Archive for August, 2011

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Conservatives more open-minded than liberals … at least when it comes to dating

August 4, 2011

An interesting piece of irony …

According to Match.com insiders ….

… conservatives are more open-minded to dating someone outside their political circle than liberals.

This insight comes from an engineer at Match who works on their algorithm.

He notes that when they started focusing on how users actually behaved versus what they said they wanted, they found some unlikely results:

As a result, Match began “weighting” variables differently, according to how users behaved.

For example, if conservative users were actually looking at profiles of liberals, the algorithm would learn from that and recommend more liberal users to them.

Indeed, “the politics one is quite interesting. Conservatives are far more open to reaching out to someone with a different point of view than a liberal is.”

That is, when it comes to looking for love, conservatives are more open-minded than liberals.

Ken’s Take: Conservatives like to debate the issues … liberals are on the prowl for  reinforcement of their established views.

 

 

Agree?

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Posted in Internet - Soc Networking, Politics - General | 2 Comments »

Bending the Medicare-Medicaid cost curves … upward (again)

August 4, 2011

Dems are adamant: “Don’t touch Medicare & Medicaid”.

And, they were equally adamant that ObamaCare would “bend the cost curve”.

Yep, the cost curve is bending …. unfortunately, in the wrong direction.

According to USA Today … Medicare, Medicaid tab keeps growing

Medicare and Medicaid spending rose 10% in the second quarter from a year earlier to a combined annual rate of almost $992 billion.

The two programs are on track to rise $90 billion in 2011 and crack the $1 trillion milestone for the first time.

The latest spending surge in federal health care is driven by more people getting more treatment, not by price increases.

Health care inflation is at its lowest level in more than a decade — a 1.7% annual rate.

Medicare and Medicaid paid a record 57.5% of patient bills for hospital, doctors, drugs and other care in the last quarter, up from 49.3% in 2005.

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Ken’s Take:

(1) Good news for Obama: edging closer to single-payer system

(2) No surprise, costs are rising not falling …. did anybody really believe the “bending the cost curve” riff?

(3) Debt deal says that if the super-committee fails to find cuts, doctors’ reimbursement rates will be cut … good luck to Medicare-Medicaid patients trying to find an MD.

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Posted in Health Care / Medical Insurance | Leave a Comment »

Remember the Feds stake in GM ?

August 3, 2011

Several post-debt deal articles have lumped it with the President’s other successes: ObamaCare, auto bailout …

According to the WSJ …

“To break even, the U.S. Treasury would need to sell its remaining stake — about 500 million shares—at $53 apiece.”

Bad news: Stock closed on Aug. 2 at $27.05 … approximately 20% below the IPO price … about a $13 Billion loss.

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Posted in Autos - Travel | Leave a Comment »

Oh, those painful budget cuts …

August 3, 2011

IBD put the debt deal’s spending cuts in perspective …

“In the short term, the reported  “deep,” “sharp,” “slashing” cuts will still leave the federal government spending roughly 4% more in 2012 than it did in 2010, and 20% more than it did in 2008.

The deal’s $2.4 trillion in 10-year cuts amounts to a mere 5% trim off total projected federal spending during that time.

It’s like a 400-pound man boasting that he plans to drop 20 pounds over a decade, while his doctors warn about the risks of losing weight so fast.

Even calling these “cuts” is a bit of a stretch, since spending will continue to increase, just at a slightly slower pace.”

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Ken’s Take: Back-loaded, illusory cuts … strictly funny money.

Only upside: wild spending may have reached America’s consciousness.

We’ll see.

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Posted in Debt - Deficit | Leave a Comment »

JetBlue’s all-you-can-fly promotion …

August 3, 2011

Punch line: To “hook” business folks traveling in & out of Boston. JetBlue is offering BluePass – a 3 month  all-you-can-fly promotional price.

From The Economist …

JetBlue selling “BluePass” allowing unlimited travel

JetBlue announced a promotion called “BluePass” that will allow travellers unlimited flights in a three-month span for one fixed price.

The three-month promotional period runs from August 22nd to November 22nd.

Travellers have three plans to choose from:

  1. Three months of unlimited travel between JetBlue’s Boston hub and any JetBlue city, all for $1,999.
  2. Three months of unlimited travel between JetBlue’s Boston hub and any of 13 selected JetBlue cities (non west of Chicago), this time for $1,499.
  3. Three months of unlimited travel between JetBlue’s Long Beach, California hub and any of nine selected JetBlue cities (non east of Chicago) for $1,299.

