDA approved & proven effective, THEN govt & private insurers can negotiate a cost effective price with GRAL that makes it widely available.

You don't get it: why are you on here DEMANDING that the government FORCE insurers to carry what is clearly an overly-expensive test?

You're SUPPOSED to be for market forces, remember? Why are you insisting that the .gov get involved?

Lobbyists are necessary to make the case to govt......

Again, this shows you like big government just fine....so long as it lines your pockets.

If it doesn't? Then you're on here complaining about it. Remember your complaints about "throwing money at education"? That's because you already have your .gov education, so you don't care about proper spending levels anymore. And that's fine.

What you want is a "Selfish-ocracy", where the .gov is Old Salt's personal cash register, and it's plainly how you judge Federal Spending: if it lines your pockets, you think .gov is good. If it dares to help anyone else? You're on here complaining about Big Government.

And that's fine. It's why you are a Republican. Most of you think like this in 2024. But I'm not going to not point out this constant hypocrisy....and point it out politely.

You are a dishonest manipulator of my words & my position.

How many times do I need to restate my position that govt & private insurers should not cover the Galera test until it is FDA approved, mass produced & can be offered at a cost effective price for the general public, at all income levels.

IMHO -- the govt did not need to do anything other than stay the hell out of the way & allow ILMN to acquire GRAL, so ILMN could then conduct the tests to earn FDA approval & bring Galera to market in quantities that enable an affordable price.

Lobbyists are neeeded for protection from agenda driven drones like Khan & less capable competitors (like the EUro whiners) who helped sabotage the merger. I don't want the govt to do anything other than administer the FDA approval process. If Galera meets expectations & earns FDA approval, market forces will take care of the rest without govt meddling. Thanks to Khan's meddling, it's not yet assured that GRAL has the capital to secure FDA approval & increase production sufficiently to bring down the price to where it can be widely covered.

If Galera proves effective & mass production brings the price down, public pressure will force both govt & private insurers to cover it.
Only then may it need to be a mandated benefit if insurers refuse to cover it.

When I read this my first thought was that you didn’t know what you were talking about. Grail doesn’t need Illumina to run test. They have the IP not Illumina. Illumina’s value add would be in commercializing the drug once it became marketable. A lot of biotech deals take place during phase 3 in the hope that getting to market is imminent. As you pointed out, Illumina’s lobbying might is also valuable (as is its ability to foreclose on potential competitors). But the part about Illumina conducting tests is WRONG. Anyway, here is some news on Galera:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanc ... 1/fulltext

The Orphan Drug we were involved with was 95% effective…..the prescription costs was over $500,000 a year per patient. It was a life saving drug for sure.

Had the merger been approved, GRAL would have been absorbed into ILMN, so the study would have been done by ILMN, even if it was the same staff that had been with GRAL.

The Lancet article is sour grapes. They're prejudging the outcome. It may be cost effective to let the cancer go undetected & let the patients die younger. Just give 'em a pack of Camels & send 'em on their way.

I left an "l" out in spelling the Galleri test. Galera is a different bio-tech company.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Stop speculating about what I want & what my position is. I've told you multiple times.
I never claimed that Galera is cost effective YET.

Oh, I know.....you just did it in a roundabout way.....you want the .gov to step in and force insurers to carry an expensive test that is NOT cost effective.

You want your monopoly to bully Insurers, using the government as a tool to cheat the free market. All I'm doing it repeating what YOU told us you wanted. You want fat .gov contracts for a test that is plainly too expensive for private insurers.

I do not expect the govt or private insurers to cover the Galera test until it is FDA approved & proven effective, THEN govt & private insurers can negotiate a cost effective price with GRAL that makes it widely available.

You don't get it: why are you on here DEMANDING that the government FORCE insurers to carry what is clearly an overly-expensive test?

You're SUPPOSED to be for market forces, remember? Why are you insisting that the .gov get involved?

Lobbyists are necessary to make the case to govt......

Again, this shows you like big government just fine....so long as it lines your pockets.

If it doesn't? Then you're on here complaining about it. Remember your complaints about "throwing money at education"? That's because you already have your .gov education, so you don't care about proper spending levels anymore. And that's fine.

What you want is a "Selfish-ocracy", where the .gov is Old Salt's personal cash register, and it's plainly how you judge Federal Spending: if it lines your pockets, you think .gov is good. If it dares to help anyone else? You're on here complaining about Big Government.

And that's fine. It's why you are a Republican. Most of you think like this in 2024. But I'm not going to not point out this constant hypocrisy....and point it out politely.

You are a dishonest manipulator of my words & my position.

How many times do I need to restate my position that govt & private insurers should not cover the Galera test until it is FDA approved, mass produced & can be offered at a cost effective price for the general public, at all income levels.

IMHO -- the govt did not need to do anything other than stay the hell out of the way & allow ILMN to acquire GRAL, so ILMN could then conduct the tests to earn FDA approval & bring Galera to market in quantities that enable an affordable price.

