So Bill Gross begins Midnight Candles. Is this a horror story? Perhaps a bit of fantasy fiction? Neither. Midnight Candles is the November 2009 installment of Investment Outlook from PIMCO, home of the world’s largest bond fund.

If you’ve thought investment writing is stuffy, jargon laden, put you to sleep reading you may wish to read the monthly column from Bill Gross. It’s very readable and highly informative. As the lead paragraph shows, he knows more than the numbers of finance.

Say what? Big, bad government regulation didn’t crush the creative impulse with stifling regulation? It was instead the most important factor supporting innovation?

Read all about it.

Where is the money going?

Read the article. The root cause is revealed in the first page or so.

But don’t stop there, near the beginning where, the high cost culprit is revealed. Author Atul Gawande goes on to speak to his own experience as a doctor, when he bullied an admitting physician to keep his son overnight for observation. This hospital stay, he realized after doing further research, was unnecessary. Dr. Gawande also examines the practices of the Mayo Clinic and practitioners in Grand Junction Colorado. Both of these have costs among the lowest in the nation while providing care that is close to the top available. Those cases, where high quality care is provided at low cost, are the truly instructive ones.

Nor are these two cases special instances that cannot be repeated elsewhere:

The money quote: “[Lester Dyke, cardiac surgeon], is among the few vocal critics of what’s happened in McAllen. “We took a wrong turn when doctors stopped being doctors and became businessmen,” he said.

For a point of comparison American’s spend over $6Billion on potato chips last year. So says the Snack Food Association.

I wonder how much was spent on dip.

The Birk Economic Recovery Plan

  I'm against the $85,000,000,000.00 bailout of AIG.

  Instead, I'm in favor of giving $85,000,000,000 to America in
  a We Deserve It Dividend.

  To make the math simple, let's assume there are 200,000,000
  bonafide U.S. Citizens 18+.

  Our population is about 301,000,000 +/- counting every man, woman
  and child. So 200,000,000 might be a fair stab at adults 18 and up..

  So divide 200 million adults 18+  into $85 billon that equals
  $425,000.00.

  My plan is to give $425,000 to every person 18+ as a
  We Deserve It Dividend.

There is more, I’ve included the rest of the email below. Simply stated the Birk plan is bunk. All you need to know the truth of its bunkiness is to do the math. As I wrote in an email to the last person who sent this to me:

So please do, pass the work, show that Birk is Bunk. Kill off this numeric meme.

The rest of the bunky Birk email …

  Of course, it would NOT be tax free.
  So let's assume a tax rate of 30%.

  Every individual 18+ has to pay $127,500.00 in taxes.
  That sends $25,500,000,000 right back to Uncle Sam.

  But it means that every adult 18+ has $297,500.00 in their pocket.
  A husband and wife has $595,000.00.

  What would you do with $297,500.00 to $595,000.00 in your family?
  Pay off your mortgage - housing crisis solved.
  Repay college loans - what a great boost to new grads
  Put away money for college - it'll be there
  Save in a bank - create money to loan to entrepreneurs.
  Buy a new car - create jobs
  Invest in the market - capital drives growth
  Pay for your parent's medical insurance - health care improves
  Enable Deadbeat Dads to come clean - or else

  Remember this is for every adult U S Citizen 18+  including the folks
  who lost their jobs at Lehman Brothers and every other company
  that is cutting back. And of course, for those serving in our Armed
  Forces.

  If we're going to re-distribute wealth let's really do it...instead of
  trickling out a puny $1000.00 ( "vote buy" ) economic incentive that
  is being proposed by one of our candidates for President.

  If we're going to do an $85 billion bailout, let's bail out every adult
  US Citizen 18+!

  As for AIG - liquidate it.
  Sell off its parts.
  Let American General go back to being American General.
  Sell off the real estate. Let the private sector bargain hunters cut
  it up and clean it up.

  Here's my rationale. We deserve it and AIG doesn't.

  Sure it's a crazy idea that can "never work."

  But can you imagine the Coast-To-Coast Block Party!

  How do you spell Economic Boom?

  I trust my fellow adult Americans to know how to use the $85 Billion
  We Deserve It Dividend more than I do the geniuses at AIG or in
  Washington DC.

  And remember, The Birk plan only really costs $59.5 Billion because $25.5
  Billion is returned instantly in taxes to Uncle Sam.

  Ahhh...I feel so much better getting that off my chest.
      Kindest personal regards,

      Birk

Bah!

Whenever you think that the Government has done things so extreme that it can’t top itself — torture, theories of presidential lawbreaking, a six-year war justified by blatantly false pretenses — it always tops itself. On top of the massive debt under which the country was already drowning, another $700
billion is now being added in order to save the nation’s richest individuals from the consequences of their own recklessness, allowing many of them not only to remain enriched, but become further enriched, all while basically ensuring that the Government is incapable of spending any money for years, if not longer, on programs designed to improve the lives of the vast, vast majority of its citizens — the same citizens who are forced to fund this bail-out. That seems hard to top, but the only thing certain is that they will
find a way to do so.

There are some strains in that relationship. One money manager expresses his deep unhappiness with Republicans. Unhappiness so deep they have, for the first time, lost his vote.

I am a lifelong ( 51 years old) “rock-ribbed” conservative… What an eye opener this week has been! I now realize what a blowhard Newt truly is by advocating the GOP bail on the Paulson Plan. As a professional money manager I can tell you I am shocked, dismayed and depressed that the Speaker would excoriate the GOP to abandon this plan which is URGENT and necessary to avoid a financial catastrophe that once commenced may be irreversible. The level of ignorance of financial and economic reality displayed by the Speaker , Rep. Boehner, Sen. Shelby , et al, has been frightening and sad. I thought the GOP had a better grasp of such matters than the Dems. Apparently not. And if this has been pure election gamesmanship as I suspect? The willingness to play politics with the U.S. financial markets is appalling and disgusting.

I am a huge Reagan fan and admirer. I have voted GOP every election since 1976. Until now. Today. September 25, 2008. As soon as I finish this email I am going to try and get my $1000 McCain/Palin credit card donation back as I will not be voting GOP this year after watching this circus and the theatres passing as leadership displayed by the GOP. I am embarrassed to have been an erstwhile supporter of this gaggle of self-serving jerks. I hope the GOP lose their asses come November. They shall deserve it.

Ideology trumping good sense, ideology trumping national interests is costing Republicans votes.

BECKY: Uh-oh. For the last nine months, Berkshire has spent a lot of that cash it’s been hoarding over the last several years.

BUFFETT: That’s right.

BECKY: I was trying to figure it out. I think it’s about 24 billion dollars you’ve spent in the last nine months?

BUFFETT: Yeah, we’ve spent a lot of money. The money, the money we’ve spent, you know, we’ve found things we like to do. It’s nice to have a lot of money, but you don’t want to keep it around forever. I prefer buying things. Otherwise it’s a little like saving up sex for your old age. (Laughs.) At some point, you’ve got to use it. (Laughter.)

24 Billion? Wow. Are you investing more these days?