Cavalcade of Risk: The Spamalot Version

It’s our turn to host the “Cavalcade of Risk,” which is what they call a “blog carnival.”  Blog carnivals are collections of linked posts around a common theme.  In this case, that theme is “risk” – its concepts, theory, and applications.  Risk topics can include economics, insurance, public, policy, and health.  Unfortunately a lot of people seem to have found the “Risk” heading and decided it would be a good target for posts that sell their services in the area of personal finance.   So it’s turned into a Cavalcade of Spam.

Some of these “submissions” are from”cash loan” sites.  Others are headlines “Stock Trading Riches.”  Some have only one post on the entire blog.  One isn’t even about personal finance.  It reads:  “Our team of designers came up with the ultimate wedding limousine and party ride that you can rent out for your night out in new york, new jersey, or Connecticut for a very low hourly rate. ”

This is a carnival, people, not a circus!

End of rant.  Some postings from respected friends, colleagues, and new but clearly well-informed people were buried in that torrent of spamvertisements, and we happily cite them below (some other worthy posts were only marginally relevant, or repeated well-known ideas, and were cut for space reasons):

Jason Shafrin presents Why the CDC ignored Swine Flu warnings: Type I vs. Type II Errors posted at Healthcare Economist, saying, “Why did the CDC and WHO ignore early warnings of a flu outbreak in Mexico? The concept of Type I and Type II errors may help to explain their thinking.”  Good stuff.

Michael F. Cannon’s take on the Obama Health Summit in Cato At Liberty is that the misunderstanding about the industry commitment to health savings was the Administration’s fault. He writes that “…the event was a fraud.  And the industry got burned.”

John Leppard at Health Care Manumission wasn’t psyched about that summit, either.

I (Richard Eskow) wrote in The Sentinel Effect about a risk management (and Bono-like “one world”) perspective on the swine flu – as a personal vs. collective threat – in “The Swine Flu, The Universe, and Everything.”

The Loreen blog reports that certain mental health meds may increase one’s risk of cardiac death.

At Mostly Economics, blogger Amol Agrawal discusses risk management issues.

Bob Vineyard at Insureblog suggests that proposed new taxes actually mean the government will come to depend on risky health behaviors like smoking and drinking for income. (Or, I suppose, the behaviors will diminish and costs will go down.) He also challenges the spurious-sounding assumption that HSAs encourage overconsumption of resources.

Jaan Sidorov of the Disease Management Care Blog shows how much he likes (or at least respects) actuaries in this review of a Milliman report on how to reduce the health care cost trend.  He supplements their recommendations with observations on how the Milliman suggestions can make a big difference.

David Williams at the Health Business Blog celebrates the progress demonstrated by the fact that people with AIDS can now buy life insurance.

Nancy Germond at AllBusiness.com – Risk Management for the 21st Century looks at how health reform could impact small business, reflecting on the cost-benefit of wellness programs (although small business health care tends to be fully insured and therefore less sensitive to these interventions).

And speaking of risk! Jon Coppelman of Workers Comp Insider looks at texting while operating motor vehicles on the job.  If U R texting U R crazee.  But I have to go now.  I’m posting this while operating my car, and I need both hands to downshift now.

Texting while driving would be so hard if it weren’t for all that freakin’ spam.