The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

The Good: World leaders gathered at the United Nations last week. President Obama announced that through international collaboration and fiscal policy coordination, world leaders had averted a global economic depression.  He also took the opportunity to express his continued faith in the Middle East peace talks between Palestine and Israel and encouraged all world leaders to support the negotiations in whatever way possible.

The Extra Good: The run-up on Wall Street was a nice reversal of trends during the last several months.  In fact, September 2010 is the best performance on Wall Street since 1939.  By the way, The Wizard of Oz was released that month in 1939.  Perhaps if we follow the Yellow Brick Road we’ll be better off.

The Bad: While there were a bunch of positive economic indicators such as an increase in the price of previously owned homes and a 0.3 percent increase in the measure of future economic activity from August to July – the positives did not outweigh the negatives.  The bad?  While the economy is not moving backwards, it does not seem to be moving forwards quite yet.  While the current recession officially ended in June 2010, it continues to cause pain throughout the world as the worst recession since the Great Depression.  Ugh!

The Ugly: The Census Bureau reported last week that the number of Americans without health insurance increased by 4.3 million last year to 50.7 million American citizens.  One of the reasons – unemployment.  A second reason – the rate of increase in insurance premiums was three time the increase in the rate of wages.  The problem is that the trend is not new – it’s simply accelerating.    

Kevin Fickenscher, MD

The views and opinions expressed herein are my own and do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of Dell Services or its affiliates.