February 2, 201016 yr Author This is just plain false - What restrictions has this administration placed on businesses outside of proposed changes to health insurance (which should not be a business anyway) and the banking industry? Obama's budget cuts taxes on small and large businesses that hire new folks and/or increase wages. That is not a restriction, it is an incentive which can be pursued by choice, or not pursued. We had this big scare that he would take aware our guns, and he hasn't. I disagree with this. It does not cut taxes. It creates tax credits. It is a smoke screen. The attempt is to make it look like they are trying to grow jobs. Tax credits and tax cuts are two entiely different things. It creates tax credits for people who cannot afford to hire to begin with. People running businesses are laying employees off, asking current employees to do more, and going back in and running their businesses themselves or they are working more hours than they used to, because they can't afford to pay someone else to do it. People who are barely keeping their businesses afloat are not going to put their business at risk. They have to pay their bills today not down the road with some potential credit. A tax credit does nothing for them. They have to be fiscally responsible to their family and their current employees and their families.
February 2, 201016 yr Author My only response deals with the bolded. Why do people say "40 years ago" was when this or that changed? In terms of government intrusion, wouldn't you say that it was almost 70 years ago with Social Security nets? Work programs? Interstate? TVA? Just curious. :idunno: You are correct. The New Deal and other entitlement programs came long before the current welfare state. IMO we are guilty of accepting things that exisisted prior to us. We should question everything.
February 2, 201016 yr Someone please notice that in one of my early threads i did not say the health industry should not be a businees, I said HEALTH INSURANCE. Paying people to run a company and generating profits are 2 different things.
February 2, 201016 yr Someone please notice that in one of my early threads i did not say the health industry should not be a businees, I said HEALTH INSURANCE. Paying people to run a company and generating profits are 2 different things. Sorry I assumed, apologies.
February 2, 201016 yr Some food for thought. Among the large, for-profit health insurers, profit margins line up with the industry as a whole. UnitedHealthGroup, the biggest health insurer, had a 4.1 percent profit margin over the past 12 months. WellPoint, the next biggest, had a 4 percent profit margin. Aetna, Cigna, and Humana came in below that. Health insurers turn out to be underperformers compared with the other parts of the healthcare sector. Pharmaceutical companies have a profit margin of 16.4 percent—seventh highest of the 215 industries that Morningstar tracks. Others segments of healthcare with margins well above the median include healthcare information (9.4 percent), home healthcare firms (8.5 percent), medical labs (8.2 percent), and generic drugmakers (6.5 percent). To give a clearer picture of which healthcare firms are earning the most, I've compiled some data from Capital IQ showing net profit margins over the past 12 months for a number of well-known companies. The following list includes the three largest firms in each of five different sectors: biotechnology, drug manufacturers, healthcare plans, healthcare services, and medical equipment. Some of these numbers are sure to be off-putting to Americans who are making sacrifices to pay for healthcare or can't afford it at all. Yet industries like pharma and biotech remain strong job creators that have held up well during the recession, and they represent parts of the global economy where America still enjoys a leading position. If you were Obama, desperate to find a few bright spots in a troubled economy, you might be reluctant to pick on them. Amgen (biotechnology): Profit margin, 30.6 percent Gilead Sciences (biotechnology): 37.6 percent Celgene Corp. (biotechnology): 11.9 percent Johnson & Johnson (drug manufacturer): 20.8 percent Pfizer (drug manufacturer): 16.3 percent GlaxoSmithKline (drug manufacturer): 17.4 percent Unitedhealth Group (healthcare plans): 4.1 percent WellPoint (healthcare plans): 4 percent Aetna (healthcare plans): 3.9 percent MedcoHealth Solutions (healthcare services): 2.1 percent Express Scripts (healthcare services): 3.7 percent Quest Diagnostics (healthcare services): 8.7 percent Medtronic (medical equipment): 14.9 percent Baxter International (medical equipment): 17.5 percent Covidien (medical equipment): 12.3 percent Link
February 2, 201016 yr Interesting numbers. 4.1% profit margin? I agree, but what does that really tell you? If you are only 1 of 3 or 4 companies and most everybody has to buy it, the profits become huge. These "profits" of course do not count compensation. Do health insurance companies need extra money for R and D? Who is the profit for, and why do you need to be publicly traded and have to answer to share holders?
