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

[Beco]

Scholars gathered for the African American Economic Summit at Howard University on Friday sketched an alarming picture of the financial ills afflicting the black community even as the nation recovers from the recession.

The white-black wealth disparity is more than 20 to 1. Black homeownership has declined. Black joblessness is up. Black income is down.

As the conferees gathered, the government released new figures showing the black unemployment rate at 13.8 percent, nearly double the 7.0 percent for whites. The overall jobless rate is 7.9 percent.

As bleak as the economic picture is for black Americans, the immediate prospects for improving it are worse, many participants said. They agreed that chances are remote for the kind of aggressive, targeted action needed to combat those problems and close the economic disparities that have long separated blacks and whites.

 

[Busybody]

Tee Hee

http://americandigest.org/sidelines/Jobs-Council.jpg

 

[jeninflorida]

Scholars gathered for the African American Economic Summit at Howard University on Friday sketched an alarming picture of the financial ills afflicting the black community even as the nation recovers from the recession.

The white-black wealth disparity is more than 20 to 1. Black homeownership has declined. Black joblessness is up. Black income is down.

As the conferees gathered, the government released new figures showing the black unemployment rate at 13.8 percent, nearly double the 7.0 percent for whites. The overall jobless rate is 7.9 percent.

As bleak as the economic picture is for black Americans, the immediate prospects for improving it are worse, many participants said. They agreed that chances are remote for the kind of aggressive, targeted action needed to combat those problems and close the economic disparities that have long separated blacks and whites.

and what we need is to reward people and give them free money

 

[Busybody]

Obama Unloads 160 Pages Of School Snack Regulations…




Via The Hill:


The Obama administration proposed regulations Friday that would prohibit U.S. schools from selling unhealthy snacks.

The 160-page regulation from the Department of Agriculture (USDA) would enact nutrition standards for “competitive” foods not included in the official school meal.

In practice, the proposed rules would replace traditional potato chips with baked versions and candy with granola. Regular soda is out, though high-schoolers may have access to diet versions.

“Although nutrition standards for foods sold at school alone may not be a determining factor in children’s overall diets, they are critical to providing children with healthy food options throughout the entire school day,” the proposed rule states.

The rules are a product of the 2010 Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, which also overhauled the nutritional make-up of regular school meals. They would apply to any school, public or private, that participates in the National School Lunch Program and the School Breakfast Program.

Those rules saw a backlash from conservative lawmakers who said students were going hungry as a result of calorie limits. A GOP House member famously compared the rules to “The Hunger Games.” The USDA eventually relaxed some guidelines in response.

The regulations state that all competitive foods must be either a fruit, vegetable, dairy product, protein food, “whole-grain rich” product, or a combination food that contains at least 1/4 cup of fruits or vegetables; or they must contain 10 percent of the daily value of a major nutrient.

All snacks must also meet a range of calorie and nutrition requirements, such as limits on sodium, total sugar and calories from fat, with few exceptions.

The rules states that all schools may sell water, low-fat and fat-free milks and milk alternatives and 100-percent fruit and vegetable juices, with portion sizes varying by student age.

High schools will also be permitted to sell carbonated beverages, as long as they contain five calories or less per serving.

 

[jeninflorida]

well since obama has never had a job, he has no idea how to create jobs


why should we expect anything but crap out of the obama?

 

[unregistered]

 

[unregistered]

 

[Disgustipated]

There's no such thing called Obamacare, dumbass.

 

[IrezumiKiss]

"The claim that a company like McDonald’s can’t afford to pay wages over the minimum is absolutely insulting when you compare the salary of its CEO to one of its crew members.

I worked at a McDonald’s in New York over the summer and did a little math while I was there. In 2011, former McDonald’s CEO James Skinner made $8.75 million with compensation, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. In comparison, crew members made $7.25 an hour, for about $15,000 a year, if they stayed at the job year-round.

If you take Skinner’s total salary in 2011 and assume that he worked 40-hour week, he would have made $4,200 an hour. In one hour, he made 580 times more than the average McDonald’s worker. James Skinner made $33,600 a day, which is twice the salary that a McDonald’s crew member makes in a year of full-time work.

Looking at it another way, the average worker would have to work for almost 600 years to make the salary that Skinner made in 2011. In one year, Skinner makes more than I could make in at least six lifetimes."

— Maximum lies about the minimum wage

 

[unregistered]

 

[IrezumiKiss]

Tough shit, you don't like it get a job somewhere else.

Just like if you don't like this country or its president or the changes gradually being done to make it better for everyone instead of just complaining and bitching and not helping and wishing you lived in the past, you can go live somewhere else.

Tough shit. Yup.

 

[mercury14]

Medical Company Blames ‘Obamacare’ For Layoffs Of Nearly 100 People
February 1, 2013 2:01 PM

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (CBSDC) — A medical company is blaming President Obama’s health care law for the layoffs of nearly 100 people.

Smith & Nephew says a 2.3 percent excise tax on medical devices in the “Obamacare” law caused the layoffs in the Memphis and Andover, Mass., offices.

