Author: Michael BrewerMedical and insurance industry pundits agree the transition to electronic medical records will result in substantial cost savings for patients. Huge medical groups and publicly-traded hospital corporations --- the first healthcare groups to turn mountains of paperwork into racks of computer servers --- talk about millions of dollars in annual paperless savings with their shareholders. But some hospitals and doctors think the...more
Author: Blanket americaSworn into office with an inspiring inaugural speech, the United States of America welcomes its 44th president, President Barack H. Obama. Married to First Lady Michelle Obama and a father to two daughters, Obama has made a great impact on American history as being the first African-American president to be seated in office. Set into uniting the people in times of economical and political crises as well as threats to...more
Author: Rex CamposagradoAs we approached the end of the year, we are also approached the end of President Obama’s first year in office. You might be wondering how he is doing, based on actual numbers (rather than political spin).Obama clearly inherited a difficult situation economically. Only two others in the modern era came even remotely close. One, of course, was FDR, but unfortunately the data from then is rather sparse, and mostly available on just an annual basis, or at best quarterly (good economic data was one of the by-products of the New Deal).The other who inherited a difficult economic situation was President Reagan. Granted, the type of difficulty was very different under Reagan, and presidents -- like quarterbacks -- get too much of both the praise for a good economy and the blame for a bad economy.Still, I think comparing the numbers for the two during their first "year” in office could be instructive. The data I used for the comparison are all available monthly (at least, and if more frequently, I used the monthly data). The source of all data is the St. Louis Fed (except for the S&P 500).The two presidents offered very different prescriptions for the economy....more