Columbian article - "May homebuilding activity improves by 17 percent in county" - hurray!!! - things are looking up!!!

Wait a minute. On reading the article, just what are we talking about? The first para refers to unincorporated Clark County. Where are figures for the County as a whole? Then the article goes on to say the 17% is 34 permits this year as opposed to 29 last May. It also says 26 were issued in April. Finally, dollar figures cited indicate we're talking about homes in the $300K plus range.

So, just what is being said here? Home values continue to drop in Clark County, with the average selling value much lower than $300K. Does this mean valuation for tax purposes is much higher than market value? Or were these permits for the areas like around Hockinson with 5 acre lots? Either way, I'm of the opinion the article's header is inaccurate. The actual growth is relatively meaningless, and contributes very little to any sort of economic upturn. Stats are nice, but they need to be applied properly.

roger — June 7, 2011 at 7:09 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

This is outstanding, a great start!

One of California's biggest health insurers says it will cap its earnings at 2 percent of revenue and return amounts over that level to its customers, care providers and the community.

Blue Shield of California says the new plan starts with last year's profit. That means it will return $167 million to policy holders.

Chairman and CEO Bruce Bodaken says in a San Francisco Chronicle editorial his company doesn't have absolute power to control rising health care costs, but they can do some things to help people pay for it.

He says Blue Shield will remain committed to the cap as long as it can remain financially solvent and make investments to stay competitive.

Blue Shield serves commercial, individual and government markets and covers more than 3 million people.

hawkeye — June 7, 2011 at 9:08 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

Hawk, this sounds strange. Is that not the company that got reamed down there a few months ago as they were trying to raise rates for some by like 20%? And all of the sudden they got profits to share? They always had the profits but they chose to raise rates instead. So why the turnaround?

luvithere — June 7, 2011 at 11:02 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )

I beleive I read that Regence/Blue Cross of Oregon recently applied for increases of over 20% in their rates as well.

willbridge — June 7, 2011 at 4:50 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )