http://thecostoflivingproject.org/soundoff/ Sound Off: Recent Topics en Mon, 06 Sep 2010 01:37:01 +0000 http://thecostoflivingproject.org/soundoff/topic.php?id=28#post-29 Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:25:34 +0000 eamonmoynihan 29@http://thecostoflivingproject.org/soundoff/ <p>Here is an interesting article from the NYTimes, where a toy maker in Maine says that new toy safety regs are costing him $30K per year. Regs were implemented after toys with lead paint were let into the country from China. No one would dream of passing a business tax that would be cost someone so much. But a regulation just sails through. This really epitomizes the need for a better institutional response to this issue.</p> <p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/31/business/smallbusiness/31toys.html?scp=1&#38;sq=maine%20wooden%20toys%20beeswax%20regulation%20china&#38;st=cse" rel="nofollow">http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/31/business/smallbusiness/31toys.html?scp=1&#38;sq=maine%20wooden%20toys%20beeswax%20regulation%20china&#38;st=cse</a> </p> http://thecostoflivingproject.org/soundoff/topic.php?id=27#post-28 Mon, 19 Oct 2009 13:54:30 +0000 eamonmoynihan 28@http://thecostoflivingproject.org/soundoff/ <p>Here are two links to something called the Boston Indicators Project that has been started by the Boston Foundation. Their website is <a href="http://www.tbf.org." rel="nofollow">www.tbf.org.</a></p> <p>Like the Cost of Living Project, they argue that the real standard of living in Boston is much lower than commonly advertised, because of the region's extraordinarily high cost of living. They use ACCRA data for their comparisons. As you know, this site makes use of Bureau of Economic Analysis Data as well as Taubman data. They do not focus on the impact of regulation, however.</p> <p>The real significance of this effort is that it shows that prominent people in Boston realize they have a problem and are trying to address it. In this regard, New York is far behind in terms of municipal self-awareness. Obviously, the Cost of Living Project here in New York is hoping to change that.</p> <p><a href="http://www.tbf.org/indicators/economy/indicators.asp?id=1148" rel="nofollow">http://www.tbf.org/indicators/economy/indicators.asp?id=1148</a></p> <p><a href="http://www.bostonindicators.org/indicatorsproject/economy/indicator.aspx?id=2518" rel="nofollow">http://www.bostonindicators.org/indicatorsproject/economy/indicator.aspx?id=2518</a> </p> http://thecostoflivingproject.org/soundoff/topic.php?id=26#post-27 Mon, 19 Oct 2009 13:20:05 +0000 eamonmoynihan 27@http://thecostoflivingproject.org/soundoff/ <p>A good article on the high cost of health insurance in New York State. Authors argue that getting rid of guaranteed issue and community rating would significantly reduce the cost of health insurance.</p> <p><a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703746604574461482860007734.html" rel="nofollow">http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703746604574461482860007734.html</a> </p> http://thecostoflivingproject.org/soundoff/topic.php?id=25#post-26 Mon, 19 Oct 2009 13:10:03 +0000 eamonmoynihan 26@http://thecostoflivingproject.org/soundoff/ <p>Here is an interesting story from the New York Times noting that Texas is doing a better job of producing renewable energy than California. And the reason? Less regulation.</p> <p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/18/weekinreview/18galbraith.html?_r=1" rel="nofollow">http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/18/weekinreview/18galbraith.html?_r=1</a> </p> http://thecostoflivingproject.org/soundoff/topic.php?id=24#post-25 Mon, 19 Oct 2009 13:05:43 +0000 eamonmoynihan 25@http://thecostoflivingproject.org/soundoff/ <p>This is an excellent history of government's hostility to small business in New York City going back to Fiorello LaGuardia. </p> <p><a href="http://www.city-journal.org/printable.php?id=5439" rel="nofollow">http://www.city-journal.org/printable.php?id=5439</a> </p> http://thecostoflivingproject.org/soundoff/topic.php?id=23#post-24 Tue, 29 Sep 2009 19:23:59 +0000 eamonmoynihan 24@http://thecostoflivingproject.org/soundoff/ <p>Here is the link to the news article about the California study.</p> <p><a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/09/25/BA4A19S8DQ.DTL" rel="nofollow">http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/09/25/BA4A19S8DQ.DTL</a></p> <p>Note that the article says that the study was mandated by the State legislature.</p> <p>Obviously, these kind of measurements are difficult. But this is a great start and clearly what New York needs to do. </p> http://thecostoflivingproject.org/soundoff/topic.php?id=22#post-23 Tue, 29 Sep 2009 17:05:52 +0000 eamonmoynihan 23@http://thecostoflivingproject.org/soundoff/ <p>Here is a study that tries to estimate the cost of regulation in California.