A year or so ago I was visiting at a doctor’s house and the conversation turned to the status of his practice. I was a bit surprised to hear that it wasn’t doing so well. Appointments were noticeably down and the office had to let a staff member or two go.
I was surprised because I assumed that health care (along with funeral homes and the like) would be a largely recession-proof industry. People keep getting sick and must see a doctor.
[My hunch that health care demand is inelastic likely stems from the fact that I’m reluctant to see the doctor unless I really need to do it.]
A study released earlier this year (link to actual paper [.pdf]) reveals that the recession has not only affected my neighborly doctor but the industry as a whole:

The economic crisis in the United States has reduced the use of routine medical care, and the cutbacks here are much deeper than in countries with universal health care systems, researchers say in a new report.
. . .
Among Americans responding to the survey, they said, 26.5 percent reported reducing their use of routine medical care since the start of the global economic crisis in 2007.

Not surprisingly, these cutbacks are far deeper than consumers have made in countries that have universal health care:

This proportion dwarfs the comparable numbers for other countries: 5.3 percent in Canada, 7.6 percent in Britain, 10.3 percent in Germany and 12 percent in France.
. . .
Cutbacks were generally correlated with the size of out-of-pocket costs, the researchers found. The proportion of people reporting reductions in routine care was smaller in Britain and Canada, where the co-payments are lower, than in France and Germany, where somewhat larger co-payments are required.

People living where there is a bigger safety net live more safely in turbulent times.

At any rate it’s another example of how the recession has impacted everyone. OK, maybe not the morgue.

Interesting nugget from Keith Humphreys’ post on Christopher Hitchens’ illness:

For about eight years, I was a hospice volunteer, and had the honor to attend many people throughout their dying process. One of the most reliable rules was that people died as they had lived. Happy people were happy at the end, crabby people were crabby, anxious people were anxious. The story of human personality development is largely one of continuity. Temperamental differences measured within an hour of birth predict temperament 20 years later, and people who win million dollar lotto prizes tend, within a year, to return to being precisely as happy or unhappy as they were before their big win.

Humphreys’ point is that people facing death rarely undergo a dramatic religious conversion. But I’m just as curious about his line on infant temperaments. Can we tell what kind of adult is in the making by the way a newborn behaves?
It turns out there is research linking infant temperament to adult brain structure:

Conclusions To our knowledge, this is the first demonstration that temperamental differences measured at 4 months of age have implications for the architecture of human cerebral cortex lasting into adulthood. Understanding the developmental mechanisms that shape these differences may offer new ways to understand mood and anxiety disorders as well as the formation of adult personality.

However, developmental psychologist Jerome Kagan, author of The Temperamental Thread, notes that this does not mean we can predict adult personality per se:

Knowledge of a child’s temperaments does not predict their adult personality profiles very well. Temperaments act primarily by preventing a person from developing a certain personality, rather than determining a specific type. For example, we call one of our infant temperaments high-reactivity. These infants are easily aroused by any event that is new or unexpected. When we assessed a large group of high reactives at 15 years of age and asked what proportion were extremely shy, anxious, timid, or cautious we learned that about 25 percent had such a profile. One might conclude that their infant temperament was not very predictive. That conclusion is reasonable because their environments have shaped their temperaments in distinct ways. But now let us ask: what proportion of high reactives has been, over the past 12 or 13 years, consistently ebullient, risk-prone, and socially outgoing? The answer is 5 percent. We do very well when we predict what they will not be for we predict correctly for 95 percent of these adolescents.
Almost everyone can learn to play tennis. But how many can play like Roger Federer? Not many, because their biology prevents them from attaining this level of talent. If you knew my genome the day I was born, you might be able to predict with great confidence that I would not play as well as Roger Federer. But you would be wrong if you said that this boy will never learn to play tennis. Temperaments constrain, rather than predict, the future. Their primary role is to limit what might develop.

