Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · Jul 15

We at Arnold Ventures have been highly critical when a college cedes control of tuition, standards of admission, and oversight of content to a for-profit company. Revenue sharing with an outside entity inevitably changes the incentives from student success to profit maximization.
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · Jul 15

Following a class-action suit, Caltech rightly ended its relationship with the OPM and began rethinking its certificate programs. This should serve as a wake-up call for all colleges. Diluting the brand and misleading students to make a few dollars isn't helpful to anyone.
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · Jul 15

The quality and standards fell far short of the Caltech brand. Instructors were not Caltech faculty; some were recent graduates of the same program. The university’s only real involvement was collecting a share of the revenue. Students were deceived.
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · Jul 15

For all the headlines, nothing changed with overall spending trends.

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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · Jul 12

Good illustration of how much the Texas grid has changed in just 6 years.
yellow = solar; purple = batteries; dark green = wind; blue = gas; brown = coal; light green = nuke

via @gridstatus.io

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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · Jun 8

Interesting dynamic in power sector is that cost of building solar gen keeps declining, but the value of an electron during sunny hours in sunny regions is also falling. The cost of gas-fired gen is rising quickly, but so is value of dispatchable power. Batteries will determine how this plays out.

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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · Jun 4

43 million Americans have left college with no credential. That’s the higher-ed crisis. Just as important as getting students to college is connecting them with institutions that have a track record of success, offer credentials of value, and provide adequate student support.

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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · Jun 4

The session showed the rift in the GOP between the suburban populist members and their related think tanks that are fighting a culture war vs consumers, manufacturers, land owners, rural communities (property taxes), developers, and even oil & gas community who want/need energy abundance.

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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · Jun 4

Kudos to Texas Legislature for passing an energy abundance agenda while sidelining populist anti-electron bills that had momentum.

Passed: large load screening and management, nuclear fund, energy waste reduction
Failed: firming requirements, 50% gas gen mandate, wind/solar permitting hurdles

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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · Jun 3

Senators Cassidy and Kennedy have both introduced site neutral bills.

Getting rid of the waste fraud and abuse in Medicare is the right way to reduce healthcare costs and doesn't touch coverage. Focus on those.
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · Jun 3

Addressing these abuses could save huge money without affecting anyone's coverage. Both ideas have bipartisan support. Dr. Oz has vowed to scrutinize upcoding, saying it "is a scandal, and overall, we know that Medicare Advantage overpayments cost at least $83 billion in a single year."
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · Jun 3

More importantly, better ideas exist to save money in healthcare that don't cause people to lose coverage. There are abuses of Medicare both in upcoding (insurers making patients appear less healthy) and site-neutral (charging more for the same service after a hospital buys a doc office).
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · Jun 3

We can debate the number of people who will lose coverage solely because of failure to report and whether that makes this policy unworkable. The existing evidence from Arkansas, which briefly implemented work requirements, is thin.
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · Jun 3

The policy of work requirements is really a policy of work reporting requirement. This is nuanced distinction but very important. Inevitably, people who are engaged in work will lose healthcare coverage because they failed to properly document or report that activity. This, obviously, is bad.
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · Jun 3

Medicaid eligibility would require individuals to report their work, caregiving, education, or service activities every month. This becomes an administrative burden on individuals who often have the least ability to navigate the system.
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · Jun 3

A recent KFF poll showed 62% surveyed, including 47% of Democrats, support Medicaid work requirements in theory. But the challenge of policymaking is that what’s intended on paper often plays out very differently in practice.
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · Jun 3

There’s an ongoing debate about whether able-bodied adults should be required to engage in productive work to qualify for the social safety net. Most Americans support some level of personal responsibility for at least some programs. Reasonable people disagree where that line should be drawn. 1/8

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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · Jun 3

The Shoe Bomber caused every shoe thereafter to be searched by TSA causing significant delays and friction. I fear Operation Spiderweb is going to cause the same with shipping containers.

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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · Jun 2

India’s fertility rate has fallen from 6 to 4 to 2 in successive generations. The world isn’t just undergoing its greatest tech transformation, it’s also living through its most dramatic demographic shift, two trends that are of course deeply related.

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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · May 28

Cities like Tampa used to be affordable.

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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · May 27

Third-party payors are a necessary part of the healthcare system—that’s the core function of insurance. However, this same system also plays a major role in driving up the cost of drugs.
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · May 27

When insurers balked at launch prices of $1,000–$1,300 per month, many patients were forced to pay entirely out of pocket. This limited uptake. In response, Lilly and Novo Nordisk lowered prices by as much as 62 percent for cash-paying customers instead of raising them over time.
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · May 27

Once doctors and patients adopt the drug, manufacturers often hike prices annually (often 9.9%) knowing that payors lose leverage once the drug is entrenched in clinical practice.

GLP-1s broke this pattern.
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · May 27

The recent price cuts for GLP-1s are a great case study in how the third-party payor system contributes to high drug costs.

Drugmakers typically launch new products at a “modestly high” price, desiring to avoid insurer resistance and encourage broad patient uptake.
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John Arnold @johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · May 27

I’ve seen a lot of dumb stuff in my investing career but the “arb” that exists in publicly tradeds buying BTC when ETFs already exist is as dumb as anything.

That it’s levered vs unlevered doesn’t justify the premium. The leverage is low. You can lever an ETF yourself. There's no barrier to entry.

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