</p> <p>It's the kind of thing that needs to be done in New York. In the event, it draw criticism in California. I do not know if that was justified or not. But it does show that these kinds of exercises can be done. Moreover, it shows that people in California, which also has an extremely high cost of living, realize that.</p> <p>It argues that regulation cost the average small business in California in 2007 $134,122 and the loss of approximately one job per business. Overall, it says that the cost of regulation amounted to $492 billion. </p> <p><a href="http://www.sba.ca.gov/Cost%20of%20Regulation%20Study%20-%20Final.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.sba.ca.gov/Cost%20of%20Regulation%20Study%20-%20Final.pdf</a> </p> http://thecostoflivingproject.org/soundoff/topic.php?id=21#post-22 Fri, 11 Sep 2009 16:01:49 +0000 eamonmoynihan 22@http://thecostoflivingproject.org/soundoff/ <p>Here is an interesting post from a thread that was created to respond to the article published in NewGeography.com. It's an example of the kind of posts that the CostofLivingProject is trying to encourage.</p> <p> #46<br /> 09-02-2009, 03:44 PM<br /> SLO<br /> Still Ill Join Date: Jan 2007<br /> Location: Fort Worth<br /> Posts: 2,245 </p> <p>In my industry. I design high end homes &#38; build. Out of college I was purely design moved up quickly, worked for architects and high end custom home builders. Six years ago I went out on my own designing and building homes.<br /> What I see thats happened in California, is that the small scale builders (except for the very high end), are forced out and can not compete on any type of competitive level. One of the architecture classes I had in college was titled Small Scale Master Builder - basically referring to the historic combination of the master architect/builder that has existed throughout history (except for today). I decided then that I wanted to do both, and I see construction as an extension of design.<br /> I could certainly do in California what I do here, but as I stated, a lot of the market there is corporate. Its corporate for the reason that its so expensive, laborious and exhausting to build there. Especially coastal, there are so many hurdles to jump and the cost of doing business and buying property so high, that you have to have very deep pockets to do so, especially now that credit is so tight. From environmental impact studies, coastal commission review, high city impact &#38; building fees, to water rationing, laborious licensing for all trades, high workers comp, high cost of property. All of those things I just listed are very minor or dont exist in Texas. </p> http://thecostoflivingproject.org/soundoff/topic.php?id=20#post-21 Fri, 04 Sep 2009 15:56:11 +0000 eamonmoynihan 21@http://thecostoflivingproject.org/soundoff/ <p>There is an interesting website published by HUD in Washington that posts research on the impact of regulation on the cost of housing. </p> <p>Here is the url: </p> <p><a href="http://www.huduser.org/rbc/search/number.asp" rel="nofollow">http://www.huduser.org/rbc/search/number.asp</a></p> <p>See following quote:</p> <p>By reducing development costs by as much as 35 percent through the removal of affordable housing barriers, millions of American families will be able to buy or rent suitable housing that they otherwise could not afford.</p> <p>The url is:</p> <p><a href="http://www.hud.gov/initiatives/affordablecom.cfm" rel="nofollow">http://www.hud.gov/initiatives/affordablecom.cfm</a></p> <p>NB: many of the links are no longer active. I will try to post the ones that I think are most interesting. </p> http://thecostoflivingproject.org/soundoff/topic.php?id=19#post-20 Fri, 04 Sep 2009 15:49:20 +0000 eamonmoynihan 20@http://thecostoflivingproject.org/soundoff/ <p>See this very accessible article in Atlantic Monthly about health care. He makes the argument for consumer driven health care, focusing attention in particular on the market distortions introduced by comprehensive health insurance. Typically, the argument against health insurance mandates is that they make people buy a Mercedes, when they would prefer to buy a Honda. For him, the main problem with overly comprehensive health insurance is that it reduces efficiency and undermines quality. </p> <p><a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200909/health-care" rel="nofollow">http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200909/health-care</a> </p> http://thecostoflivingproject.org/soundoff/topic.php?id=18#post-19 Thu, 03 Sep 2009 02:14:38 +0000 eamonmoynihan 19@http://thecostoflivingproject.org/soundoff/ <p>Here is a fascinating study produced for the International Trade Commission that uses international cost of living estimates from the Economist Intelligence Unit in an attempt to quantify the impact of non-tariff trade barriers. The study also makes use of complaints from business groups. It's a direct analogy to what we are trying to accomplish with the Cost of Living Project. </p> <p><a href="http://www.usitc.gov/publications/332/working_papers/EC200606Ar.