Deafening Silence

At Last-- It's Finally OK(for liberal cheerleaders) to Admit Obamacare is a Train Wreck

Even liberal pundits are admitting that the ACA emporer has been naked for some time:

It's getting difficult and slinking toward impossible to defend the Affordable Care Act. The latest blow to Democratic candidates, liberal activists, and naïve columnists like me came Monday from the White House, which announced yet another delay in the Obamacare implementation.

 I'm not a conservative, and I'll never be a Republican.  But the ACA was one of the few times I agreed with Republican doomsayers. Ron Fournier's op-ed reads like a laundry list of all the problems Republicans were pointing out from the beginning:

The win-at-all-cost mentality helped create a culture in which a partisan-line vote was deemed sufficient for passing transcendent legislation.

 Anybody remember the photos of Nacy Pelosi laughing loudly while she paraded down the street carrying an outsize gavel, on her way to passing the bill?  Anybody remember Deem and Pass? Anybody remember the President saying the American people "don't care about the process" used to ram the legislation down our throats?

The entire legislative process was down. right. creepy. 

For the second time in a year, certain businesses were given more time before being forced to offer health insurance to most of their full-time workers.

 Meanwhile, ordinary Joes and Janes have to buy insurance- or else. Premiums sky high, gov't subsidies too low? Too bad, J. Q. Citizen. Pay up.  Oh, but you, Mr. Businessman- you who sit on cash, refuse to create jobs, and threaten to replace workers with robots- you, dear Businessman, can avoid paying. 

Maybe indefinitely.

 It spurred advisers to develop a dishonest talking point—"If you like your health plan, you'll be able to keep your health plan." And political expediency led Obama to repeat the line, over and over and over again, when he knew, or should have known, it was false.

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Then officials started fudging numbers and massaging facts to promote implementation, nothing illegal or even extraordinary for this era of spin. But they did more damage to the credibility of ACA advocates.

Republicans predicted from the first that Obamacare would cause layoffs, reductions in worker hours and force plans and physicians to dump patients.

And they were absolutely right.

Defending the ACA became painfully harder when online insurance markets were launched from a multi-million-dollar website that didn't work, when autopsies on the administration's actions revealed an epidemic of incompetence that began in the Oval Office and ended with no accountability.

 In a era when 20-something kids can put together massively successful products like Facebook- or bring the NSA to it's knees using "off the shelf" technology to steal secrets- this is inexcusable.

The ACA does not work because it cannot work. And it cannot work because it was junk policy to start with.Any law that purports to give all Americans access to health care purely by forcibly extending health insurance is destined to fail.

Health insurance is not the problem.  It's just a symptom.

Time to start looking at the actual problem.

(Some of my other thoughts on Obamacare can be found here, here and here.)

 

 

Quote of the Week

From Peter  Morici writing commentary for UPI.com:

 

The defining difference between the recent two disappointing economic recoveries and the strong record of the 1980s has been the predisposition of presidents from both parties to champion politically expedient remedies -- bailouts and entitlements that steal money from promising research and development, public infrastructure and private investment to bolster inefficient hospitals, abusive financial houses and decadent universities.

When the best incomes are to be earned gaming regulators, dodging prosecutors and fielding gladiators for Saturday spectacles, no wonder the economy doesn't grow and one out of every six adult men is jobless and likely to stay that way.

Decadence begets decay.

 

 

More Fairy Tales about the Predatory Poor

N.C. governor Pat McCrory stokes conservative fantasies about the sneaky, slimy, migratory poor:

"We had the ninth-most-generous unemployment compensation in the country," McCrory said. We were having a lot of people move here, frankly, from other areas to get unemployment ... People were moving here because of our very generous benefits, and then, of course, we had more debt."

 

WRAL.com fact-checked this statement and found nothing in it- expect maybe some stormy weather emerging from the governor's bum:

The call: North Carolina's own rules prohibit people who have not worked in the state from tapping the state's unemployment insurance system, and economists say there's scant evidence for people moving across state lines for any work-related reason, much less because they're comparison shopping for unemployment insurance.

WRAL.com puts it in simple language for the governor:

... the easiest way to think about this is someone would have had to work in the state for around six of the last 15 months in order to be eligible for benefits. The amount of someone's benefit is governed by how long they worked and how much they made. Although the recently passed unemployment insurance reform bill changed the amount of benefits paid, it did not significantly change the five-quarter base period definition. 