“The nearly $30 billion tax on medical devices that took effect Jan. 1, 2013, has impacted a number of companies across the U.S.,” the company said in a statement to WHBQ-TV.

Joe Metzger, senior vice president of corporate communications for the company, tells the Memphis Business Journal that they were “not immune” to the tax burden.

“Unfortunately, and in order to absorb this cost burden into our business, this has meant less than 100 positions have been made redundant across various departmental functions in our Tennessee and Massachusetts sites,” Metzger told the Business Journal. “The company is providing the affected employees with a comprehensive severance package and outplacement support.”

The Business Journal reports that the company announced last February it would lay off 7 percent of its workforce worldwide.

The tax took effect on Jan. 1.
http://washington.cbslocal.com/2013...s-obamacare-for-layoffs-of-nearly-100-people/

Smith & Nephew made about $825 million in profit in 2012, a $310 million increase from the year before. Under the new law they would have made $805 million in 2012. And their profits are soaring in part because Obamacare is putting 35 million new potential customers into their target market and because government spending on the baby boomers' Medicare coverage is making them filthy fucking rich on taxpayer money.

Tell me it's unfair if they have to give a tiny slice of their taxpayer-funded windfall back. I dare ya.

 

[Busybody]

There's no such thing called Obamacare, dumbass.

Obama and the DUMZ ran on OBAMACARE

look it up

stop fucking LYNG TO YOURSELF

 

[Busybody]

Remove user from ignore listmercury14
This message is hidden because mercury14 is on your ignore list.


Hey yo, CURRY

here is where you get to act all macho n stuff, like our fearless leader, WhoSane Obama

and say you don't care

and when I un IGGY yu, pretend Im on IGGY

I will soon do that to do and if you once again start with the usual shit, TO IGGY LAND FOREVER

and it will be YOUR LOSS

 

[Busybody]

Now comes the most ominous sign yet health insurance premiums are going way up: Most health insurers in the individual market have stopped guaranteeing a person’s premiums for a year. And as one commentator quipped: they aren’t doing it because they expect to be lowering people’s premiums.

Traditionally in the individual market, where people buy their own (i.e., non-group) health coverage, applicants sign a contract and the insurance company guarantees that premium for a year. I’m told that about 12 percent of individual applicants would write a check for the year’s premium, rather than being billed monthly.

No more. Health insurers started sending out notices in January informing insurance brokers and agents that the companies will no longer guarantee that premium rate. From now on it’s month to month.

As one benefits company explained:

“After carefully evaluating its individual market and rates, Aetna decided to discontinue its offer of an initial 12-month rate guarantee.

“This change applies to policies with a January 15, 2013 or later effective date, in all states where plans are sold.

“Existing members who are currently in a rate guarantee period will not be affected. The rate guarantee language has been removed from all marketing materials including the state-specific booklets and rate sheets.”

(Update: the day after this column appeared Aetna published a notice saying in part, “While the policies will not have a 12-month rate guarantee, we fully expect the rates to stay the same until December 31, 2013.” While that announcement may alleviate the concerns of some, Aetna is not the only company ending the rate guarantee. And come 2014 all bets are off.)

Thus, an individual buying health insurance for his family thinking he can afford the coverage might be forced to cancel it within a few months because of premium increases.

Why the change? It is all the uncertainty imposed by the misnamed Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or ObamaCare. It has thrown so many unknowns into the mix that actuaries don’t know how much to charge.

As one health insurance broker told me, “Any health insurance actuary would be fired for trying to set a premium for a whole year because no one knows how much it’s going to cost.”

Why the uncertainty? Because Democrats crafting ObamaCare ignored virtually every actuarial principle. ObamaCare requires insurers to accept anyone who applies; they can’t charge more for major medical conditions; and they require insurance to cover lots of things that many people wouldn’t choose for themselves.

As retired actuary Mark Litow and I have written elsewhere, health insurance premiums in the individual market will double for some people in some states—and that’s only in the near term.

Now, contrast health insurance with the life insurance market, where people also buy their own policies. There you can buy a policy with a level premium for five or 10 years or more. Of course, one reason that market is so stable is that President Obama hasn’t tried to fix it.

Moreover, these premium fluctuations will wreak havoc on the government’s efforts to provide subsidies to families with incomes up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level. The subsidies cover a portion of the cost of health insurance, up to a maximum out of pocket for the family. The amount of the subsidy is based both on the cost of coverage and income—which will lead to an IRS heyday of snooping, but that’s a topic for another day.

There has been a lot of head scratching over how to deal with the fact that a family’s income can vary significantly within a year, up or down, in ways no one predicted at the beginning of the year. So how does the government determine the correct level of subsidy?

Now add to that mix that premiums can also vary significantly—though only going up, not down.

And if you think this is all someone else’s problem because you have good employer-based coverage, you may be in for a surprise. While the individual market has been relatively small (about 19 million people, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute) compared to those with employer-based coverage (about 156 million), most honest analysts expect millions of employers to drop coverage and dump their employees into the individual market.

