Check this out:

Source: CNBC/AP

A Wells Fargo executive who oversees foreclosed properties hosted parties and spent long summer weekends in a $12 million Malibu beach house, moving into the home just after it had been surrendered to Wells Fargo to satisfy debts, neighbors said.

The previous owners of the beachfront home in Malibu Colony — a densely built stretch of luxury homes that has been a favorite of celebrities over the years — were financially devastated in Bernard Madoff’s massive fraud scheme, real estate agent Irene Dazzan-Palmer said.

The couple signed the property over to Wells Fargo last spring, and the bank subsequently denied requests to show the house to prospective buyers, Dazzan-Palmer said.

Residents in the gated community told the Los Angeles Times that a woman they believe was Cheronda Guyton took up occupancy at the home in May.

…

Residents said Guyton, along with her husband and two children, often hosted guests at the home, including a large party the last weekend of August.

Read more: http://www.cnbc.com/id/32793442

JP Morgan ”borrows” $750 million from unwitting customers
Chicago Tribune – ‎Sep 10, 2009‎
Back in the pre-bailout days when big commercial banks were riding high, the giant JP Morgan Chase helped itself to $750 million in customer funds without …
LON:JMI $350K ACC penalty for JP Morgan Chase

Arizona Daily Star – ‎Sep 10, 2009‎
The Arizona Corporation Commission ordered JP Morgan Chase & Co. to pay a $348779 penalty Wednesday in connection with its auction-rate securities sales in …
LON:JMI – EPA:MLACO

This TPMDC piece from July is a good look at the subject. I couldn’t find a recent episode of Democracy Now that was directly on that subject.

If a ‘public option’ is simply another insurance plan, then why not use the Medicare infrastructure and just open it up and add plans for average folks instead of just the elderly. We could pay doctors what they want instead of some percentage. They would have less reason to jack up prices.

All the other parts of the House, Senate & Obama reform plans to fill the Medicare donut, regulate private insurers and to expand federal health clinics, doctor & nurse training and to study treatment effectiveness and so on are pretty good and not so controversial.

At least Republicans would be happy that there wouldn’t be quite so many new gov’t employees turning Virginia bright blue.

Improved care, control costs by offering more choice and cover MORE people if not all.

And, in the notes, no new gov’t administration, just use Medicare for the public option. And, no mandates which are gov’t over-reach and just a hidden tax.

Sounds like a plan to me.

Too much financial interest in destroying things has already caused us a world of trouble. We need to end that.

Average profit can mean that the few oligopolists make a very high profit while many small providers make small profit or make losses. It may average to 3.3% average profit, but what is the mean profit? What is the profit of the biggest players? The ones who insure the most people? I think industry average is meaningless.

I bet it is not near 3.3%. I remember reading about one of the biggies making record profits of 26%.

Another point which has been made, and I”m going to repeat it, is that they don’t have to make a huge percentage profit so long as their reserve pile of money (which they invest) is growing. The 3.3% of $1Million is a lot less than 3.3% of $1Billion. Same percentage, vastly different numbers of dollars.

I suppose I should also suggest that growing health care costs, as opposed to insurance costs, means they could be handling much larger flows of cash IN AND OUT with their net profit not remaining the same (as that might indicate), but still growing because the overall size of the cash-flow means they invest more and more and make the larger dollar amounts. Same percentage, but vastly larger dollar amounts.

They have an incentive to encourage health care providers to increase THEIR prices. They benefit by the larger flow of dollars, not by a revenue less expenses model.

I’m not a big fan of the employer mandate because we’re better off if corporate money isn’t competing with individual wallets as that will enable insurers to push prices higher. It also adds to the problem of corporate costs in competition with other companies around the world. And, it can lead many more people to become trapped in jobs they don’t dare leave because of the insurance.

Offer people a good public option in terms of features/coverage & cost and watch competition hold costs down. If the plans are good more people will get insurance and that will help bring more people to the reserve pool.

The subsidies are available to buy ANY insurance, so more people will have that to help them buy insurance and some of it will be private. Those firms should be happy for that increase in money flow.

The elimination of pre-existing-conditions will also allow more people to have insurance.

What about reform with a public option, but without mandates? Are the Blue Dogs so greedy they want the mandates, but no public option for their insurance pals? Could the Dems accept no mandates despite their desire to cover everybody? They would get a public option to compete and hold down costs.

Remember, Repubs see the big plan with mandates and a public option as an attempt to buy votes for the future. Without a public option they see it as less politically dangerous because they know people won’t be seeing gov’t as their friend. That the mandate makes insurers happy is something they like as much as many Dems.

Both things combined are dynamite. The Dems don’t like the mandate by itself. What if it was the public option, but no mandate?

Most businesses try to minimize reported profit in order to minimize their tax liability.

I’m sure stockholders are pleased as punch to know they could be making a lot but that it’s better for the company to avoid paying taxes and instead give the dough to their CEO.

More goofy corporate crap.

Eliminating corporate taxes (since they’re not actually humans) and taxing individuals might help straighten that out.

The only way to eliminate that would be to cap personal health care costs.

Then, of course, the huge flow of cash through the health care industry would likely result in a much smaller and less terrific health care industry. We would all suffer from that.

And then, it isn’t our way to tell someone they can’t create an insurance company to try and make a profit.

Perhaps the worst problem is related to the growing gap between the Rich (including corporations) and individuals. Like motel pricing and other things which are used by both individuals and a large number of corporations there is corporate pricing and discounts for individuals who don’t travel during ‘business travel’ days. It’s a two-tier system which milks corporations for as much as possible and barely tolerating individuals. Our health care system does that too. Those with corporate insurance think they’re getting group discounts, but I’ll bet the real scoop is individual rates are jacked up entirely to make it clear to corporations they’re getting a break when in fact we’re all being taken for a ride. It’s called the “IBM Discount”. First you jack up prices 500% and then you offer a 10% discount to make people feel good. It’s also done in retail furniture sales. They can’t sell anything unless it’s “on sale” because people know the ‘regular’ prices are so high they can’t afford it. But, what do the retailers do? They just jack up all the prices, so their ’sale’ prices are still profitable AND they don’t have to have quite as many sales staff on days they know people won’t be coming in. It’s quite bizarre.

The answer. Stop creating incentives for everything to be jacked up to insanely high levels, just so they can look like good guys when they give a discount. Less corporate insurance would be good, so health care providers would have to deal more with individual wallet sizes. More stockholder rights to dump big CEO pay packets would help a lot.

In other words, a lot of our problems have to do with our corporate system and not just the ‘health care industry’. The Rich are taking it all. We have to use government to fix it. Even George Jetson, or was it Fred Flintstone had it right when he said, “Jane, stop this crazy machine!”

In the meantime I think the public option, which doesn’t operate by private corporate rules, can put a brake on the current corporate system in the health care area.

Does anyone have a better idea on how to restrain prices without instituting dictatorial price controls or other horrors?

That there hasn’t been consolidation of this industry just flabbergasts me to no end. The cost savings from economies of scale must be enormous, and yet there’s no push to move to consolidation — even though the cost savings could be realized as profits.

What’s that tell us?