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

[Busybody]

A manger was appointed to help em out


He was said to be

Racist

Cause

He

Is


White

 

[unregistered]

 

[mercury14]

No Joke: White House Defends Obama Family’s $100 Million Trip To Africa As A “Great Bang For Our Buck”…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/39264000/jpg/_39264081_ap300bjeep.jpg




Republican president going to Africa GOOD!

Democrat president going to Africa BAD!

 

[unregistered]

 

[Busybody]

I thought Kevyn Orr was black.

I was mistaken, partly

Detroit Democratic politicans promote racial politics over emergency manager

By Larry Porter and Bryan Dyne
25 March 2013

With growing opposition developing in the working class to the installation of an unelected Emergency Financial Manager (EFM) over Detroit, a section of the Democratic Party and the trade unions are promoting racial politics to block a unified struggle of the working class. They are seeking to tie African-American workers in the city to a corrupt layer of black politicians and millionaire entrepreneurs, under the banner of “self-rule” and “self-determination.”



On March 25, Kevyn Orr—who was appointed by Michigan’s Republican Governor Rick Snyder—will take over as EFM, armed with sweeping powers to tear up labor agreements, dismantle essential social services and sell off public assets.

At a meeting on Saturday, March 23, billed as a rally against the EFM, representatives of Al Sharpton’s National Action Network (NAN) and Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow/Push Coalition joined Detroit’s City Council and a section of the trade union bureaucracy to declare that the takeover of the city was “racist,” even though Orr himself is African-American.



Local NAN leader Charles Williams II declared, “This is a racist antidemocratic challenge to the Voting Rights Act [of 1965].” Others echoed this theme, comparing the present situation in Detroit to the apartheid-like segregation in the South during the 1950s and 60s. Williams described Orr—not as a tool of the financial and corporate elite—but as an “Uncle Tom” and “House Negro” presumably in the service of racist whites in the state capital of Lansing.

In fact, Orr, a lifelong operative for the Democratic Party with the closest ties to the Obama administration, has long been a high-paid shill for the financial and corporate elite. The Washington, DC bankruptcy attorney served as a lead attorney for Chrysler during Obama’s forced restructuring of the Detroit car company, overseeing the closure of more than 700 car dealerships, the destruction of tens of thousands of jobs and a savage attack on auto workers’ living standards.



Ignoring this, JoAnn Watson, a city councilwoman and ranking member of the NAACP, declared, “Fifty years ago freedom and justice were born in the City of Detroit and we will not go back. We who know what we know about Alabama and Mississippi will not go back. The Emergency Manager is not the answer… We have to protect the right to run our city.”

Comparisons to Alabama and Mississippi fall flat. Detroit is not Jim Crow Mississippi or Alabama of the 1950s. It is a city that has been run by the black Democratic Party establishment since 1972. In the aftermath of the riots of the 1960s, the American ruling class handed over political power in Detroit and many other urban centers to black Democrats, seeking to exploit illusions among black workers and youth in supposed “black empowerment.” On the basis of Affirmative Action programs and minority set-asides, a corrupt layer of black businessmen and politicians has enriched itself, while overseeing the impoverishment of the working class, black and white.

In January, Mayor Dave Bing, a black Democrat, boasted that he cut the workforce 25 percent. The Detroit City Council, also made up of African-American politicians, said they put on the hat of the EFM when they cut the budget $50 million in the last year. “So they were pretty draconian in terms of the number of layoffs, in terms of deferring pen sion accrual, those kinds of things,” stated City Council President Charles Pugh.

The spewing of racial politics is aimed at preventing a unified struggle of the working class throughout the surrounding metropolitan area who have been hit by mass layoffs, foreclosures and devastating cuts to public education and other social services. Since 2000, Michigan has lost 367,000 manufacturing jobs. By 2010, the state’s per capita income fell to 39th—a drop of 21 places over the decade. A new generation of auto workers is facing backbreaking conditions and poverty wages. These conditions face workers of all races and there is a growing sense of the need for a united struggle to fight back.