Lobbyists are neeeded for protection from agenda driven drones like Khan & less capable competitors (like the EUro whiners) who helped sabotage the merger. I don't want the govt to do anything other than administer the FDA approval process. If Galera meets expectations & earns FDA approval, market forces will take care of the rest without govt meddling. Thanks to Khan's meddling, it's not yet assured that GRAL has the capital to secure FDA approval & increase production sufficiently to bring down the price to where it can be widely covered.

If Galera proves effective & mass production brings the price down, public pressure will force both govt & private insurers to cover it.
Only then may it need to be a mandated benefit if insurers refuse to cover it.

When I read this my first thought was that you didn’t know what you were talking about. Grail doesn’t need Illumina to run test. They have the IP not Illumina. Illumina’s value add would be in commercializing the drug once it became marketable. A lot of biotech deals take place during phase 3 in the hope that getting to market is imminent. As you pointed out, Illumina’s lobbying might is also valuable (as is its ability to foreclose on potential competitors). But the part about Illumina conducting tests is WRONG. Anyway, here is some news on Galera:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanc ... 1/fulltext

The Orphan Drug we were involved with was 95% effective…..the prescription costs was over $500,000 a year per patient. It was a life saving drug for sure.

Had the merger been approved, GRAL would have been absorbed into ILMN, so the study would have been done by ILMN, even if it was the same staff that had been with GRAL.

The Lancet article is sour grapes. They're prejudging the outcome. It may be cost effective to let the cancer go undetected & let the patients die younger. Just give 'em a pack of Camels & send 'em on their way.

I left an "l" out in spelling the Galleri test. Galera is a different bio-tech company.

Grail would have operated as a division with a capital allocation from the parent as it saw fit. Grail would have continued to conduct research as it is doing now. Who has sour grapes at Lancet? You are the only person around here with his lips drawn in like a sphincter because of sour grapes.

[Farfromgeneva]

Yeah I don’t get his argument at all it isn’t logical or accurate. Just Peter Browinint it now.

[a fan]

Yeah I don’t get his argument at all it isn’t logical or accurate. Just Peter Browinint it now.

OS wants the .gov to line his pockets by FORCING insurers to carry an overly expensive cancer test, and can't fathom why his fellow forum taxpayers don't want to get fleeced by a monopoly......all so he can be even richer than he already is. Oh, and he's in total denial that that's what he wants, even though (hilariously) he put it in writing that this is what he, in fact, wants.

That's the summary.

[Farfromgeneva]

Yeah I don’t get his argument at all it isn’t logical or accurate. Just Peter Browinint it now.

OS wants the .gov to line his pockets by FORCING insurers to carry an overly expensive cancer test, and can't fathom why his fellow forum taxpayers don't want to get fleeced by a monopoly......all so he can be even richer than he already is. Oh, and he's in total denial that that's what he wants, even though (hilariously) he put it in writing that this is what he, in fact, wants.

That's the summary.

I love me some heads I win tails you lose games!

[a fan]

Yeah I don’t get his argument at all it isn’t logical or accurate. Just Peter Browinint it now.

OS wants the .gov to line his pockets by FORCING insurers to carry an overly expensive cancer test, and can't fathom why his fellow forum taxpayers don't want to get fleeced by a monopoly......all so he can be even richer than he already is. Oh, and he's in total denial that that's what he wants, even though (hilariously) he put it in writing that this is what he, in fact, wants.

That's the summary.

I love me some heads I win tails you lose games!

Welcome to the 2024 Republican party: when it's fine to enjoy Big Government if it lines your own pockets, but if "someone else" gets one penny from the .gov? Oh, that's a handout.

They're all like this.

[Typical Lax Dad]

A half-century ago, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. addressed the stilted rhetoric used use to talk about public spending to promote the social good:

Whenever the government provides opportunities in privileges for white people and rich people they call it “subsidized” when they do it for Negro and poor people they call it “welfare.” The fact that is the everybody in this country lives on welfare. Suburbia was built with federally subsidized credit. And highways that take our white brothers out to the suburbs were built with federally subsidized money to the tune of 90 percent. Everybody is on welfare in this country. The problem is that we all to often have socialism for the rich and rugged free enterprise capitalism for the poor. That’s the problem.

“The Minister to the Valley,” February 23, 1968, From the archives of the SCLC.*





At City Observatory, we can add nothing to the eloquence of his analysis. What we can do, in our fashion, is to simply add two data points that confirm that, fifty years later, too little has changed in this regard.

Today, the federal government spends nearly a quarter of a trillion dollars on housing subsidies each year, in the form of tax breaks for mortgage interest, property taxes, capital gains, and the exclusion of imputed rental income. Nearly all of the value of this goes to the nation’s highest income households. Meanwhile, only about 20 percent of low income households eligible for rent subsidies get anything from a chronically under-funded voucher program.

Over the past decade, Congress has repeatedly bailed out the Highway Trust Fund with general fund monies, to the tune of $140 billion. We continue to build new highways, chiefly for the benefit of those who own cars and live in suburbs, while transit systems that provide critical access to the poor are falling apart.

The problems that Dr. King spoke to then are still with us today. His words are an inspiration to our continued efforts to redress these inequities and build a fairer, more just world.