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.usitc.gov/publications/332/working_papers/EC200606Ar.pdf</a> </p> http://thecostoflivingproject.org/soundoff/topic.php?id=17#post-18 Wed, 26 Aug 2009 20:41:52 +0000 eamonmoynihan 18@http://thecostoflivingproject.org/soundoff/ <p>Peter Salins on Zoning from the City Journal "New York's Tomorrow" issue, Summer 2009. Excellent as always.</p> <p><a href="http://www.city-journal.org/2009/nytom_zoning.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.city-journal.org/2009/nytom_zoning.html</a> </p> http://thecostoflivingproject.org/soundoff/topic.php?id=16#post-17 Wed, 26 Aug 2009 20:35:43 +0000 eamonmoynihan 17@http://thecostoflivingproject.org/soundoff/ <p>Here is an article from the Economist about TexasThanks to low taxes and light regulation, Texas is booming." </p> <p> <a href="http://www.economist.com/surveys/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13938917" rel="nofollow">http://www.economist.com/surveys/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13938917</a></p> <p>A second article is called Tex-mix. Article highlights good and bad. Interesting stats on housing. Thus a 1500 square foot home can be purchased in a "decent" part of Houston or Dallas for "as little as $100,000." And "an incomer from California might easily save 30% or more of his salary by moving from Silicon Valey to the 'Silicon Hills' of Austin." </p> <p><a href="http://www.economist.com/surveys/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13938907" rel="nofollow">http://www.economist.com/surveys/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13938907</a> </p> http://thecostoflivingproject.org/soundoff/topic.php?id=15#post-16 Wed, 26 Aug 2009 18:49:15 +0000 eamonmoynihan 16@http://thecostoflivingproject.org/soundoff/ <p>Here is an energy white paper on deregulation.</p> <p><a href="http://www.gdfsuezenergyresources.com/Ourexp/documents/NYWP0507.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.gdfsuezenergyresources.com/Ourexp/documents/NYWP0507.pdf</a> </p> http://thecostoflivingproject.org/soundoff/topic.php?id=14#post-15 Wed, 26 Aug 2009 18:06:14 +0000 eamonmoynihan 15@http://thecostoflivingproject.org/soundoff/ <p>Here is an op-ed from the WSJ that compares health insurance costs between New Jersey and Kentucky. New Jersey is a very high cost state.</p> <p><a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203550604574360923109310680.html" rel="nofollow">http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203550604574360923109310680.html</a></p> <p>The Competition Cure</p> <p>"Competition" has become a watchword of Team Obama's push for its health-care bill. Specifically, the Administration has defended its public insurance option as a necessary competitive goad to the private health insurance industry. </p> <p>Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius routinely calls for more choice and competition in health care. In his weekly address this past weekend, President Obama raised the issue directly: "The source of a lot of these fears about government-run health care is confusion over what's called the public option. This is one idea among many to provide more competition and choice, especially in the many places around the country where just one insurer thoroughly dominates the marketplace." We take it this refers to a state in which one insurer holds most of the business. </p> <p>It is no secret that this page is all for competition in the marketplace. If indeed that's the goal, allow us to suggest a path to it that will be a lot easier than erecting the impossible dream of a public option: Let insurance companies sell health-care policies across state lines. </p> <p>This excellent idea has been before Congress since at least 2005, when Rep. John Shadegg of Arizona proposed it. It came up again recently in an exchange between Chris Wallace of Fox News Sunday and John Rother, executive vice president of AARP. </p> <p>Mr. Wallace: "If you really want competition why not remove the restriction which now says that if I live in Washington, D.C. I've got to buy a D.C. health plan, and instead create a national market for health insurance, so that if there's a cheaper plan in Pennsylvania, I could buy in Pennsylvania?"</p> <p>Mr. Rother: "There are states and localities where health care is much less expensive than others, and if we allow people to buy all their insurance from those places, it will raise the rates there. And it's called risk selection. It's a real problem, given the fact that health care costs can vary substantially from one place to another. So I think while the idea sounds appealing, the consequence would be it would make health care more expensive for those people who live in those low-cost areas."</p> <p>How did Mr. Rother arrive at this conclusion?