Economic and political uncertainty stifled the economy in Obama’s first four years; but that uncertainty pales when it comes to the uncertainty being experienced in the health insurance market. Millions of Americans will soon discover that health coverage was never so expensive as when Obama decided to make it affordable.

Merrill Matthews is a resident scholar at the Institute for Policy Innovation in Dallas, Texas. Follow at http://twitter.com/MerrillMatthews

 

[richard_daily]

Double bitch slap.

Just like if you don't like this country or its president or the changes gradually being done to make it better for everyone instead of just complaining and bitching and not helping and wishing you lived in the past, you can go live somewhere else.

Tough shit. Yup.

Smith & Nephew made about $825 million in profit in 2012, a $310 million increase from the year before. Under the new law they would have made $805 million in 2012. And their profits are soaring in part because Obamacare is putting 35 million new potential customers into their target market and because government spending on the baby boomers' Medicare coverage is making them filthy fucking rich on taxpayer money.

Tell me it's unfair if they have to give a tiny slice of their taxpayer-funded windfall back. I dare ya.

 

[Busybody]

Phil M wins the Gold Tourny

Wins big $$$


LIBZ shit on him

Of course


http://twitchy.com/2013/02/03/phil-...tweet&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=twitter

 

[Busybody]

DOCTORS WHO TREAT THE ELDERLY ARE IN SHORT SUPPLY. “The nation’s shortage of geriatricians is no secret. The prestigious Institute of Medicine highlighted the shortage in a 2008 report, and the American Geriatrics Society has projected the nation will need 25,000 geriatricians by 2025, or about three times the 7,000 geriatricians currently certified.”

Well, once the Death Panels get rolling, they won’t be needed much.

 

[Busybody]

CURRY-REID question the source


CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Billion With a ‘B’: Did Menendez Provide Special Favors to HookerGate Donor? “Follow the money – if Melgen had a billion-dollar contract at stake, his ‘friendship’ with Senator Menendez was obviously more than a mere social acquaintance, which doesn’t necessarily mean that it was illegal for Menendez to pressure the administration to help Melgen enforce his Dominican port security contract. But how and why does a Florida opthamologist become an international port-security mogul?” (Bumped).

 

[koalabear]

Eurozone jitters sink stocks

 

[Busybody]

CURRY says, BREITBART???????????????? HAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I question the source says CURRY


Krugman: 'Death Panels and Sales Taxes is How We Do This'




by Joel Griffith 5 Feb 2013, 5:46 AM PDT 0 post a comment

Nobel Prize winning “economist” Paul Krugman spoke at Sixth & I Historic Synagogue in Washington, D.C. Wednesday evening. During the Q&A session following the lecture, an audience member asked him about the rising national debt.

Earlier in the evening, Krugman had already vocalized his satisfaction at President Obama’s apparent lack of concern over the exploding cumulative deficit. However, in a moment of brutal honesty, the esteemed Princeton professor revealed his long term prognosis. According to the professor,

Eventually we do have a problem. That the population is getting older, health care costs are rising…there is this question of how we’re going to pay for the programs. The year 2025, the year 2030, something is going to have to give…. …. We’re going to need more revenue…Surely it will require some sort of middle class taxes as well.. We won’t be able to pay for the kind of government the society will want without some increase in taxes… on the middle class, maybe a value added tax…And we’re also going to have to make decisions about health care, doc pay for health care that has no demonstrated medical benefits . So the snarky version…which I shouldn’t even say because it will get me in trouble is death panels and sales taxes is how we do this.

Years of accumulating debt and expanding government programs only moves us down the “road to serfdom.” As Krugman surmised, the consequence is government confiscation of wealth and government control over health care. Rarely are Leftists so candid in articulating their hopes. “Death panels and sales taxes” is the mantra of those seizing power in the nation founded on the rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” What a difference two centuries makes.

 

[JohnnySavage]

By 2025 the baby boomer bubble will start to die off.

 

[Adre]

By 2025 the baby boomer bubble will start to die off.

Does that mean Busboy and Vettemandingo might be gone?

 

[JohnnySavage]

Does that mean Busboy and Vettemandingo might be gone?

I think they are both in their 50s, so its unlikely. Unless HRC is elected in 2016, then they will stroke out.

 

[mercury14]

Scholars gathered for the African American Economic Summit at Howard University on Friday sketched an alarming picture of the financial ills afflicting the black community even as the nation recovers from the recession.

The white-black wealth disparity is more than 20 to 1. Black homeownership has declined. Black joblessness is up. Black income is down.

As the conferees gathered, the government released new figures showing the black unemployment rate at 13.8 percent, nearly double the 7.0 percent for whites. The overall jobless rate is 7.9 percent.

As bleak as the economic picture is for black Americans, the immediate prospects for improving it are worse, many participants said. They agreed that chances are remote for the kind of aggressive, targeted action needed to combat those problems and close the economic disparities that have long separated blacks and whites.

And by not conjuring up some kind of black employment program Obama is going the exact same route every conservative approves of. Yet you're still complaining.