Watson, Williams, along with the multimillionaires Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, do not speak for the working class—black or white. Their major concern is that the appointment of an emergency manager will prevent them from benefiting from the selloff of public assets. They also sense that the installation of a financial dictator in Detroit will provoke an explosion of social opposition. If they had their way, they would rather provoke racial conflict than see a movement of the working class that threatened their wealth and power.



The chief union representative at the meeting was Al Garrett, the president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Council 25. Another representative of the corrupt black establishment in Detroit, he recently demanded that workers at the Detroit Water and Sewage Department accept a six-year contract stripping them of basic rights, while locking in the continued collection of dues money for the union bureaucracy despite the passage of the state’s so-called Right to Work law. Workers overwhelmingly voted down his proposal by a margin of 301 to 36.

Garrett declared, “We have to direct our attention to those folks in DC, to [Obama’s Attorney General] Eric Holder. We need federal intervention.” Williams said Al Sharpton was holding a press conference in Detroit this week to announce a lawsuit against the EFM.

The idea that Holder and the Obama administration will defend democratic rights is absurd. Holder’s portfolio has included the cover-up and protection of torturers in the Bush administration, the political repression of antiwar opponents on trumped-up “terrorism” charges, and providing the pseudo-legal justifications for Obama’s assertion that he has the right to kill anyone, including US citizens, without the slightest pretense of due process.

Moreover, the Obama administration has repeatedly carried out federal interventions in Detroit. In 2009, he oversaw—with the assistance of Orr—the destruction of auto workers’ jobs and conditions, creating vast profits for the auto companies. He has also used Detroit as a test case of his reactionary “school reform” agenda, and scapegoating and victimizing teachers, closing public schools and expanding for-profit charters.

In both cases, the Obama administration worked with the trade unions, which is why Garrett, the United Auto Workers and the rest of the union bureaucracy prefer Democrats rather than Republican-appointed emergency managers. Nevertheless, they are quite ready to enter into a “consensual agreement” with Orr to destroy workers’ jobs and living standards, as long as their institutional interests are protected.

The only way for the working class to successfully oppose the attack on Detroit is a complete rejection of the trade unions, racial politics and the Democratic Party. New organizations of struggle, rank-and-file neighborhood and workplace committees must be built on the basis of the fight for the greatest unity of the working class—of all races and nationalities—and a common fight to defend the social right to a secure and decent job, health care, housing and public education. This will require building a political movement against both big-business parties and the capitalist system they defend.

 

[Busybody]

I see NO questor, do you SEE? QUESTOR?

Vacation: Mooch And Daughters To Tour Germany, Northern Ireland…




No word yet from the White House if this trip is as “great a bang for our buck” as their upcoming $100 million visit to Africa.

Via The Hill:


Michelle Obama and daughters Sasha and Malia will join President Obama’s overseas trips next week, the White House said on Friday.

The president will be attending the G8 meeting in Lough Erne, a resort in Northern Ireland, on June 17th and 18th. Before the meeting, however, he will make a stop in Belfast, at address students.

The female Obamas will attend that speech and then head to Dublin to tour Trinity College, which is Ireland’s oldest university in the capital city. Then the first lady also will meet with embassy staff and join Irish youth for a Riverdance performance at the Gaiety theater, where she’ll be joined by by Fionnuala O’Kelly, the wife of the Taoiseach Edna Kenny, and Sabina Higgins, the wife of the Irish President Michael Higgins.

“They were invited to visit the last time that the president was in Ireland, and this will be an opportunity for the first lady and the girls to accept that hospitality,” said White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes at a briefing on Friday.

 

[Busybody]

I SEE mo QUESTOR

Diversity Alert: State Department To Spend $450,000 Protecting Transgenders . . . Overseas…




They always find new and enraging ways to piss away our money.


(CNSNews.com) – The State Department through its Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL) is planning to spend $450,000 in taxpayer dollars “to support programs that increase protection of transgender persons who face acute forms of violence and harassment.”

The primary goal of the grant “is to ensure that incidents of violence are documented and investigated and that victims receive appropriate legal redress through domestic, regional, or international human rights mechanisms.”

