Sunday, August 9, 2009

This'n'That; August 11th;[obamanomics;FluffyCare;Palin]

Typically Faulty obamanomics!! Last Thursday, the Congressional Budget Office released its latest snapshot on the federal budget.
  • The budget deficit was almost $1.3 trillion during the first ten months of the fiscal year (through July).
  • That’s up from $389 billion at this point last year.
  • Spending has risen 21% over last year, while tax revenues have fallen by 17%.
  • CBO estimates that $125 billion of the increased spending and decreased revenues are the result of this year’s stimulus act.

Tax revenues have fallen off a cliff.

  • Revenues have fallen 17% this year, adding $353 billion to the deficit.
  • The decline has been particularly sharp for corporate incomes taxes (down 57%) and individual income taxes (down 20%).

Spending on TARP and the GSEs.

  • CBO estimates that spending to date on TARP will have net cost to taxpayers of $169 billion (For more details on how CBO calculates this, see this post.)
  • In addition, the government has injected $83 billion into Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE), the two housing GSEs.
  • Together, these parts of the financial rescue have added $252 billion to the deficit.
  • Spending on other programs has increased 14%, adding $325 billion to the deficit.
These increases are spread across many program areas:
  • Defense spending is up 8%
  • Medicare spending is up 15%.
  • Unemployment benefits are up more than 160%
  • Medicaid up 24%
The only piece of good news continues to be interest payments, which are down despite the explosion of federal debt. Payments have fallen on regular Treasury debt because of low interest rates and on inflation-indexed debt because of low inflation. obama Destroys Working America! This month something else became important - the labor force participation rate. What all investors and traders should be looking at is the net impact of any of these reports on national income and the ability of the consumer to spend. And these are still shrinking big time. Net Employment Gains: We are still losing jobs, and even if the Street wants to trade the second derivative, the decline in the rate of decline, a quarter of a million jobs lost is five football stadiums fewer people working and spending less money than last month. Impact on the economy is quite negative. Long Term Unemployed: This jumped to more than five million, up 589,00. A terrible number indicating large pockets of the economy are toast, and unable to spend almost anything except on necessities. Impact on the economy: also quite negative. Income Gains: The increase in the work week was noise - one tenth of one percent - and the income gains were 2.5%, which is less than the real rate of inflation due to increases in gasoline and health care costs. And since this is an average number, and millions fewer people are working, including quarter of a million last month, national income continues to decline. Impact on the economy: no impact, not a good thing when the economy needs a boost. Labor Force Participation Rate: Since the country lost jobs and the unemployment rate stayed the same, fewer people are looking for work, and therefore fewer people are looking to increase their income, holding back any potential gain in national income and consumer spending. This is not a good thing for the economy. The focus should be on national income: This recession is now being driven by a lack of consumer spending due to the recession, a staggering loss of consumer wealth in their homes and portfolios and the incredible pullback in consumer credit we have seen in the past two years, more than $4 trillion dollars by year end. Since 70% of the economy ( this number is shrinking, actually) is consumer spending, the continuing declines in national income means the recession is still getting worse and the nonsense about the second derivative is just that, nonsense. Are we too negative? Maybe, in part due to the new mandates in the financial broadcast media only to smile and have upbeat commentators. Not one commentator on CNBC, Fox Business or Bloomberg had a bad word to say. What does that tell you? It gets tiring and since these networks are posing as journalists, balance is needed for people interested in getting in or out of the market. What does this mean for investors or traders? For investors who value any kind of fundamentals, the market over time will respond to a W shaped recession or a bottom with no climb up, which means it will go down. There will be a statistical bump in GDP in either Q3 or Q4 but it will be just that, statistics based on inventory restocking, a one time event, and import and export flows and the market may go up in response to these numbers. Raise Federal Spending Limits? Last Friday, "Turbo-Tax" Tim Geithner formally requested that Congress raise the $12.1TRILLION statutory debt limit, warning it must be increased so that "citizens and investors here and around the world can remain confident that Fluffy obama and ACORN will continue to piss away America's future." Geithner said the existing limit could be breached as soon as mid-October if no action is taken, as the Treasury is expected to issue up to $2T of debt in FY '09 and up to $1.6T of debt in FY' 10. A couple of questions come to mind:
  • Has the Executive and Legislative branches ever heard of "SPENDING CUTS?"
  • Does the Executive and Legislative branches have any idea who buys up all this debt they issue?
  • The Chinese and the Japanese, that's who!! With each country's wealthiest individuals buying up major portions of most large cities, guess who's gonna own The United States??

Healthcare Facts Fluffy Doesn't Want You To Hear!! [I found this internet article by Gloria Vogel, a registered AFLAC agent] During summer recess, Congressional leaders are hearing an earful from constituents about health insurance reform. In numerous town hall meetings around the nation, opponents of reform have emerged in large groups battling the proposals. Fluffy obama vociferously argues that those opposed to his reform proposals are “spreading outlandish rumors and misleading information”, and the Administration blames Republican and industry backed groups and conservative talk-show hosts for “staging” the outcry. The White House is even asking that in order to track rumors, individuals should send information on any dissent to a new website: flag@whitehouse.gov. Just the Facts- Since there is so much concern about misinformation, let’s look at the facts.