February 2, 201016 yr I agree, but what does that really tell you? If you are only 1 of 3 or 4 companies and most everybody has to buy it, the profits become huge. These "profits" of course do not count compensation. Do health insurance companies need extra money for R and D? Who is the profit for, and why do you need to be publicly traded and have to answer to share holders? I don't care what industry you're in, a 4.1% profit margin is not very good.
February 2, 201016 yr I agree, but what does that really tell you? If you are only 1 of 3 or 4 companies and most everybody has to buy it, the profits become huge. These "profits" of course do not count compensation. Do health insurance companies need extra money for R and D? Who is the profit for, and why do you need to be publicly traded and have to answer to share holders?Who is the profit for? Is it any of your business?
February 2, 201016 yr I agree, but what does that really tell you? If you are only 1 of 3 or 4 companies and most everybody has to buy it, the profits become huge. These "profits" of course do not count compensation. Do health insurance companies need extra money for R and D? Who is the profit for, and why do you need to be publicly traded and have to answer to share holders? Wel, given my 35 plus years of analyzing financial statements, it tells me they could make a lot more money in another industry. I sure don't settle for 4% on my personal investments although from 2007 to early 2009 I sure would have liked it.
February 2, 201016 yr Wel, given my 35 plus years of analyzing financial statements, it tells me they could make a lot more money in another industry. I sure don't settle for 4% on my personal investments although from 2007 to early 2009 I sure would have liked it. Oil and gas companies make around that or less, if I am not mistaken and nobody is going to say that they are not making money hand over fist. And it is my business because that is what this thread is about, farbeyonddriven. If it bothers you that we are discussing it, move along. To suggest that the leaders of these companies are not well compensated is preposterous. The profit margin is a strawman in this discussion just as it is with oil and gas, when they kept telling us as the prices were going up that the margin is only . . . whatever it was. When you are moving that many goods and services with that profit margin, you are making a huge profit, and I SAY AGAIN, profit margin is determined AFTER you have COMPENSATED your executives.
February 3, 201016 yr I have never understood why people who think big business is good, thinks big government is bad. I have always felt that large corporations are a necessary evil in our global society. If you don't have the large corporations you cannot increase markets. We have a Constitution that is expressly written to protect the rights of the people. Overtime, especially over the last 40 years or so a number of people have come to believe that capitalism with its large corporations will take care of us (trickle down). Which IMO is totally false. It is the governments job to insure that our rights are not suppressed by overzealous corporations, iron law of wages, harsh working conditions, monopolies. To me there seems to be this belief that if one person/company is making a great deal of money and controlling the economy that all of the little people will prosper as well. And this is not true. The incredible shrinking class (middle) will continue to do so to the point that there will be a rebellion and it will be ugly. We can all only prosper when the right conditions (read "laws and regs") are put into place the supports people when appropriate and restricts businesses as needed. This is exactly how I feel. I hate big business, because I think it reinforces greed. We are taught that value in life is all about success, making more money, etc. Big Business tells us that this is freedom, but it's not. It's just Darwinism, which isn't necessary. Animals have to fight, steal etc. to survive people don't.
February 3, 201016 yr Oil and gas companies make around that or less, if I am not mistaken and nobody is going to say that they are not making money hand over fist. And it is my business because that is what this thread is about, farbeyonddriven. If it bothers you that we are discussing it, move along. To suggest that the leaders of these companies are not well compensated is preposterous. The profit margin is a strawman in this discussion just as it is with oil and gas, when they kept telling us as the prices were going up that the margin is only . . . whatever it was. When you are moving that many goods and services with that profit margin, you are making a huge profit, and I SAY AGAIN, profit margin is determined AFTER you have COMPENSATED your executives. 4 percent is chicken feed no matter how you cut it. The dollars seem high because you're talking monster sized companies. Any idea how many stockholders split those dollars? How do their executive's pay compare to like sized companies in other industries?
February 3, 201016 yr This is exactly how I feel. I hate big business, because I think it reinforces greed. We are taught that value in life is all about success, making more money, etc. Big Business tells us that this is freedom, but it's not. It's just Darwinism, which isn't necessary. Animals have to fight, steal etc. to survive people don't. When does a business become "big" to you?
February 3, 201016 yr I agree, but what does that really tell you? If you are only 1 of 3 or 4 companies and most everybody has to buy it, the profits become huge. These "profits" of course do not count compensation. Do health insurance companies need extra money for R and D? Who is the profit for, and why do you need to be publicly traded and have to answer to share holders? I think profit is for the people who own the business. Even the Chinese have figured out that it takes profit incentive to make an economy grow.
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