In other words, you can't simply move to North Carolina, announce that you're unemployed, and sign up for lavish weekly unemployment checks. This is the kind of fever-swamp nonsense imagined by people who have never had to accept unemployment compensation.

Governor McCrory is apparently ignorant of his own state's laws.

 

 

 

 

Who's Looting Who?

(Image Credit: Flickr/Mike Fisher)

 

The Wall Street Journal is crying big tears for JPMorgan:

Trying to keep an accurate tally of the government investigations of J.P. Morgan has become a full-time job. This week the New York Times counted investigations in at least seven federal agencies, while the Journal counted seven investigations in the Justice Department alone, plus inquiries at other agencies.

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Mr. Dimon's worst sin in Washington's eyes may be that J.P. Morgan earned record profits last year despite the Whale losses.

Um, no. Ironically, the same same WSJ editorial lists of few of JPMorgan's "sins":

Now each day seems to bring details of another government investigation—about mortgage underwriting, mortgage-backed securities, energy markets, credit cards, other Whale-related cases and more. Since 2008 J.P. Morgan has spent more than $18 billion on legal expenses.

Let's take a look at just a few of these "sins"- otherwise known to the legal profession as fraud, market manipulation and money laundering:

In July, JPMorgan Ventures Energy agreed to pay the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission $410 million in fines. Why? Because in JPMVEC used Enron-style market manipulations to bilk ratepayers in California and the Midwest out of at least $124 million dollars.

From qz.com:

The manipulating of heavily regulated energy markets through creative price-setting is analogous to what Enron did in the early part of the century with strategies named “Fat Boy,” “Ricochet,” and the always popular “Death Star.”

In August the Commodities Futures Trading Commission subpoened JPMorgan for documents relating to allegations of price-fixing in the aluminum market. The CFTC investigation was in addition to at least 4 class action lawsuits filed by individuals and companies in New York, Florida, Louisiana and Michigan.

From a NYT report:

Wall Street’s maneuverings in the commodities markets have added many billions to the coffers of investment banks like Goldman, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley, while forcing consumers to pay more for gasoline, electricity and a wide range of products, from cars to cellphones.

Not content with squeezing money from consumers for electricity, soda cans and cell phones, JPMorgan looked abroad for bigger profits, and wound up paying the Treasury Department $88.3 million dollars in August 2011 for money laundering in prohibited transactions with Cuba and Iran.

The WST is also wringing its hands over the plight of the poor, defenseless shareholders of JPMorgan:

And now the feds are making Morgan's shareholders pay for this embarrassment. Morgan investors recently had to pay another $920 million to settle U.S. and U.K. charges related to the Whale.

I have a brief message for the phony free-marketeers at the Wall Street Journal:

Nobody held a gun to the heads of JPMorgan shareholders when they purchased their shares, and nobody is holding a gun to their heads now.

They were free to dump their shares and walk away after the first settlements began. Or later, when multiple settlements showed that share prices were inflated by ill-gotten gains.

But they didn't. Now they're paying the price.

Maybe, just maybe, if more shareholders dumped their shares when repeated settlements made the news, JPMorgan would simply fail due to its own shoddy management.

Happy Thanksgiving. Or maybe JPMorgan calls it "Thankstaking."

 

 

 

Quote of the Week

From Josh Borro in Business Insider:

The only stunning thing is that anyone still looks at House Republicans and  says: "You know what would be great? Giving these people more power  over public policy."

 

Some other interesting bits from the piece:

 Roughly one-third of this caucus thinks hitting the debt ceiling and shutting  down the government are great strategies to try to stop Obamacare. The other  two-thirds of the party has realized all along that this strategy sucks, but  they could not find any way to stop their party from implementing it — even  though these "reasonable" Republicans outnumber the crazies.

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Can you imagine the situation this country would be in if Republicans controlled  both houses of Congress right now? Or if we had a President whose administration  gets jerked around by Heritage Action in the same way that House Republicans do?  It would be a trainwreck, and "reasonable" Republicans like Nunes would still be  on television saying they understand it's a trainwreck, but by golly,  operationally, they had no way to stop it.

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A party that is this bad at tactics can't be expected to be any good at  policy-making.

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Gee- ya think?

Pigs on the Wing: David Frum, Ann Coulter and the NYT Agree on Immigration

Another sign of the approaching Apocalypse: David Frum, Ann Coulter and the New York Times editorial board agree on the issue of immigration.