BluePass is targeted squarely at frequent business travellers, which seems likely given the pricing and the “Get Down to Business” promotional tagline

* * * * *

Right now, most airline pricing schemes are the kind that annoy travelers, not the kind that offer greater flexibility and customization.

It would be great if JetBlue’s offer starts to alter that dynamic. ZipCar, the popular American car-sharing firm, does a much better job than the airlines do of offering pricing plans to fit every need.

Ken’s Take: “All-you-can eat-plans” often push suppliers up against their capacity constraints and end up disappointing customers – think AOL’s unlimited monthly dial-up program.

At least JetBlue is time-limiting, and location-restricting the offer so they’re not stuck with it if it blows up on them.

Thanks to Tags for feeding the lead

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Posted in Airlines, Mktg - Pricing | 1 Comment »

From trillions to billions … those vanishing spending cuts

August 2, 2011

Punch line: The $1 Trillion (with a T) in spending cuts in the debt deal includes $7 Billion (with a B) in 2012 and $3 Billion (with a B)  in 2013.

I guess the program catches steam in 2014.

Yeah, right.

Talk about back-loading … and illusion.

According to the AP …

The first phase of cuts would reduce spending by $917 billion over 10 years. A congressional committee would decide on a second phase of cuts totaling $1.5 trillion.

The first phase of a deal to raise the government’s borrowing limit would pose little threat to the economy in the short term because almost none of the spending cuts would occur before 2014.

Discretionary spending, which excludes Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, would be cut by only $7 billion in 2012 and $3 billion in 2013, according a summary by Senate Democrats.

That’s a tiny fraction of the nation’s $14 trillion economy.

“That’s certainly inconsequential for the economy.”

As Gomer Pyle would say: “Surprise, surprise, surprise”.

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Posted in Debt - Deficit | Leave a Comment »

1 in 5 American men not working …

August 2, 2011

According to Fortune …

20% of American men are not working.

That’s right.

One out of five men in this country are collecting unemployment, in prison, on disability, operating in the underground economy, or getting by on the paychecks of wives or girlfriends or parents.

The equivalent number in 1970, according to the McKinsey Global Institute, was 7%.

And, things don’t seem to be getting any better.

Ouch.

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Posted in Employment - Jobs | Leave a Comment »

Boehner’s Powerpoint summary of the deal …

August 1, 2011

Here’s the link  (or click the slide)

Not a model of Powerpoint pitches, but gives the GOP-spun interpretation of the deal.

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Ken’s Take: Deal is – in the final analysis – much to do about nothing.  Apparent spending cuts are trivial in context and probably just illusionary.

The “teeth” are – at best – Halloween wax teeth.

Will the gov’t restrict defense spending if security is challenged? Or, if Obama goes off on some more “kinetic activities”?  I doubt it.

They tried to get cute by making the Medicare cuts “reduced reimbursement rates to doctors and hospitals”.  With more and more doctors refusing to take patients with Medicare (think Mayo clinic), the move would promote a mass exodus of docs from the system. That one won’t happen either.

Biggest gain is that folks are finally focused on the Administration’s unfocused and unbridled spending spending.

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Posted in Debt - Deficit | Leave a Comment »

Great moments in marketing … or, not !

August 1, 2011

When marketing and politics collide …

* * * * *
tweet, Tweet, TWEET … please !

Widely reported:

On Friday, with time running out,  President Barack Obama urged Americans  to “tweet” their members of Congress to seek a compromise on a debt ceiling deal.

The President first begged for tweets in his primetime address to the nation last week.  I thought enough people ridiculed the plea that he’d shelve it.  Not so.

Maybe I’m old-school, but I think stirring up tweets is  un-presidential – and diminishes the office,

What next? The too cool President calling for a flash mob on the Capitol Hill steps?

* * * * *
Drill baby, drill

I’m a big fan of analytics and data-driven marketing, but …

The WSJ’s Peggy Noonan reported a hiring notice from the Obama 2012 campaign.:

The “Analytics Department” is looking for predictive Modeling/Data Mining specialists to join the campaign’s multi-disciplinary team of statisticians, which will use predictive modeling to anticipate the behavior of the electorate.

We will analyze millions of interactions a day, learning from terabytes of historical data, running thousands of experiments, to inform campaign strategy and critical decisions.

Noonan’s observation: It reads like politics as done by Martians.

* * * * *

My brand’s been hijacked !

Bumper sticker that’s popping up …. combines tweeting and brand image …  probably not sanctioned by the Obama campaign.

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Click to order your’s

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Posted in Internet - Soc Networking, Laughs, Obama | Leave a Comment »

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