Are you ready for this? How about "unlimited vacations for all." Paid for, of course.
Check out the NY Times editorial page today. These folks have launched their latest job-killing, economy-crushing plan -- unlimited paid vacations.
That should really entice employers to increase their work force. The new idea from the left is to have employees on the payroll who, in reality, are always on vacation.
Check out today's NYTimes editorial page if you think this is a mirage.
Friday, 5 July 2013
Thursday, 4 July 2013
Affordable Health Care?
The truth on ObamaCare is gradually unfolding. Two things are becoming increasingly clear: 1). Health care provision in the United States is going to deteriorate dramatically in the future because of the 'Affordable Care Act'; and 2). Health care costs in the US are going to escalate dramatically because of the 'Affordable Care Act.'.
You would think that the above two facts are inconsistent, but they aren't. There are a number of parts of the Act that are driving 1) and 2), but they can all be summarized by the following: The "Affordable Health Care Act" promises services but provides no real means of payment. Sound familiar? The same truth is why medicare and social security (and public pension funds) are on a pathway to insolvency.
The Obama Administration's decision to postpone enforcement on the 'large employer' part of the "Affordable Care Act" is an open admission that they don't want the public to see the true costs of the new laws and regulations. Once the elections are past, then, they say, they will enforce the law. The "Act" itself does not provide the Obama Administration with the wiggle room to postpone enforcement, but in the new Obama world of 'selective enforcement' of American law, the Obama Administration announced (in a blog message, no less) that they do not plan to enforce the large employer provisions until elections in 2014 are safely over.
The best health care system is a free market health care system. The insurance industry should be free to offer whatever health insurance plans they wish, to whoever they wish to offer them to.....period.
Concern about the uninsurable can be dealt with in the same manner as is done with auto insurance for drivers that are not normally insurable.
There is no reason for the government to take over the health care industry in the US. Just as with public pension funds and social security, the government promises to take care of its citizens, but, in reality, has made no plans to honor those promises. Ditto for the Affordable Care Act.
You would think that the above two facts are inconsistent, but they aren't. There are a number of parts of the Act that are driving 1) and 2), but they can all be summarized by the following: The "Affordable Health Care Act" promises services but provides no real means of payment. Sound familiar? The same truth is why medicare and social security (and public pension funds) are on a pathway to insolvency.
The Obama Administration's decision to postpone enforcement on the 'large employer' part of the "Affordable Care Act" is an open admission that they don't want the public to see the true costs of the new laws and regulations. Once the elections are past, then, they say, they will enforce the law. The "Act" itself does not provide the Obama Administration with the wiggle room to postpone enforcement, but in the new Obama world of 'selective enforcement' of American law, the Obama Administration announced (in a blog message, no less) that they do not plan to enforce the large employer provisions until elections in 2014 are safely over.
The best health care system is a free market health care system. The insurance industry should be free to offer whatever health insurance plans they wish, to whoever they wish to offer them to.....period.
Concern about the uninsurable can be dealt with in the same manner as is done with auto insurance for drivers that are not normally insurable.
There is no reason for the government to take over the health care industry in the US. Just as with public pension funds and social security, the government promises to take care of its citizens, but, in reality, has made no plans to honor those promises. Ditto for the Affordable Care Act.
Wednesday, 3 July 2013
Political Unity Collapses in Portugal
Enforcing austerity doesn't win much popular favor as the politicians in Portugal have discovered. The center right government in Portugal has pretty much collapsed over the weekend. Greece is also back in the news as it struggles to implement its own version of austerity.
No European government backing austerity will survive. Germany's Angela Merkel will be the most prominent casualty as she faces the electorate next year. Gone already are the political leaders of Greece, Spain, Italy, and France. It won't be long before their successors are under siege as well.
The EU-ECB plan of increasing debt and forcing austerity on their populations has been a failure from day one. The political unraveling of Europe was easy to predict and not at all surprising to watch. The fear is that extremists of the far left will eventually assume power and Europe will become a different place.
No European government backing austerity will survive. Germany's Angela Merkel will be the most prominent casualty as she faces the electorate next year. Gone already are the political leaders of Greece, Spain, Italy, and France. It won't be long before their successors are under siege as well.
The EU-ECB plan of increasing debt and forcing austerity on their populations has been a failure from day one. The political unraveling of Europe was easy to predict and not at all surprising to watch. The fear is that extremists of the far left will eventually assume power and Europe will become a different place.
