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The Bloomberg article claims that the PPIP caused prices to go up in anticipation which may or may not be correct, but the rise of prices is something that has actually delayed PPIP purchases. On the other hand, Krugman and Atrios argued that PPIP would purchase assets at above market rates - something that has not happened. In fact, the entire operation of PPIP is completely different from the claims of Krugman and Atrios about how it would work. There claim that investors would be able to and interested in using expected value strategies was silly and has turned out to be not correct.

Giordano argues that from a socialist point of view, the claim that we should abandon a reform that would help tens of millions of poor and working class citizens on the evidence of stock market moves makes no sense.

by rootless2 on Tue Jan 5th, 2010 at 04:07:22 PM EST
[ Parent ]
  1. prices went up because of PPIP - and the banks that were bailed out are even buying more of these assets. This is exactly what was predicted. They are going up in the expectation of PPIP purchases.

  2. whether we like it or not, market prices give us an idea of market sentiment on new bits of information. The fact that HC insurance cos are up by more than the overall stockmarket suggests that markets expect (rightly or wrongly) the reform to be beneficial to these companies' profit prospects. A socialist would have a system where companies are not evaluated on the basis of their expected profit flows. But nothing says that a socialist can't use the information provided by the current system in it analyses?


In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Tue Jan 5th, 2010 at 05:16:25 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I'm sorry, but that's exactly NOT what was predicted. What was predicted was that investors would overpay for the assets, using government money to reduce their risk. This has not happened. What has happened is that the private not subsidized market has recovered and some of the people Bloomberg quotes claim this is in expectation of PPIP purchases. But that article makes clear that the result of the price increases - in fact the reappearance of a market for these asset classes - has been that PPIP purchases have been curtailed. So the massive purchases of worthless junk paid for by FDIC dollars that Atrios/Krugman predicted did not happen. In fact, if PPIP can be credited, it revived the market with only a tiny expense in taxpayer funds.

As for market prices, market sentiment tells me nothing at all about the positives or negatives of the reform bill. The stock market does not have magical powers and frankly, whether the insurance companies stocks go up or down doesn't mean anything to me. What's important about the health bill is that it actually provides important benefits to many people and that it increases the political power of the union/obama coalition that forced it through congress over the bitter objections of the insurance companies. What kind of useful information can be obtained from
this kind of stock movement?
http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=AET#chart2:symbol=aet;range=6m;compare=unh+^dji+^gspc;indicator=v olume;charttype=line;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=on;source=undefined

by rootless2 on Tue Jan 5th, 2010 at 07:34:21 PM EST
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