What happened to all of the doom and gloom economic threads?

[koalabear]

All companies are passing out the bonus money like crazy now to beat the Jan. 1 tax increase.

 

[LadyVer]

All companies are passing out the bonus money like crazy now to beat the Jan. 1 tax increase.

Maybe, but not like they used to.

 

[koalabear]

Maybe, but not like they used to.

Prove it.

 

[unregistered]

 

[LadyVer]

Prove it.

You're cute. I'm on my droid right now. What I can say is the large company I worked for went from paying out the wazoo all employees a nice annual bonus to paying the execs that were left a bonus the admin staff used to get, which is better than nothing.

 

[Busybody]

Which real conservative will be able to forge a compromise with Democrats to avoid the fiscal cliff and sequestration?

7 or 9%?

 

[mercury14]

We don't want to forge a compromise with Democrats who want all or nothing, fuck em'.

The Dems already floated a plan that was far from all-or-nothing. They have wiggle room to give up a little more of what they want, sure, but you can't call it all-or-nothing.

Your thoughts aren't making sense though. Every one of your "real conservatives" signed Grover's pledge and is literally all-or-nothing. Tell me how a conservative who is ideologically opposed to compromising with Democrats is going to compromise with Democrats. I'm just not seeing any kind of pragmatism is what you're wanting here.

 

[mercury14]

7 or 9%?

7%.

5 characters.

 

[unregistered]

 

[Adre]

Watch and learn.

 

[richard_daily]

We don't want to forge a compromise with Democrats who want all or nothing, fuck em'.

Who's "we"? I thought you were a "not-republican"?

 

[RobDownSouth]

We don't want to forge a compromise with Democrats who want all or nothing, fuck em'.

You don't want to forge a compromise, period.

You've completely withdrawn into your echo chamber and choose to ignore the fact that a little over a month ago the majority of American refudiated your political platform and candidate.

Elections have consequences, Vetty. You and your fellow Republicans will have to decide very soon if you want to continue your scorched-earth "Party First, Country Second" agenda.

 

[Busybody]

7%.

5 characters.

ok

for the sake of America and our people, I hope you are right

I don't think you are

We shall see

 

[Busybody]

The President hasn't floated a plan that can pass his own democrat senate. He has failed to come up with any meaningful cuts in spending. He's all about spending even more than he already has.

opps

 

[unregistered]

 

[RobDownSouth]

7.7% unemployment on 146,000 jobs created. How many have left the jobs market to bring the rate down? Has the participation rate dropped? probably.

Note the revisions for September and October as I predicted show much less jobs created in those months than reported. Obama could have benefited from the bullshit numbers.

Still trying hard to de-legitimize the election, I see.

Operation Impeach Teh Negar 2013 continues....

 

[unregistered]

 

[Busybody]

Surprised? HELL NO!

Obamacare improves another life: Bill’s architect cashes out to pharma giant

December 6, 2012 | 3:15 pm
3Comments





Timothy P. Carney

Senior political columnist
The Washington Examiner



Liz Fowler worked for Democratic Senator Max Baucus in the first half of last decade, and so it wasn’t surprising when she cashed out to run the lobbying shop at Wellpoint, the nation’s largest private insurer.

After all, that’s what Max Baucus staffers do. They become high-paid lobbyists for powerful companies dependent on government. Former Baucus chief of staff David Castagnetti is now a lobbyist partner at Mehlman, Vogel, Catagnetti. Successor Jeff Forbes is a partner at Cauthen, Forbes, and Williams. Baucus’s chief trade counsel Scott Parven doesn’t have a lobbying firm named after him, because he sold his firm to K Street giant Akin Gump. There are literally dozens of others.

It also wasn’t surprising when Baucus hired her back to help write Obamacare. After all, Baucus is famously close with K Street and industry lobbyists.

Given Baucus’s central role in drafting Obamacare, and lobbyists’ access to Baucus, it wasn’t surprising either when the bill won the backing of the biggest health-industry lobbies in the country — Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the American Medical Association, and the American Hospital Association.

Obamacare was a porkfest for special interests, giving them subsidies, forcing people to buy their product, giving drugmakers lengthy monopolies, preserving the special favors Republicans had given them, protecting them from competition.

After the bill passed, many of the bill’s authors and key supporters rushed to take their payday.

Senate Health Committee staffer Connie Garner, who helped write the subsidies for long-term care, launched a practice working with long-term-care providers.

Arlen Specter’s health-care guy, John Myers, cashed out to the Glover Park Group, where he now represents Obamacare recipients like Planned Parenthood, United Health, Trygg Pharma, and Sucampo Pharmaceuticals. Another Obamacare author now lobbying at GPG is Liz Engel, who was health policy director at the Senate Democratic Policy Committee.

Nancy Pelosi’s top health-care aide left for K Street, as did other staffers from Senate Health Committee, House Democratic Policy Committee, and the Ways & Means Committee. Their clients include big pharma, insurers, hospitals, and so on.

Liz Fowler originally didn’t go that route. She went instead to the administration. You know, the Obama administration, which doesn’t hire lobbyists. At HHS, she helped implement Obamacare.

So, now, of course, she’s taking her third spin through the revolving door, to run the lobbying shop at Pharma giant Johnson & Johnson. This helps highlight what Obamacare was about: further enmeshing healthcare and government, thus creating more demand for revolving-door lobbyists.

I liked the reactions of Natasha Lennard at Salon and Glenn Greenwald at the Guardian.

Lennard:


Liz Fowler, well known as the architect of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, never really left the healthcare industry….

Fowler’s dizzying spins through the Washington/healthcare industry revolving door dampen any arguments that aim to frame Obamacare as a progressive victory over health insurance companies.

Greenwald’s response to Fowler’s move is characteristically cutting and lengthy. Some highlights:


The pharmaceutical giant that just hired Fowler actively supported the passage of Obamacare through its membership in the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) lobby. Indeed, PhRMA was one of the most aggressive supporters – and most lavish beneficiaries - of the health care bill drafted by Fowler….

This is precisely the behavior which, quite rationally, makes the citizenry so jaded about Washington. It’s what ensures that the interests of the same permanent power factions are served regardless of election outcomes. It’s what makes a complete mockery out of claims of democracy. And it’s what demonstrates that corporatism and oligarchy are the dominant forms of government in the US….

That’s a good reminder of what Obamanomics and Bushonomics have in common.

 

[unregistered]

 

[unregistered]

 

[Busybody]

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - The U.S. added 146,000 jobs in November and the unemployment rate fell to 7.7%, the lowest level since December 2008, the Labor Department said Friday. Hurricane Sandy appeared to have little effect on hiring and employment last month, the government said. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had expected an increase of just 80,000 jobs because of the disruption caused by the storm. The unemployment rate was projected to hold steady at 7.9%. It fell mainly because 350,000 people dropped out of the labor force. Employment gains for October and September, meanwhile, were revised somewhat lower. The number of new jobs created in October was revised down to 138,000 from 171,000, while September's figure was revised down to 132,000 from 148,000. The biggest increase in hiring in November occurred in retail, professional services and leisure and hospitality. The construction and manufacturing sectors reduced employment. Average hourly wages rose 4 cents to $23.63 in November while the average workweek was unchanged at 34.4 hours.


So SANDY had no impact, yet when the claims are 400K or so, THEY say it did have impact

 

[Busybody]

BTW, the jobs report says the effects of Sandy were insignificant.

I just wrote the same thing

 

[Busybody]

so

Its possible we will see 7 before 9

But only with MANIPULATED NUMBERS

 

[unregistered]

 

[unregistered]