Monday, 1 July 2013
China Slows
Asia is beginning to weaken. Given the stagnation in the western economies, this is not good news. Unemployment in the Eurozone remains above 12 percent and US unemployment rates have fallen only because of the massive shift of workers out of the work force. Growth in the West is so slight as to be within the margin of error for measuring the data. The only real global economic strength has been Asia and that may be ending.
Granted there are bright spots in the US -- fewer in Europe. US housing is stabilized and there are pockets of feeding frenzy here and there in the residential market. But, overall, there is still weakness. Now with Obamacare looming and the unleashing of the EPA, things could easily deteriorate in the US.
While everyone watches the Fed, the real story is a micro story. The mass of regulation, rules and additional costs that businesses face, even if demand were to increase, will keep a lid on economic expansion. Debt problems will also limit the future of Western economies. Too many promises, too few resources to deliver on those promises.
Fed activity is mainly important for inflationary expectations and pressures. With a sick economy (made sick by federal policies since 2008), there isn't much inflation. But there will be. That's what the recent uptick in treasury rates is all about.
Granted there are bright spots in the US -- fewer in Europe. US housing is stabilized and there are pockets of feeding frenzy here and there in the residential market. But, overall, there is still weakness. Now with Obamacare looming and the unleashing of the EPA, things could easily deteriorate in the US.
While everyone watches the Fed, the real story is a micro story. The mass of regulation, rules and additional costs that businesses face, even if demand were to increase, will keep a lid on economic expansion. Debt problems will also limit the future of Western economies. Too many promises, too few resources to deliver on those promises.
Fed activity is mainly important for inflationary expectations and pressures. With a sick economy (made sick by federal policies since 2008), there isn't much inflation. But there will be. That's what the recent uptick in treasury rates is all about.
Friday, 28 June 2013
Moodys is Right On
Moodys released a report on state pension funds today that implied that such funds currently hold only 48 cents out of every dollar needed to properly fund their obligations. Three cheers for Moodys!
For decades, state and local pension funds have released grossly misleading and inaccurate figures suggesting that they are better funded than is merited by the facts. Politicians have acquiesced in this charade since it was inconvenient, to use Al Gore's phrase, to speak the truth.
The chief method of disguising the truth is to make over-optimistic assumptions about future asset returns and unrealistic assumptions about the contributions that will be forthcoming in the future.
Based upon false information, state and local governments have touted reforms that hardly make a dent in the real problems. Virginia is a great example. The so-called pension fund reforms enacted by the Virginia General Assembly and backed by Governor McDonnell were misleadingly hailed as a 'major' improvement in funding. Nothing could be further from the truth. By maintaining mostly a defined benefit system supported by optimistic and unrealistic assumptions, the Virginia reforms simply locked in concrete a failing system without any serious reform.
The only properly funded pension systems are defined contribution systems. Period. If you are a participant in a defined benefit system (social security is a good example), the best advice for you is to start saving as much as you can. Your pension system is most likely in deep, deep trouble.
For decades, state and local pension funds have released grossly misleading and inaccurate figures suggesting that they are better funded than is merited by the facts. Politicians have acquiesced in this charade since it was inconvenient, to use Al Gore's phrase, to speak the truth.
The chief method of disguising the truth is to make over-optimistic assumptions about future asset returns and unrealistic assumptions about the contributions that will be forthcoming in the future.
Based upon false information, state and local governments have touted reforms that hardly make a dent in the real problems. Virginia is a great example. The so-called pension fund reforms enacted by the Virginia General Assembly and backed by Governor McDonnell were misleadingly hailed as a 'major' improvement in funding. Nothing could be further from the truth. By maintaining mostly a defined benefit system supported by optimistic and unrealistic assumptions, the Virginia reforms simply locked in concrete a failing system without any serious reform.
The only properly funded pension systems are defined contribution systems. Period. If you are a participant in a defined benefit system (social security is a good example), the best advice for you is to start saving as much as you can. Your pension system is most likely in deep, deep trouble.
Thursday, 27 June 2013
GDP Revised Downward
Instead of 2.4 percent as originally advertised, the US GDP grew at a revised 1.8 percent during the first quarter of 2013. Consumption spending fell off the cliff, which was unexpected.
So, the stock market rallied...big time. Why? Because the bad economic news suggested that the Fed might continue its bond purchases indefinitely. "Long live QE3" was the rallying cry.
Meanwhile the President and his cronies were busily designing more strategies to lengthen unemployment lines: increase minimum wage, bury the coal industry, continue down the road on Obamacare, push for higher taxes, and stall the Keystone pipeline.