The bureau is seeking proposals that will “strengthen civil society organizations’ efforts to both document incidents of violence and the investigation process (or lack thereof)” and “ensure transgender persons have adequate legal representation.”

The proposals must also “support local civil society organizations to seek redress through regional and international human rights mechanisms,” and “where feasible/appropriate, sensitivity training for law enforcement agencies.”

 

[Busybody]

Wherever I look

I

SEE QUESTOR!


IRS Hiring “Diversity Specialist,” Salary Starting At $123,758 A Year…




Every moonbat’s dream job.

Via CNS News:


The IRS is looking to hire a “diversity and inclusion” specialist, with a minimum salary of $123,758 a year.

The opening for a full-time “Supervisory Diversity and Inclusion Specialist” at the agency’s national headquarters in Washington, D.C. was announced on June 11 and is open until June 24.

The Diversity Specialist will “serve as a change agent to provide strategies, solutions, training, tools, resources and thought leadership on diversity and foster inclusion” across the workplace and “build internal awareness” for diversity and inclusion throughout the agency.

 

[unregistered]

 

[richard_daily]

I'm shocked and surprised that you actually used the term fascism somewhat correctly.

How about a little Fascist corporatism to stir into the pot:

U.S. Agencies Said to Swap Data With Thousands of Firms
By Michael Riley - Jun 14, 2013 10:45 AM PT

Thousands of technology, finance and manufacturing companies are working closely with U.S. national security agencies, providing sensitive information and in return receiving benefits that include access to classified intelligence, four people familiar with the process said.

These programs, whose participants are known as trusted partners, extend far beyond what was revealed by Edward Snowden, a computer technician who did work for the National Security Agency. The role of private companies has come under intense scrutiny since his disclosure this month that the NSA is collecting millions of U.S. residents’ telephone records and the computer communications of foreigners from Google Inc (GOOG). and other Internet companies under court order.

Many of these same Internet and telecommunications companies voluntarily provide U.S. intelligence organizations with additional data, such as equipment specifications, that don’t involve private communications of their customers, the four people said.

Makers of hardware and software, banks, Internet security providers, satellite telecommunications companies and many other companies also participate in the government programs. In some cases, the information gathered may be used not just to defend the nation but to help infiltrate computers of its adversaries.

Along with the NSA, the Central Intelligence Agency (0112917D), the Federal Bureau of Investigation and branches of the U.S. military have agreements with such companies to gather data that might seem innocuous but could be highly useful in the hands of U.S. intelligence or cyber warfare units, according to the people, who have either worked for the government or are in companies that have these accords.

Microsoft Bugs

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), the world’s largest software company, provides intelligence agencies with information about bugs in its popular software before it publicly releases a fix, according to two people familiar with the process. That information can be used to protect government computers and to access the computers of terrorists or military foes.

Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft (MSFT) and other software or Internet security companies have been aware that this type of early alert allowed the U.S. to exploit vulnerabilities in software sold to foreign governments, according to two U.S. officials. Microsoft doesn’t ask and can’t be told how the government uses such tip-offs, said the officials, who asked not to be identified because the matter is confidential.
Frank Shaw, a spokesman for Microsoft, said those releases occur in cooperation with multiple agencies and are designed to give government “an early start” on risk assessment and mitigation.

In an e-mailed statement, Shaw said there are “several programs” through which such information is passed to the government, and named two which are public, run by Microsoft and for defensive purposes.

Willing Cooperation

Some U.S. telecommunications companies willingly provide intelligence agencies with access to facilities and data offshore that would require a judge’s order if it were done in the U.S., one of the four people said.
In these cases, no oversight is necessary under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and companies are providing the information voluntarily.
The extensive cooperation between commercial companies and intelligence agencies is legal and reaches deeply into many aspects of everyday life, though little of it is scrutinized by more than a small number of lawyers, company leaders and spies. Company executives are motivated by a desire to help the national defense as well as to help their own companies, said the people, who are familiar with the agreements.

Most of the arrangements are so sensitive that only a handful of people in a company know of them, and they are sometimes brokered directly between chief executive officers and the heads of the U.S.’s major spy agencies, the people familiar with those programs said.