Fact #1. Freedom of speech is a given right in the Constitution

  • Free discourse of opinion and political debate is allowed according to our Constitution.
  • In fact, freedom of speech has been upheld by the Supreme Court in opinions related to previous challenges to the First Amendment.
  • We do not want a society where Big Brother watches us, as happens in communist countries;
  • or where we tattle on our neighbors, as occurred in Nazi Germany.

Fact #2. Medicare/Medicaid government programs have consistently exceeded original cost estimates and have grown faster than private insurance costs. As noted in the Wall Street Journal last week,

  • Medicare spending in the first nine months of this fiscal year is $314 billion and growing by 10%.
  • The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the House bill will increase the deficit by $239 billion over the next decade.
  • However, beyond the 10 years, the net costs of new spending will increase at more than 8% per year between 2019 and 2029, while new revenue would only grow at about 5%.
  • In other words, the cost burden to taxpayers for this program will be huge and will last for a long time to come. Taxing private insurance firms to pay for the government plan won’t work, as the private firms will simply pass along those costs to their customers. Raising taxes on employers will simply shift the costs of healthcare to the public sector.

Fact #3. End of life treatments account for a large portion of Medicare costs.

  • According to the latest Business Week, a UnitedHealth report prepared for lawmakers finds that
  • 27% of Medicare’s budget is now spent during the last year of older patients’ lives, often on questionable hospital tests and procedures.
  • Expanded hospice coverage and other services could save significant amounts, perhaps $18 billion over 10 years, according to the article.
  • Purchase of long-term care insurance by individuals could also ease the financial burden for end of life treatment costs.

Fact #4: Any government health insurance plan that tries to compete with the private sector by focusing on affordability will inevitably offer cheaper rates and drive all insurance into a single payer plan.

  • While the Administration says it simply wants to offer another alternative to the private sector,
  • the reality is that the private sector will be unable to compete with a government run plan that offers insurance at below market rates to make coverage more affordable.
  • Employers will naturally cede insurance coverage to the government plan to cut their own costs.

Fact #5: U.S. insurers have already openly indicated a willingness to consider moving to a ”take-all-comers marketplace”, whereby they will accept all applicants, regardless of age or medical history.

  • If private insurers follow through on accepting all applicants, the need for a universal health insurance plan is partly obviated.
  • A better solution to a single payer plan is to have consumers assume higher co-pays for everyday medical costs within the private sector, with insurance coverage focused more on those high end expenses that can truly bankrupt families.
Fact #6: Single payer plans adopted by other nations have led to long delays in treatment, rationing of services, and rising costs – good indicators of what can be expected if a government health plan is adopted in the U.S.
  • Even the State of Massachusetts -- the model that serves as the basis for the Obama plan -- is having problems:
  • a scaling back of initial benefits, rising taxes, and higher costs.
  • France, which has long had a single payer plan, has tried to adopt more American-style methods such as increased co-pays to cut increasing expenses.
  • The state insurer in France has been operating in the red since 1989. The Japanese government fixes the costs for treatment, resulting in low doctor pay, bankrupt hospitals, and demand for supplemental health insurance coverage to fill the gaps in the government plan.
  • In Canada, waiting lists for various treatments are said to cost $14 billion a year nationally in lost economic activity, and there is a chronic shortage of doctors.
  • Despite the universal plan, many Canadians cross the border to seek treatment in the U.S. when faced with long waits and expensive treatments.
Rationale for Rancor There are many reasons why Congressional leaders are hearing negative feedback from their constituents. The dissent mainly focuses on concern over government control and intrusion into a major economic sector, as well as the cost burden of any healthcare reform program for taxpayers. There is no free lunch. We need to control the costs before we introduce any new, expensive, and inefficient plan. Healthcare is important for everyone. Congressional leaders should look beyond party politics and pass laws that are in the best interests of the nation -- and our legislators should have the same health plan as everyone else to align their interests. Here are some suggestions:
1.We should work to improve the existing private health insurance sector and encourage supplemental insurance to fill the gaps in such coverage, before we introduce any new government insurance plan. 2. We should encourage higher co-pays for everyday ailments to cut overuse of healthcare facilities, focusing attention instead on catastrophic issues. 3. We should establish a national cap on medical malpractice lawsuits, as has already been done in many states. High malpractice insurance costs lead to higher medical costs and force many good physicians to abandon their practices. 4. We should look into expanded hospice coverage for end of life care. 5. We should provide more information on diet and exercise and do more to incentivize individuals to adopt healthier lifestyles via lower insurance rates. 6. Before we do anything else, we should cut inefficiency in existing government programs.

[Note To Sarah Palin....]