Or at least, one aspect of it.

Here's Frum, in a Daily Beast column posted May 6, 2013:

For most Americans, the dominant economic fact of the past 15 years has been the deteriorating market for their labor. They must work longer and harder for less pay and fewer benefits. And since the financial crisis of 2008, many have found it difficult to get work at all...

Yet from the point of view of some Americans, labor remains too costly. American wages—although no longer anything like the highest in the world—remain considerably higher than elsewhere on the planet, even after adjusting for productivity differentials. People earn more than they otherwise might, just by the accident of being American.

The great unspoken question in the immigration debate is whether this “living in America” wage premium is a benefit to be cherished or a problem to be overcome. To a startling extent, political leaders agree: the wage premium is a problem—and immigration is the answer. {my emphasis}

 Shockingly, Ann Coulter touches on this same point in a June 12, 2013 post titled "IF THE GOP IS THIS STUPID, IT DESERVES TO DIE:"

Who convinced Republicans that Hispanic wages aren't low enough and what they really need is an influx of low-wage workers competing for their jobs? {again, my emphasis}

    Maybe the greedy businessmen now running the Republican Party should talk with their Hispanic maids sometime. Ask Juanita if she'd like to have seven new immigrants competing with her for the opportunity to clean other people's houses, so that her wages can be dropped from $20 an hour to $10 an hour...

    But rich businessmen don't care. Big Republican donors -- and their campaign consultants -- just want to make money. {my emphasis} They don't care about Hispanics, and they certainly don't care what happens to the country. If the country is hurt, I don't care, as long as I am doing better! This is the very definition of treason. 

Even more stunningly, the editorial board of the New York Times raises this same issue in a June 15, 2013 Op-Ed titled "Don't Blame the Work Force:"

What employers describe as talent shortages are often failures to agree on salary...

...Corporate executives have valuable perspectives on the economy, but they also have an interest in promoting the notion of a skills gap. They want schools and, by extension, the government to take on more of the costs of training workers that used to be covered by companies as part of on-the-job employee development. They also want more immigration, both low and high skilled, because immigrants may be willing to work for less than their American counterparts. {my emphasis}

Now let's summarize these 3 posts by lifting a single sentence from each:

 To a startling extent, political leaders agree: the wage premium is a problem—and immigration is the answer.

 But rich businessmen don't care. Big Republican donors -- and their campaign consultants -- just want to make money.

They also want more immigration, both low and high skilled, because immigrants may be willing to work for less than their American counterparts.

When a moderate conservative like Frum, a hard-right ideologue like Coulter and the deep blue editorial board of the New York Times all agree, you know the jig is up.  No longer can party loyalty or ideological purity can cover up the naked greed motivating much of 'immigration reform.'  Why go to the trouble of shipping your finished goods from 3rd-world sweatshops when you can just recreate the sweatshops here- and get a pat on the back for supporting 'immigration reform' as well?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quote of the Week

I don't always agree with David Frum, but this time he knocks it out of the park:

For most Americans, the dominant economic fact of the past 15 years has been the deteriorating market for their labor. They must work longer and harder for less pay and fewer benefits. And since the financial crisis of 2008, many have found it difficult to get work at all. Unemployment still exceeds 7 percent even as we approach the fifth anniversary of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy; nearly half of recent college graduates are unemployed or underemployed.

Yet from the point of view of some Americans, labor remains too costly. American wages—although no longer anything like the highest in the world—remain considerably higher than elsewhere on the planet, even after adjusting for productivity differentials. People earn more than they otherwise might, just by the accident of being American.

The great unspoken question in the immigration debate is whether this “living in America” wage premium is a benefit to be cherished or a problem to be overcome. To a startling extent, political leaders agree: the wage premium is a problem—and immigration is the answer.

That point of view is seldom phrased quite so bluntly. Instead we hear concern about “labor shortages,” “skills mismatches,” and “jobs Americans won’t do.” In a market economy, however, there are no shortages. There is always a price at which supply will rise to meet demand. Sometimes that price takes the form of higher pay. Sometimes it takes the form of capital investments to reduce a job’s difficulty or danger.