‘Thank Them’

Michael Hayden, who formerly directed the National Security Agency and the CIA, described the attention paid to important company partners: “If I were the director and had a relationship with a company who was doing things that were not just directed by law but were also valuable to the defense of the Republic, I would go out of my way to thank them and give them a sense as to why this is necessary and useful.”

“You would keep it closely held within the company and there would be very few cleared individuals,” Hayden said.

Cooperation between nine U.S. Internet companies and the NSA’s Special Source Operations unit came to light along with a secret program called Prism. According to a slide deck provided by Snowden, the program gathers e-mails, videos, and other private data of foreign surveillance targets through arrangements that vary by company, overseen by a secret panel of judges.

U.S. intelligence agencies have grown far more dependent on such arrangements as the flow of much of the world’s information has grown exponentially through switches, cables and other network equipment maintained by U.S. companies.

Equipment Specs

In addition to private communications, information about equipment specifications and data needed for the Internet to work -- much of which isn’t subject to oversight because it doesn’t involve private communications -- is valuable to intelligence, U.S. law-enforcement officials and the military.

Typically, a key executive at a company and a small number of technical people cooperate with different agencies and sometimes multiple units within an agency, according to the four people who described the arrangements.

Committing Officer

If necessary, a company executive, known as a “committing officer,” is given documents that guarantee immunity from civil actions resulting from the transfer of data. The companies are provided with regular updates, which may include the broad parameters of how that information is used.
Intel Corp. (INTC)’s McAfee unit, which makes Internet security software, regularly cooperates with the NSA, FBI and the CIA, for example, and is a valuable partner because of its broad view of malicious Internet traffic, including espionage operations by foreign powers, according to one of the four people, who is familiar with the arrangement.

Such a relationship would start with an approach to McAfee’s chief executive, who would then clear specific individuals to work with investigators or provide the requested data, the person said. The public would be surprised at how much help the government seeks, the person said.

McAfee firewalls collect information on hackers who use legitimate servers to do their work, and the company data can be used to pinpoint where attacks begin. The company also has knowledge of the architecture of information networks worldwide, which may be useful to spy agencies who tap into them, the person said.

McAfee’s Data

McAfee (MFE)’s data and analysis doesn’t include information on individuals, said Michael Fey, the company’s worldwide chief technology officer.

“We do not share any type of personal information with our government agency partners,” Fey said in an e-mailed statement. “McAfee’s function is to provide security technology, education, and threat intelligence to governments. This threat intelligence includes trending data on emerging new threats, cyber-attack patterns and vector activity, as well as analysis on the integrity of software, system vulnerabilities, and hacker group activity.”

In exchange, leaders of companies are showered with attention and information by the agencies to help maintain the relationship, the person said.

In other cases, companies are given quick warnings about threats that could affect their bottom line, including serious Internet attacks and who is behind them.

China’s Military

Following an attack on his company by Chinese hackers in 2010, Sergey Brin, Google’s co-founder, was provided with highly sensitive government intelligence linking the attack to a specific unit of the People’s Liberation Army, China’s military, according to one of the people, who is familiar with the government’s investigation. Brin was given a temporary classified clearance to sit in on the briefing, the person said.

According to information provided by Snowden, Google, owner of the world’s most popular search engine, had at that point been a Prism participant for more than a year.

Google CEO Larry Page said in a blog posting June 7 that he hadn’t heard of a program called Prism until after Snowden’s disclosures and that the Mountain View, California-based company didn’t allow the U.S. government direct access to its servers or some back-door to its data centers. He said Google provides user data to governments “only in accordance with the law.”

Leslie Miller, a spokeswoman for Google, didn’t provide an immediate response yesterday.

The information provided by Snowden also exposed a secret NSA program known as Blarney. As the program was described in the Washington Post (WPO), the agency gathers metadata on computers and devices that are used to send e-mails or browse the Internet through principal data routes, known as a backbone.

Metadata

That metadata includes which version of the operating system, browser and Java software are being used on millions of devices around the world, information that U.S. spy agencies could use to infiltrate those computers or phones and spy on their users.

