The Universe...

/start metaphysical rant

I have long thought that, despite the best Doppler estimates regarding the speed of the expansion of the universe, that it will all collapse in upon itself..."again". I say "again" because I have a feeling this super-cycle-of-everything has happened many times. Perhaps there are many such experiments going on simultaneously in the Great Architect's laboratory.

Anyway, the resultant singularity will then explode in "another" bang and the multi-billion year cycle "everything". Of course, this comes from the same person who wrote a high school paper that theorized Qausars were simply the "ejection" points for Black Holes.

/end metaphysical rant

Here on planet earth, readers will note my penchant for historical corrolaries and cycles. Some are more obvious than others and are triggered by a wide variety of catalysts.

Government law and policy is a MAJOR source of these catalysts, and it is rare for Government to examine all the consequences resulting from drafting legislation. This is entirely natural for an entity that suffers no immediate consequence from their actions and the sheer complexity of the systems they create makes accountability problematic. In other words, blame the previous administration, and continue the game.

And so we have this Health Care legislation that is causing some companies to reconsider health benefits for employees. The economic costs of the penalties will be weighed against providing such coverage as the below article outlines. This in turn will cause profits to increase as health care costs are pared down.

At this point, a Value Added Tax ("VAT") will be considered as the Government finds its citizenry getting increasingly "concerned" about the cost/quality of health care insurance. A VAT will seek to redress the mistake of Health Care reform.

VATs directly benefit large conglomerates in market competition. Conglomerates have the scale and systems integration to apply the VAT without much cost. Smaller companies will have increased costs in compliance and administration.

And so, paradoxically, a possible outcome of Health Care legislation is the increased presence and power of very large companies. If we see a repeal effort for the anti-trust laws, then you know the cycle is complete.

(Fortune) -- The great mystery surrounding the historic health care bill is how the corporations that provide coverage for most Americans -- coverage they know and prize -- will react to the new law's radically different regime of subsidies, penalties, and taxes. Now, we're getting a remarkable inside look at the options AT&T, Deere, and other big companies are weighing to deal with the new legislation.

Internal documents recently reviewed by Fortune, originally requested by Congress, show what the bill's critics predicted, and what its champions dreaded: many large companies are examining a course that was heretofore unthinkable, dumping the health care coverage they provide to their workers in exchange for paying penalty fees to the government.