Nothing discourages this White House. They will not likely be satisfied until unemployment gets back into double digit territory (so they can match their heroes in Europe) or until millions more Americans give up on working and move into disability or off into the black market.
On the ObamaCare front, the Administration is now recruiting Hollywood types and NFL superstars to begin a campaign to get young folks to sign up for ObamaCare health insurance, which will cost the 18-25 set roughly twenty times the penalty for not signing up. The premiums for young people are more then ten times what free market insurance would cost them.
There is some justice here, since young folks backed Obama's candidacy in overwhelming numbers. Now, the young will find first hand what it is like to pay to subsidize others. Don't expect the young to buy in. Coffee house conversation is one thing; actually paying for ObamaCare is another. They will not buy in.
Without the youth 'buy-in,' the ObamaCare numbers don't work. But that's okay one supposes, since the so-called insurance exchanges mandated by the law are not in existence anyway. ObamaCare is mostly an idea -- a terrible idea. No one knows what the reality will be because no one in the Obama administration is doing anything significant toward implementation. All of this will slam into the economy as the year progresses.
Between the coming of ObamaCare, higher taxes, the war on the coal industry, and the push for higher minimum wages, don't expect much improvement in the economy. Even housing is going to struggle with the new regulatory environment which makes it border-line criminal for a bank to make a mortgage loan to someone who needs a mortgage loan. Not to mention higher mortgage rates, which zoomed up from 3.7 percent to over 4.5 percent just in the last thirty days.
Meanwhile the stock market moves higher.
So, the stock market rallied...big time. Why? Because the bad economic news suggested that the Fed might continue its bond purchases indefinitely. "Long live QE3" was the rallying cry.
Meanwhile the President and his cronies were busily designing more strategies to lengthen unemployment lines: increase minimum wage, bury the coal industry, continue down the road on Obamacare, push for higher taxes, and stall the Keystone pipeline.
Nothing discourages this White House. They will not likely be satisfied until unemployment gets back into double digit territory (so they can match their heroes in Europe) or until millions more Americans give up on working and move into disability or off into the black market.
On the ObamaCare front, the Administration is now recruiting Hollywood types and NFL superstars to begin a campaign to get young folks to sign up for ObamaCare health insurance, which will cost the 18-25 set roughly twenty times the penalty for not signing up. The premiums for young people are more then ten times what free market insurance would cost them.
There is some justice here, since young folks backed Obama's candidacy in overwhelming numbers. Now, the young will find first hand what it is like to pay to subsidize others. Don't expect the young to buy in. Coffee house conversation is one thing; actually paying for ObamaCare is another. They will not buy in.
Without the youth 'buy-in,' the ObamaCare numbers don't work. But that's okay one supposes, since the so-called insurance exchanges mandated by the law are not in existence anyway. ObamaCare is mostly an idea -- a terrible idea. No one knows what the reality will be because no one in the Obama administration is doing anything significant toward implementation. All of this will slam into the economy as the year progresses.
Between the coming of ObamaCare, higher taxes, the war on the coal industry, and the push for higher minimum wages, don't expect much improvement in the economy. Even housing is going to struggle with the new regulatory environment which makes it border-line criminal for a bank to make a mortgage loan to someone who needs a mortgage loan. Not to mention higher mortgage rates, which zoomed up from 3.7 percent to over 4.5 percent just in the last thirty days.
Meanwhile the stock market moves higher.
Wednesday, 26 June 2013
Unilateral Energy Disarmament
As the rest of the world gears up to massively increase their carbon footprint, Obama is moving to put the US out of the coal business. That won't keep worldwide coal production from soaring. It just takes the US out of the coal business. Obama has made no effort at all to get global partners to sign on board. Instead, the US is walking this plank all alone.
This is in keeping with the Obama strategy of strangling the US economy to gain accolades from the Harvard coffee houses.
Once again, American workers will bear the brunt of the Obama agenda. It is not enough to have the worst economic recovery on historical record (at least since 1850). Now, with Obamacare on the horizon, Obama provides one more nail to the coffin of American prosperity with his arbitrary EPA war on the American worker and energy user.
The route to third world status is paved with good intentions and truckloads of hubris.
This is in keeping with the Obama strategy of strangling the US economy to gain accolades from the Harvard coffee houses.
Once again, American workers will bear the brunt of the Obama agenda. It is not enough to have the worst economic recovery on historical record (at least since 1850). Now, with Obamacare on the horizon, Obama provides one more nail to the coffin of American prosperity with his arbitrary EPA war on the American worker and energy user.
The route to third world status is paved with good intentions and truckloads of hubris.
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