“It’s highly offensive information,” said Glenn Chisholm, the former chief information officer for Telstra Corp (TLS)., one of Australia’s largest telecommunications companies, contrasting it to defensive information used to protect computers rather than infiltrate them.

According to Snowden’s information, Blarney’s purpose is “to gain access and exploit foreign intelligence,” the Post said.

It’s unclear whether U.S. Internet service providers gave information to the NSA as part of Blarney, and if so, whether the transfer of that data required a judge’s order.

Less Scrutiny

Stewart Baker, former general counsel for the NSA, said if metadata involved communications between two foreign computers that just happened to be crossing a U.S. fiber optic cable “then the likelihood is it would demand less legal scrutiny than when communications are being extracted one by one.”

Lawmakers who oversee U.S. intelligence agencies may not understand the significance of some of the metadata being collected, said Jacob Olcott, a former cybersecurity assistant for Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee.
“That’s what makes this issue of oversight so challenging,” said Olcott, now a principal at Good Harbor Security Risk Management in Washington. “You have a situation where the technology and technical policy is far outpacing the background and expertise of most elected members of Congress or their staffs.”

While companies are offered powerful inducements to cooperate with U.S. intelligence, many executives are motivated by patriotism or a sense they are defending national security, the people familiar with the trusted partner programs said.

Einstein 3

U.S telecommunications, Internet, power companies and others provide U.S. intelligence agencies with details of their systems’ architecture or equipment schematics so the agencies can analyze potential vulnerabilities.
“It’s natural behavior for governments to want to know about the country’s critical infrastructure,” said Chisholm, chief security officer at Irvine, California-based Cylance Inc.

Even strictly defensive systems can have unintended consequences for privacy. Einstein 3, a costly program originally developed by the NSA, is meant to protect government systems from hackers. The program, which has been made public and is being installed, will closely analyze the billions of e-mails sent to government computers every year to see if they contain spy tools or malicious software.

Einstein 3 could also expose the private content of the e-mails under certain circumstances, according to a person familiar with the system, who asked not to be named because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the matter.

AT&T, Verizon

Before they agreed to install the system on their networks, some of the five major Internet companies -- AT&T Inc. (T), Verizon Communications Inc (VZ)., Sprint Nextel Corp. (S), Level 3 Communications Inc (LVLT). and CenturyLink Inc (CTL). -- asked for guarantees that they wouldn’t be held liable under U.S. wiretap laws. Those companies that asked received a letter signed by the U.S. attorney general indicating such exposure didn’t meet the legal definition of a wiretap and granting them immunity from civil lawsuits, the person said.

Mark Siegel, a spokesman for Dallas-based AT&T, the nation’s biggest phone carrier, declined to comment. Edward McFadden, a spokesman for New York-based Verizon, the second-largest phone company, declined to comment.

Scott Sloat, a spokesman for Overland Park, Kansas-based Sprint, and Monica Martinez, a spokeswoman for Broomfield, Colorado-based Level 3, didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Linda Johnson, a spokeswoman for Centurylink, formerly Qwest Corp., said her Monroe, Louisiana-based company participates in the Enhanced Cybersecurity Services program and the Intrusion Prevention Security Services program, which includes Einstein 3. Both programs are managed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Beyond that, she said, “CenturyLink does not comment on matters pertaining to national security.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-14/u-s-agencies-said-to-swap-data-with-thousands-of-firms.html

 

[RobDownSouth]

More Commie bullshit.

"What comes out of the Vettemouth on an hourly basis? I'll take Vettefailings for $400, Alex."

 

[unregistered]

 

[Sean Renaud]

LOL. What does that have to do with Obamacare? Hell what kind of doctor would set up in a rural area? AFter that much school I'm setting up some place with paying customers. I wouldn't be running a charity organization for people who refuse to live around people either.

 

[unregistered]

 

[richard_daily]

Do you believe this, or are you "just posting it"?

