This post is a guest contribution by Rebecca Wilder*, author of the of the News N Economics blog.

Today I plan to rant just a bit about consumption because I was reading Yves Smith’s article today, and she referred to “debt-fueled consumption” - the now pejorative phrase that just rolls off the tongue. She says:

“no where does the article [referenced WSJ article in her post on the consumption share] acknowledge that the consumption level was unsustainable and debt fueled.”

And this is where I get just slightly irked, because it seems to me that the phrase “debt-fueled consumption” strikes the following chord: every American household was loading up on home equity debt just to buy big ticket items like Hummers and large sofa sets with cup-holders galore from Jordan’s Furniture (a discount furniture shop in the

If you have not read part one of this three part article, please find the link here.

As I have already highlighted, the health care industry is subject to many swings that are caused by macroeconomic variables, regulation, trends, and beliefs.  These changes can be hard to pick up on, especially if you are new to the health care industry or if you are not as familiar with it as with more experienced investors.  In the first part of this article, I explained how the Obama Administration and the FDA are shaping the environment for health care companies.  It is very important to understand the relationship between companies and their stakeholders and the major forces in the industry in order to properly evaluate a health care company.

Major M&A Activity

Recently, there has been some major consolidation within the industry as companies

In my opinion, health care is the most difficult industry for novice investors to understand.  With so many stakeholders involved in developing and manufacturing any given medical product, it is often hard to obtain a firm grasp of what is shaping the future of this industry.  In this series, I will be analyzing the health care industry using a top-down approach to help you understand the current and future environment that will determine the success or failure of the efforts of health care companies.

Obama’s Health Care Plan

Probably the most capricious entity is the federal government.  With many political figures working on so many social and political agendas, the topic of health care can often become fad-like within Congress; however, the Obama Administration has made it clear that health care is close to the top of its agenda.  Obama’s plan will provide millions of Americans with stronger health care coverage

The writing is on the wall (street, that is), and it is telling us that we need to reaffirm the United States as the dominant force in the global economy, and that we have to do more to protect our citizens’ retirement and investment programs.

Most economic research suggests that tax code replacement surgery is essential for long-term economic progress. The goal of my plan is to make sure that you are not grumbling ten years from now about the same things that trouble you today. Here’s a fifteen-point plan to end the cycles of economic frustration and global disrespect during this administration:

One. Take Social Security out of the public sector and replace it with a mandatory, deferred, fixed benefit, single-life-annuity program managed by existing annuity providers. Employee contributions would be reduced nearly 50% and employer contributions eliminated over a five-year implementation
period— immediately for the self-employed. Participants would have no investment …