Looking for a long term investment?

So I just heard Niel Connan (sp.?) on PRI's "Talk of the Nation" talking to the ceo of this site. It looks very intriquing. It is fairly new, and they aren't profitable, but they have a really good business model going here. Next time I come up with some money to invest, I might just look into getting a >10% return with a 1-2% default rate. Those seem like reasonable odds to me.

Various and sundry

Things that have been on my mind as of late.

Health care in the US. What is to be done about this? The increase in health care expenses has far outstripped inflation for years now. It is straining the pockets of businesses, individuals, and soon governments with the medicare debacle. The only explaination I've heard for the spiraling costs is that uninsured individuals use emergency care for preventable maladies. Emergency care is the most expensive type of medical care, and thus it not only strains the hospital services, it drives up the costs. I guess before I believe that that is the sole cause, I would like to see cold hard numbers. Assuming that more wide spread health care will drive down the costs, what would be the best way to encourage health coverage while involving the government as little as possible? Prima facie, I like the administration's plan. Encouraging behavior with tax cuts is one of the more hands-off methods of social control. However, Mr. Bob who works at McDonalds probably doesn't pay taxes anyway, so this doesn't really help him at all. Plus, companies will likely start to drop health plans. On one hand this is a boon, because then you can take your health plan with you when you change careers. But, on the other hand, individual health plans are expensive and large group providers tend to get better pricing than indivuals. I can get better and cheaper health care through USC than on my own. Would the health system change and become more like auto insurance, or would we end up with fewer and worse options. Anyone have any thoughts?

Also: this is an awesome website: http://www.econsultant.com/i-want-freeware-utilities/

Also: did you know that our electrical power grid wastes nearly as much energy as all of our oil imports? Some of this is probably necessary waste, but a lot of it is wasted because we live cyclically and the power plants don't. The same amount of energy is produced at midnight as at noon, but that midnight energy is primarily wasted. Here is an interesting article on that: http://www.greencarcongress.com/2007/01/opinion_introdu.html

So with that in mind, perhaps EEstor is the answer, rather than 42. If they can come close to accomplishing what they claim without small complications like large explosions in accidents, this could be the biggest breakthrough since the combustible engine. We are talking about laptops that could run for days on end. Large ones could be used to even out production from wind and solar generators. Cars could be powered entirely off of the grid, which means they could run off of energy produced by nuclear power, tidal power, solar power, etc. If they go public, I want in.

Ok, I will now go back to attempting to come up with a new, innovative, holographic diffractive optical system. yeah...