</p> <p>His claim assumes that what makes insurance expensive in places like New Jersey—where the annual cost of an individual plan for a 25-year-old male in 2006 was $5,880—is merely the higher cost of medical services in the Garden State. He sounds an alarm in the rest of the country by suggesting that an individual living in, say, Kentucky—where an annual plan for a 25-year-old male cost less than $1,000 in 2006—would be asked to subsidize plan members living in high-priced states. </p> <p>That's not how interstate insurance would work. Devon Herrick, a senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis who has written extensively on this subject, notes that insurance companies operating nationally would compete nationally. The reason a Kentucky plan written for an individual from New Jersey would save the New Jerseyan money is that New Jersey is highly regulated, with costly mandated benefits and guaranteed access to insurance. </p> <p>Affordability would improve if consumers could escape states where each policy is loaded with mandates. "If consumers do not want expensive 'Cadillac' health plans that pay for acupuncture, fertility treatments or hairpieces, they could buy from insurers in a state that does not mandate such benefits," Mr. Herrick has written. </p> <p>A 2008 publication "Consumer Response to a National Marketplace in Individual Insurance," (Parente et al., University of Minnesota) estimated that if individuals in New Jersey could buy health insurance in a national market, 49% more New Jerseyans in the individual and small-group market would have coverage. Competition among states would produce a more rational regulatory environment in all states.</p> <p>This doesn't mean sick people who have kept up their coverage but are more difficult to insure would be left out. Congressman Shadegg advocates government funding for high-risk pools, noting that their numbers are tiny. The big benefit would come from a market supply of affordable insurance. </p> <p>Mr. Rother also said "risk selection" is a problem. But the coverage mandates cause that. As more healthy people opt out of health insurance because it is too expensive relative to what they consume, the pool transforms into a group of older, sicker people. Prices go higher still and more healthy people flee. High-mandate states are in what experts call an "adverse selection death spiral."</p> <p>Interstate competition made the U.S. one of the world's most efficient, consumer driven markets. But health insurance is a glaring exception. When the competition caucus in Team Obama has to look for Plan B, this is it. </p> http://thecostoflivingproject.org/soundoff/topic.php?id=13#post-14 Tue, 21 Jul 2009 13:36:53 +0000 TimeToThink 14@http://thecostoflivingproject.org/soundoff/ <p>The NYC Department of Small Business Services did an analysis and found that it requires something like 70 different steps and permitting stops to open a restaurant, as a result they created a one-stop solution center to help entrepreneurs to navigate the bureaucracy.</p> <p>More government agencies need to undertake similar measures. </p> http://thecostoflivingproject.org/soundoff/topic.php?id=12#post-13 Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:10:07 +0000 eamonmoynihan 13@http://thecostoflivingproject.org/soundoff/ <p>There is an interesting website published by HUD in Washington that posts research on the impact of regulation on the cost of housing. </p> <p>Here is the url: </p> <p><a href="http://www.huduser.org/rbc/search/number.asp" rel="nofollow">http://www.huduser.org/rbc/search/number.asp</a></p> <p>See following quote:</p> <p>By reducing development costs by as much as 35 percent through the removal of affordable housing barriers, millions of American families will be able to buy or rent suitable housing that they otherwise could not afford.</p> <p>The url is:</p> <p><a href="http://www.hud.gov/initiatives/affordablecom.cfm" rel="nofollow">http://www.hud.gov/initiatives/affordablecom.cfm</a></p> <p>NB: many of the links are no longer active. I will try to post the ones that I think are most interesting. </p> http://thecostoflivingproject.org/soundoff/topic.php?id=11#post-12 Tue, 23 Jun 2009 13:53:29 +0000 citifriend 12@http://thecostoflivingproject.org/soundoff/ <p>Want a good example of why everything costs so much in New York? See this data from the New York Medical Society….<br /> Following a 14% increase this past July, most physicians in New York State are now paying 55-80% more for their liability insurance in 2008 than they were in 2003, bringing the annual premiums for many specialists to levels in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Physicians cannot sustain any more increases in liability insurance costs. It would have an immediate and severe impact upon our patients’ access to needed care.<br /> Why has the cost gone up so much? The simple answer is sky-high liability awards driven by a dysfunctional tort system for adjudicating medical liability claims that facilitates awards in many situations where there is no negligence. In addition to these rapidly increasing awards, tens of millions of our premium dollars are spent each year to defend cases where no payment is ever made to the plaintiff. A large portion of the dollars paid into the malpractice system never reaches the plaintiff but are expended on the costs of a grossly inefficient adjudication system. </p>