What employers mean when they refer to labor shortages is “shortage at the wage we prefer to pay.” Here’s how this preference operates in the labor market. Back in the mid-1970s, meatpacking was an industry overwhelmingly characterized by native-born labor. Meatpackers earned an average of $17.41 an hour, only slightly less than the average wage in all manufacturing. (All the dollar figures I’m about to use are inflation-adjusted to 2006 purchasing power.) Over the next three decades, native-born labor in the meatpacking industry was displaced by immigrant labor, much of it illegal. Wages correspondingly collapsed. By 2006, meatpackers averaged $11.47 an hour, more than $5 less than the average manufacturing wage—which had itself declined nearly $1.25 over the same period.

What’s happened to meatpacking has happened to other occupations, both unskilled (notably janitorial) and highly skilled (software engineering).

 

I have been watching with dismay and disgust as both political parties insist on attacking American employment by either legalizing illegal labor or pumping out more and more H1B visas.  Whether you are highly-skilled or unskilled labor, you're being shafted by a political structure that caters only to the oligarchy.

It's refreshing to hear someone with a megaphone start saying what I've been thinking for years now.  It's also depressing- because it's so true, and because everyone either denies it or doesn't give a damn.

 

Mitt Romney's John Kerry Problem

Mitt and Ann Romney gave Fox news an exclusive interview yesterday.

(I'm frankly surprised that Fox was even interested, given the Republican party's sharp pivot since the election.)

The Romneys discussed their disappointment at losing the election with Fox correspondent Chris Wallace:

WALLACE: Do you think that the two of you at all contributed to this image, which the other side certainly played up, that you were so wealthy that you were somehow out of touch with the concerns of the average American?

Ann Romney spends a few moments complaining that the American public never got to see the real Mitt, and then says:

WALLACE: Do you think the media was in the tank for Barack Obama?

(LAUGHTER)

ANN ROMNEY: I think that it's -- anytime you're running for office, you always think that you're being portrayed unfairly.

And, you know, we -- of course, on our side believe that there's more bias in favor of the other side. I think that that's a pretty universal -- universally-felt opinion.

Well, there was that famous slip of the tongue about the 47%.  And that nasty story about Mitt installing a car elevator in his garage:

The man designing a custom car elevator for Mitt Romney’s La Jolla, Calif., home said the Republican presidential candidate has ordered the “Phantom Park” model — the same one installed in the homes of actor Harrison Ford and singer Britney Spears.

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ABC News visited the Romneys’ luxurious southern California retreat earlier this year and reported on the planned expansion, as well as how Democrats intend to use it against Romney heading into the fall.

 Ah, yes.  Who among us has never felt the sting of media bias?

Who indeed?

(Image Credit: UTLaw Magazine)

During his failed 2004 Presidential bid, John Kerry was also portrayed in the media as an effete, out-of-touch multimillionaire.

 The poor man couldn't so much as order breakfast without causing a scandal:

In January 2003, when his campaign was still young enough that Kerry would actually sit down with reporters in a relaxed setting, he and Crowley met for breakfast at the Holiday Inn in Dubuque, Iowa. "I'd like to start out with some green tea," Kerry told the waitress, who stared at him for a moment before responding, "We have Lipton's."

 Mr. Kerry even had his own "47%" moment, when he supposedly asked a crowd at a NASCAR event:

"Who among us does not like NASCAR?"

Never mind that he never actually said it.  It sounded like something he would say, and that was enough:

Amazing, isn’t it? Dowd and her colleagues make up a fake quote. They’ve run the fake quote five times in their paper. Each and every time they run it, they mock Kerry for his pretentious, Brahmin-like ways. And yes—this is the way our White House hopefuls can lose in close elections.

And it still is.  The plain fact is that ordinary Americans are very uncomfortable with their wealthy political overclass, and that overclass is very uncomfortable with ordinary Americans. 

Maybe it's time to stop blaming the press and start looking at the economic and social chasm that separates American voters from their "representatives" in government.

Oh, and here's that famous ad of John Kerry windsurfing:

Did anybody else remember that he was portrayed as a flip-flopper, too?

Election Results 2012- Objects in the Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear

Well, the people have spoken.  But will Republican and Democrat party leaders understand what they said?

Obama did not win.  Romney lost.  Both parties need to understand this.