[a fan]

A half-century ago, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. addressed the stilted rhetoric used use to talk about public spending to promote the social good:

Whenever the government provides opportunities in privileges for white people and rich people they call it “subsidized” when they do it for Negro and poor people they call it “welfare.” The fact that is the everybody in this country lives on welfare. Suburbia was built with federally subsidized credit. And highways that take our white brothers out to the suburbs were built with federally subsidized money to the tune of 90 percent. Everybody is on welfare in this country. The problem is that we all to often have socialism for the rich and rugged free enterprise capitalism for the poor. That’s the problem.

“The Minister to the Valley,” February 23, 1968, From the archives of the SCLC.*





At City Observatory, we can add nothing to the eloquence of his analysis. What we can do, in our fashion, is to simply add two data points that confirm that, fifty years later, too little has changed in this regard.

Today, the federal government spends nearly a quarter of a trillion dollars on housing subsidies each year, in the form of tax breaks for mortgage interest, property taxes, capital gains, and the exclusion of imputed rental income. Nearly all of the value of this goes to the nation’s highest income households. Meanwhile, only about 20 percent of low income households eligible for rent subsidies get anything from a chronically under-funded voucher program.

Over the past decade, Congress has repeatedly bailed out the Highway Trust Fund with general fund monies, to the tune of $140 billion. We continue to build new highways, chiefly for the benefit of those who own cars and live in suburbs, while transit systems that provide critical access to the poor are falling apart.

The problems that Dr. King spoke to then are still with us today. His words are an inspiration to our continued efforts to redress these inequities and build a fairer, more just world.

Yep. Ask OS about where he thinks roads come from. in his mind, public roads fall from the sky, and railroads are a commie plot.

I've seen this same broken logic from Republicans over and over and over. And when you point out how utterly hypocritical and full of sh(t they are, they get REAL mad at you.

Best part? At no point do they want to cut government services that they enjoy. It's ALWAYS programs that (gasp! horrors!) help someone besides themselves.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Economics 101:

A country can also adopt a beggar-thy-neighbor stance by deliberately turning the terms of trade in its favor through the imposition of an optimum tariff or through currency manipulation. In his economics textbook, Dominick Salvatore defines an optimum tariff as

that rate of tariff that maximizes the net benefit resulting from the improvement in the nation’s terms of trade against the negative effect resulting from reduction in the volume of trade. . . . As the terms of trade of the nation imposing the tariff improve, those of the trade partner deteriorate, since they are the inverse. . . . Facing both a lower volume of trade and deteriorating terms of trade, the trade partner’s welfare definitely declines. As a result, the trade partner is likely to retaliate. . . . Note that even when the trade partner does not retaliate when one nation imposes the optimum tariff, the gains of the tariff-imposing nation are less than the losses of the trade partner, so that the world as a whole is worse off than under free trade. It is in this sense that free trade maximizes world welfare.[9]

If both countries play this game, both will be worse off.

[OCanada]

Truth.

I do not think the optimum tariff includes a calculation for price increases or a substitution/replacement action. Is that correct.

In the event the tariff effect Trump is touting is not going to happen. It will fall fsr short of producing the revenue he is claiming. Like his tax cut failure

[Seacoaster(1)]

Dow up to 41,000+, up 363 points today. All that “Marxist Communist Fascism” from Harris has spooked the markets.

[FannOLax]

And when has the market tanked? In 2008, when the Bush/Cheney administration brought about the "Great Recession;" in 2020, during the early Covid days when Tronald Dump was Prresident; and in 1988, during Reagan-Bush years. I guess we could also mention Herbert Hoover, who was a Republican. Yep, Republicans have quite a record of wealth destruction.

[get it to x]

And when has the market tanked? In 2008, when the Bush/Cheney administration brought about the "Great Recession;" in 2020, during the early Covid days when Tronald Dump was Prresident; and in 1988, during Reagan-Bush years. I guess we could also mention Herbert Hoover, who was a Republican. Yep, Republicans have quite a record of wealth destruction.

2008-10 was sparked by the sub-prime mortgage crisis. I don't think lending people significant money who would not ordinarily qualify was good for them or for underpinning our financial foundation. Both political parties had their pom-poms cheering for this debacle. Experts? In calamity maybe???

[a fan]

And when has the market tanked? In 2008, when the Bush/Cheney administration brought about the "Great Recession;" in 2020, during the early Covid days when Tronald Dump was Prresident; and in 1988, during Reagan-Bush years. I guess we could also mention Herbert Hoover, who was a Republican. Yep, Republicans have quite a record of wealth destruction.

2008-10 was sparked by the sub-prime mortgage crisis. I don't think lending people significant money who would not ordinarily qualify was good for them or for underpinning our financial foundation. Both political parties had their pom-poms cheering for this debacle.

You're certainly right that both parties cheered on home ownership.

But it was the idiots in finance who though that they could derivative/hedge/insure (whatever term you wish to use) their way to protect absurd amounts of leverage. They thought that they had invented a new way to eliminate risk. Morons. No one forced them to do that. The private market failed....no one to blame but themselves.