We warned this would and was happening some months ago, but Merc and the rest of the Obama sycophants eager to put Obama's state operated health care in the best light, called it bullshit:

U.S. PRODUCING 'ABYSMALLY LOW' NUMBER OF PRIMARY CARE DOCTORS
UPI 6/15/2013 4:52:17 AM

WASHINGTON, June 15 (UPI) --
Despite a shortage of U.S. primary care doctors, less than 25 percent of new doctors go into this field, and fewer still work in rural areas, researchers say.

Lead study author Dr. Candice Chen, an assistant research professor of the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services, said the study also found only 4.8 percent of the new primary care physicians set up shop in rural areas.

"If residency programs do not ramp up the training of these physicians the shortage in primary care, especially in remote areas, will get worse," Chen said in a statement. "The study's findings raise questions about whether federally funded graduate medical education institutions are meeting the nation's need for more primary care physicians."

Chen and colleagues studied the career paths of 8,977 physicians who had graduated from 759 medical residency sites from 2006-08. Three to five years after the program ended, the researchers found 25.2 percent of the physicians worked as primary care doctors, although this number almost certainly was an overestimate because it included graduates who practiced as hospitalists, Chen said.

In addition, the researchers found 198 out of 759 institutions produced no rural physicians at all during the study period.

Currently, the United States is producing primary care physicians at rates that are "abysmally low," Chen said.

http://www.breitbart.com/system/wire/upiUPI-20130614-235806-4920

 

[unregistered]

 

[richard_daily]

"just posting" this one too?

Obama care encourages a black market in health care:

DOCTORS DUMP HEALTH INSURANCE PLANS, CHARGE PATIENTS LESS
UPI 6/15/2013 3:56:04 AM

WICHITA, Kan., June 14 (UPI) --
A Kansas physician says he makes the same income and offers better quality care to his patients after he dumped all health insurance companies.

Thirty-two-year old family physician Doug Nunamaker of Wichita, Kan., said after five years of dealing with the red tape of health insurance companies and the high overhead for the staff he hired just to deal with paperwork, he switched to a system of charging his patients a monthly fee plus the price of an office visit or test, CNN/Money reported.

For example, under Nunamaker's membership plan -- also known as "concierge" medicine or "direct primary care" practices -- each patient pays a flat monthly fee to have unlimited access to the doctors and any medical service they can provide in the practice, such as stitches or an EKG.

For adults up to age 44, Nunamaker charges $50 a month, pediatric services are $10 a month, and for adults age 44 and older it costs $100 a month. Although Nunamaker calls the practice "cash-only," he accepts credit and debit cards for the fees and services.

Nunamaker and his partner negotiated deals for services outside the office. A cholesterol test costs the patient for $3, versus the $90 or more billed to insurance companies; an MRI can cost $400, compared with $2,000 or more billed to insurance companies.

The practice encourages patients and families to also carry some type of high-deductible health insurance plan in case of an emergency or serious illness requiring hospitalization, Nunamaker said.

Nunamaker said his annual salary is around $200,000, and he gets to spend more time with patients providing better care because he is not watching the clock and he gets to spend more time with this family.

Most of Nunamaker's clients are self-employed, small business owners, or small companies that found the monthly fee and the cost of the high-deductible plan was a cheaper option, CNN/Money reported.

http://www.breitbart.com/system/wire/upiUPI-20130614-232724-6523

 

[IrezumiKiss]

http://24.media.tumblr.com/16097c78f0b4e5d2670234fc24a7cfe4/tumblr_mocpqfD4cl1qzsnxyo1_500.jpg

Democrats want low interest rates to stay where they are. Progressives want interest rates at .5%, the same rate low rates as banks/corporations.

Republicans want to triple the interest rates. Know your enemy.

 

[Busybody]

Pres Stumble



PPI wasn't bad though a 0.5% spike in PPI from -0.7% is not good for anyone. The core, less food and energy, was a much tamer 0.1%, right in line with expectations and just 1.7% year/year, well below the Fed's 2% limit.