I’m a rank layperson with no special insights into this. I’m just fascinated by the topic of what it is that makes us who we are.

A entertainment trend I’ve noticed, particularly in the last few months: I’ve been listening to more Christian contemporary music than I used to, primarily on Life 88.3.
It hasn’t been a deliberate shift. I didn’t wake up one morning and decide that I was going to listen to Christian music because it has a positive message–though it does. Fact is I’m still perfectly content to listen to secular songs with dumb lyrics.
But for whatever reason I find that I’ve simply been liking contemporary Christian songs more than what’s playing on secular music stations. Part of the reason may the “newness” (to me) of the music rather than hearing songs I’ve heard over and over again for years. Part of it may be the mostly commercial-free format on Life 88.3. And part of it . . . heck, I can’t explain why I enjoy the music I like–It just strikes an inner chord.
Here are a few of the songs I’ve been enjoying this summer:
–Britt Nicole, “Walk On the Water”
–Chris Tomlin, “Our God is Greater”
–Christy Nockels, “Healing is in Your Hand”
–Kari Jobe, “You Are For Me”
–MercyMe, “All Of Creation”
–Natalie Grant, “The Greatness Of Our God”
–Sanctus Real, “Lead Me”
–Tenth Avenue North, “Healing Begins”

Martin Wolf discusses what he thinks the Republican party would do to solve the budget deficit problem if it was running Congress. His conclusion: nothing.
His argument:
–The GOP only cares about pushing tax cuts. It has been “transformed from a balanced-budget party to a tax-cutting party.”
–Supply-siders continue to push the dishonest argument that tax cuts pay for themselves with increased revenue. The past 30 years has illustrated that this is not true, and it’s practice has resulted in ballooning budget deficits under three Republican administrations.
–Given the above, it’s clear that–notwithstanding their rhetoric–the GOP doesn’t care about budget deficits (Cheney admitted as much). They aren’t campaigning on any tough spending-cut choices–they’re only offering the “free lunch” of more tax cuts.
–Since the Republican party isn’t serious about deficit-reduction, it’s unlikely the Democratic party will do anything about it either. They need only look back to what happened when President Clinton left office: the “austerity” compromises the Democrats agreed to then lead to budget surpluses which simply gave the GOP an excuse to cut taxes again (and once again we returned to record deficits).
It’s an interesting take from a European perspective. Read the whole thing.

Unemployment is at a decade’s-long high, and despite the supposed economic recovery, job growth has been anemic at best.
The Fed’s core mission with respect to monetary policy is to “influencing the monetary and credit conditions in the economy in pursuit of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates.”
Is the Fed achieving this goal? We remain at risk for a double-dip recession. Is the Fed fully utilizing all its tools to stimulate economic growth?
Tim Duy has been reading the tea leaves and concludes that, for the time being, the Fed is content to do nothing, letting the economy glide on its own power:

Bottom Line: The Fed shows no sense of urgency with respect to the current economic situation, and appears prepared to endure a weaker second half with no policy shift. Moreover, even if the economy does worsen more than they expect, the likely candidates for policy action are more smoke than fire. The Fed knows this, and doesn’t want to lose credibility on actions with little likelihood of success. A more aggressive policy stance Gagnon-style appears off the table as long as the Fed fears the possibility that such policy might actually work and push up long term rates. That means more significant action only after outright deflation expectations are evident. Appears extreme, but central bankers tend to be a conservative lot. Lacking a financial crisis, the need for more action is not apparent to them. They fundamentally believe they have done pretty much all that can be reasonably expected. Moreover, we need to reassess the Fed’s inflation comfort level; they may think they are hitting one mandate just fine.

The economy is sputtering and policymakers seemingly have no sense of urgency to do anything more about it. Evidently the Fed will not be changing monetary policy anytime soon. Congress apparently won’t be adopting any stimulative fiscal policy beyond extending unemployment benefits. The resulting outlook is for continued high unemployment for many more months, if not years.
It’s depressing.