Good day, Ms Palin; I, along with many other Americans, are casting about for some QUALIFIED representation who still retain their ability not only to hear, BUT TO LISTEN!! Now is the time to put together a regimen which will return the welfareRATs to the working class-excepting those who are truely in need. After reading the above entry, one should remember some of Benjamin Franklin's quotes:

One needs only to look to whom a large portion of the budgeted federal monies go. Social engineering of the FDR and LBJ administrations may have had good intentions, but have had devastating results!! The obama/ACORN administration is wont to follow in those calamitous footsteps.

Take a look at the statistics:

  • There were an estimated 96 million households in 1993, 722,000 more than in 1992.
  • The average annual rate of growth in the number of households has decreased over the past 20 years from 2.4 percent in the 1970’s, to 1.4 percent in the 1980’s, to 1.1 percent from 1990 to 1993.
  • In 1993, there were 68 million family households: 78 percent (53 million) were married-couple families, 18 percent (12 million) were families maintained by a woman alone, and 4 percent (3 million) were maintained by a man alone. (A family has at least two members with at least one who is a relative of the householder.)
  • There were 28 million nonfamily households, most of which contained only one person, The proportion of all parent-child family groups maintained by single parents rose dramatically from 13 percent in 1970 to 30 percent in 1993.
  • Nearly 75 percent of these “single” parents either had never married (36 percent) or were divorced (38 percent) in 1993.
  • The absent parent was usually the father (86 percent of single-parent situations).
  • A majority of Black family groups with children were maintained by single parents in 1993 (63 percent), compared with 25 percent among Whites.
  • This is much larger than in 1970, when the percentages were 36 percent and 10 percent, respectively.
  • More than 1 in 3 (35 percent) Hispanic family groups with children were maintained by single parents in 1993, compared with 26 percent in 1980 (comparable 1970 data are not available for Hispanics). (Persons of Hispanic origin may be of any race.)
  • In 1991, almost one-fourth of preschoolers were cared for primarily in an organized facility while their mothers were at work.
  • In fall 1991, there were 31 million children under 15 living with their employed mothers (55 percent of all children under 15).
  • Of these 31 million children, 10 million were preschoolers under 5.
  • Among these preschoolers, 23 percent (2 million) were in an organized child care facility, such as a nursery school;
  • 36 percent (4 million) were cared for in their own home; and 31 percent (3 million) were cared for in another home.
  • 1 Parent-child family groups have at least one never-married own child under 18 living in them, and include family households, related subfamilies, and unrelated subfamilies.

As is blatantly apparent, the socialist policies of previous democRAT a-n-d republicRAT administrations have bred several generations who feel they are entitled to government funded EVERYTHING, from cradle to grave-without lifting a finger to earn just one benefit. Laziness--NOT RACE, is the primary factor in this mindset!

  • Now add to the aforementioned costs for public assistance in all forms, the economic costs of supporting many millions of illegal immigrants.
  • Mexico's third largest cash infusion [after exports and oil sales] is the money sent home by the illegal immigrants in America.
  • Every year, more and more illegal immigrants use the nation's emergency rooms as their personal "doctor's office."

HOW COVERAGE VARIES--Illegal immigrants are less likely to have health coverage than others:

Types of Adults Uninsured

  • U.S. citizens 14%
  • Legal immigrants 25%
  • Illegal immigrants 59%

Children Type Uninsured

  • U.S. citizens 9%
  • Citizens whose parents are legal immigrants 13%
  • Foreign-born children of legal immigrants 25%
  • Citizens with illegal immigrant parents 25%
  • Foreign-born children of illegal immigrants 53%
Fluffy is "hell-bent" to convince the American public that he wants to insure that everyone of us has available healthcare.
  • Look at the stats; the 14% of Americans uninsured are most probably those young "20-somethings or 30-somethings" who with few exceptions, would be wasting their money in healthcare insurance!
  • The stats also indicate the largest abusers of America's healthcare system: Citizens with illegal immigrant parents [25%] and foreign-born children of illegal immigrants [53%]! They need no healthcare insurance!! They already know that they WILL BE TREATED during each and every emergency room appearance; They already know that if they don't pay the fees, the affected hospital will just "write off" the expense by adding it to those who do not abuse the system: You and I!!!
The latter statistical subjects are the very folks Benjamin Franklin warned us about: Those who will vote for the candidate that promises them the most in monetary benefits! All future potential national candidates including Ms Palin, must address the "free-loaders" of American society!! This society is becoming more and more stratified; just as the federal government wants it to be. This stratification makes "class warfare" far easier to promote. When the "do-nothings" are arguing against "the rich;" When the "working class" Americans are arguing against the "do-nothings," they're not paying attention to the issues that the federal politicRATs are trying to slide by them under the cover of darkness!!! We, the American "working-class" are in dire need of a Congress and a President who will listen to those who put them in office-NOT the lobbyists; NOT Wall Street; NOT the welfare vote; NOT the illegal immigrant vote; NOT the ACORN-COI agitators; NOT other special interests!!! and a Supreme Court who does not LEGISLATE FROM THE BENCH, but will support the Consitution as written-NOT as the democRATs and republicRATs liberally interpret it!!!

Til Nex'Time....


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