Search Results: insurance

The main problem is that it doesn't really function like private insurance. It does NOT assess flood risk for EACH property; instead, premiums reflect average historical losses within a property’s risk zone. Moreover, the floodplain maps determining a property’s risk zone are often several decades out of date. As a result, premiums may bear NO relationship to the true risk of flooding. The cost of an federal policy averages about half of what would be a market rate. Congress actually mandates this inaccurate pricing method. In 2014, it hastily revoked a few tentative steps at reform after constituents complained loudly when they tried to charge something approximating market rates for flood insurance.

Who benefits from flood insurance? People in flood-prone Gulf states like Louisiana and Florida, of course. But many beneficiaries also share another characteristic: they are upper income. The program does not charge nearly enough to cover the expected costs of its liabilities. The assessments are not sufficient to build any buffer to cover an extraordinary year, such as what occurred with Hurricane Katrina in 2005 or Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Because homeowners don’t incur the full cost of building in a flood zone we end up with more houses there than if homeowners incurred the full cost of the flood risk, which exacerbates the government’s costs in the next disaster. The optimal solution would be for the government to get out of the flood insurance business entirely and leave it to the private market, which would endeavor to accurately measure risk and charge a price for its insurance that covers the expected costs. Smart reforms would also help Congress refrain from throwing money at disasters, bailing out homeowners who shouldn’t have built in flood-prone areas to begin with. Sensible long-run incentives to mitigate damage would discourage such homebuilding by exposing homeowners and businesses to the real cost of building in floodplains.

It is forecast that the $1.3 trillion estimated cost of annual foregone revenue from Trump's tax reduction plans (out of a total revenue intake of $6.3 trillion annually) is a shortfall of 20.1% which would be offset by $5.9% increase in revenue from Trump's tariff plan.
In sum, a total loss of $14.2% of federal revenue with no plans for how to make up the shortfall. He has suggested giving the President control over the Fed to set interest rates as well as control of the money supply (printing money). He has also suggested to eliminate the debt ceiling. Economists & the Congressional Budget Office have derided both of these ideas as leading to precipitous rises and consumer prices and dangerously inflationary.

More detailed breakdown:
Donald Trump's proposed tariffs to make up this revenue loss from his tax cuts (which include a 10% worldwide tariff and a 60% tariff on Chinese goods paid for by the American consumer - so in effect a hidden tax), are estimated to generate approximately $280 billion annually.
If the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act Trump legislations provisions are made permanent, it is estimated that the federal government would experience a reduction in revenues of approximately $400 billion annually.
Additionally, the long-term fiscal impact would increase the national debt by $16.5 trillion over the next 75 years. This revenue loss primarily arises from the continuation of foregone income tax introduced by the TCJA.
Regarding the image above, Trump has NO ability to influence insurance rates as they are set at the state level, Congress has signaled that they have no plans to restore the state and local tax deduction (SALT), the president has no ability to mandate coverage of IVF treatment and the president has no ability to set credit card interest rates.

Lactation nurses, orthopedists, chiropractors, pain mgmt, pulmonologists, oncologists, somnologists, dermatologists, kinesthesiologists, geriatrics, etc ALL support breast reduction when it interferes with daily & quality of life.

+90% of women post reduction surgery are happy with decision 5, 10, 15 & 20 years afterward. +50% of women post augmentation surgery regret it and the curve drops precipitously with age.

The Federal Reserve slashed rates on Wednesday for the first time since early 2020, the clearest signal yet that central bankers believe they are winning their years long battle against rapid inflation.

Fed officials slashed borrowing costs by half a percentage point, an unusually large reduction. The decision lowers rates to about 4.9 percent, down from a more than two-decade high.

The Fed’s move comes in response to months of fading inflation, and it is meant to prevent the economy from slowing so much that the job market begins to crack. Officials have been keeping a cautious eye on a recent rise in the unemployment rate, and by starting off with a big cut, the Fed is effectively taking out insurance against a bigger employment slowdown.

Reinforcing that wary message, the move came alongside economic projections that suggested a more aggressive pace of rate cuts than central bankers had previously predicted: Officials now expect to make another half point of reductions before the end of the year.

“The Committee has gained greater confidence that inflation is moving sustainably toward 2 percent, and judges that the risks to achieving its employment and inflation goals are roughly in balance,” Fed officials said in their statement.

High interest rates slow the economy by making it more expensive to borrow to buy a house or expand business, which weighs on both demand and inflation — but also on hiring. The Fed has been trying to strike a careful balance. Officials have aimed to cool growth enough to ensure that price increases return to normal without cooling it so much that the unemployment rate soars and the economy tips into a recession.

Wednesday’s rate cut marks a preliminary victory. So far, Fed officials have managed to slow inflation notably without causing major economic problems. The unemployment rate has crept up, but it hasn’t jumped painfully. Hiring persists, though it has slowed. Consumer spending remains strong. Overall growth is still robust.