This election was the Republicans' to lose, and they lost it.  Not just Mr. Romney, but the entire Republican party lurched from gaffe to gaffe.  It began in the primaries when candidate Newt Gingrich  proposed that poor children as young as 9 be put to work.  Then Michele Bachmann announced- with no scientific evidence whatsoever- that the controversial HPV vaccine had caused a previously normal teenage girl to become mentally retarded.  Not to be outdone, Rick Perry behaved so erratically during a New Hampshire speech that some major news outlets wondered if he was drunk or stoned.  And multiple witnesses came forward to accuse Herman Cain of putting his (married) hand up various women's skirts.  Jon Huntsman disqualified himself by simply being sane.

By the end of the primary campaign it was obvious that Mitt Romney was all the Republicans had to offer. 

He might still have pulled it off, but then both he and the party decided to pull out the big guns and start aiming at their own feet.  At a campaign event Mr. Romney told a heckler that "Corporations are people too, my friend."  On a European trip intended to prove his skill at international relations he criticized British preparations to host the Olympics.

The Republican party enthusiastically supported his attempts at self-destruction by fronting candidates such as Todd Akin, who announced that "legitimate rape" (whatever that is) could never cause  pregnancy. Later Akin was given aid and comfort by Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock, who reassured his audience that even if a "legitimate rape" did cause a pregnancy, "it is something that God intended."

It was at this point that I began to wonder if the Republican party wanted to win anything.

Uncommitted voters looked at the steadily thickening crazy surrounding the Republican party and fled to the only viable alternative- Barack Obama and the Democrats.

Better the Devil you know than the Devil who can't walk and chew gum at the same time.

If the Democrats interpret this as a mandate for their man's policies, they are making a mistake.  Mr. Obama may have been re-elected, but the Teflon is gone.  Clouds are gathering around the Administration as more details from the ugly events in Benghazi emerge.  By New Year's day Mr. Obama could be writhing in the coils of a Republican-led investigation of the death of Ambassador Stevens and 3 other Americans.

Democrats should also remember that the American embrace of Obamacare is ambivalent at best.  Major food service employers have announced that they will begin hiring only part-time workers in order to avoid the law's mandate that they provide insurance to all full-time workers.  If this becomes a nationwide trend, the Affordable Care Act could turn into a lead weight that sinks the economy for good. 

Another hidden trap in the Act is the requirement that all persons without employer-sponsored insurance either buy insurance on the newly-established exchanges or pay a hefty fine.  Enforcing this aspect of the law could lead to some very unpleasant scenes.  Americans whose employers have decided to pay a fine rather than offer insurance will find themselves slapped with fines if they are unable to find adequate insurance on their own.  Americans who can neither get insurance at work (perhaps because their hours have been cut to part-time) nor afford it on the exchanges- even with a voucher- could find themselves sued by the IRS.

And all Americans will have to shoulder a host of new taxes designed to finance Obamacare.  We have just entered a brave new world where you can be fined for having inadequate insurance or taxed because your insurance is too good.

Voters did not run joyously toward these prospects.  They were forced toward them by a lack of options.  Both Democrats and Republicans are seriously misjudging the situation if they think otherwise.

Remember, this is the election were over 6,000 Virginia residents voted for a cat.

 

 

 

 

 

Vote the Humans Out!

Virginia voters have a chance to make a real difference in this next election.  Check it out:

 

According to Spot Magazine:

While Hank's run for a congressional seat may seem like a cute diversion from the divisive politics we've experienced this season, his campaign is downright serious about their message.  Over the last several months, Hank has raised awareness about the needs for animal fostering and adoption, stumped for job creation and tried to imbue a spirit of goodwill throughout. But, most importantly, Hank's campaign has raised more than 10 thousand dollars for spay/neuter and animal rescue programs, a concern at the very heart of his campaign.

This is absolutely true.  HankforSenate.com offers a range of Hank merchandise, from "Vote the Humans Out!" bumperstickers to Hank t-shirts, and all profits go to animal charities:

...proceeds from the sale of my campaign merchandise is donated to animal shelters.  To date, you have helped raise over $15,000!  Let’s continue to spread the word so that we can help as many animals as possible!  With the holidays approaching, this is a good opportunity to pick up some neat gifts for animal loving friends, family and co-workers.  Along with the shirts, mugs and totes, we are introducing new products including license plates, pet tshirts, slate plaques, garden flags and even canvas art!

As the holidays approach, why not pick up a memento of Hank's historic campaign for a friend or loved one?  A mug or t-shirt would make a terrific gift for anyone fed up with our congress-critters.

Personally, I might write Hank in for President.