PPI, May (8:30): 0.5% actual versus 0.1% expected, -0.7% prior

Core PPI, May (8:30): 0.1% actual versus 0.1% expected, 0.1% prior

If you don't eat and don't drive, mow the yard, cool the home, or want hot water the core reading was passable news (though it was up from -0.4% in April). For those poor unfortunates who actually require food and drink and are part of the 63.4% of the working age population who have a job you need to get to and smell decently when you do get there (i.e., hot water to shower), then it bites. Only 63.4% of the work capable population working. That is problem enough to cause the market pause, but that is another story.

Industrial Production was flat, up from -0.4%, but it was a miss.

Capacity Utilization fell, 77.6 from 77.7, missing the 77.8 expected.

Not great news, but again, not really market moving. Just more of the same stumble 'recovery' the US citizen has 'enjoyed' the past four years.

 

[Busybody]

Pres....going on trips and having parties at WHITE HOUSE, I needa spend money, I don't care bout nuffin else

The US data was more of what we have seen again and again: improved to end a year and start a new one, fanning the hope that this year it will be different. Then a weakening of the data as summer moves in. Other stories, however, are worrisome.

US bond rates rising and the ripple effects are already showing up.

The US placed three bond offerings this week and each one required higher than anticipated yields (had to pay more interest to sell them) and the demand as judged by the bid to cover was as weak as we have seen it in this recession.

The rise in rates required to place bond offerings is evident in mortgage rates with the 30 year hitting 4.15% the past week, up from 3.59% in early May. Big run. That pushed US home refinancing down 36% from early May. A 'taper' was expected, but not so quickly. That also makes home purchases less affordable as rates rise. Yes historically rates remain low. BUT so does the economic activity, recovery or no recovery. Low historical rates can appear high if the economic activity does not generate well-paying jobs that can afford to buy even with 'low' rates.

So the US is going to have trouble with rising rates given the weak jobs market

 

[Busybody]

Q1 US earnings beats said to be attributable to R&D tax credit (WSJ).

A tax credit that expired at the end of 2011 but was resurrected in early 2013 is credited for raising corporate earnings 10% in Q1 to a fairly solid 6.7%. It helped companies that could not make the sales on the top line bolster earnings through a tax credit. The impact is predicted to wane in the remaining quarters of 2013 and it expires at year end. So was the stronger bottom line, weaker top line pattern in Q1 prevented from being a weaker bottom line, weaker top line pattern thanks to large corporations getting a tax break? The WSJ seems to think so. It will be easy to see in Q2 and on.

 

[Busybody]

J Savage will scream EVERYTHING IS GREAT

Ireemkuzinzneveryoneelse will scream SHITSTAIN

CURRY will scream, I wont see it

UD will scream something LOONY as well

DICK Mr INTEGRITY DAILY will scream as well


NUMEBRS LIE, OBAMA IS GOD

 

[Busybody]

Of course, foreign diplomacy has always been a presidential duty, and both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush made presidential visits to multiple African countries.

When Bush visited Liberia, Ghana, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Benin in 2008, the national debt was $9.3 trillion; when Clinton visited Tanzania and Nigeria in 2000, the national debt was $5.6 trillion.

Today the debt is $16.7 trillion; some voices in Washington are elated that this year’s deficit will be “only” $642 billion, merely the fifth-largest annual deficit in American history after adjusting for inflation, ranking behind… 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012.

 

[mercury14]

~View Post~

What does it have to do with Obama care?

First off it adds another 29 million people to Medicaid which is reimbursed at a rate of 56% of private insurance, thus reducing the incentive to even see Medicaid patients. Doctors will either have to refuse to see those patients or accept them and make less money. Throwing all of these new patients into existing infrastructure creates shortages in availability of the resources, like emergency rooms, ORs, etc.

Vette, I've got some decades-old news for you that somehow you missed. People without insurance already come to emergency rooms and ORs - they just don't pay. The current way of handling things is for the hospital to write it off as a loss and then raise the rates on people who have insurance to cover the difference, causing everyone's rates to rise. Your insurance is already socialized to cover the poor and uninsured, just ask Aetna.

You just refuse to believe facts.

Alternate we can expand Medicaid to cover more of the uninsured working poor and then Hospitals get paid. And when hospitals get paid for everyone they no longer have to inflate their rates to cover their losses.

What part of this do you disagree with?

 

[koalabear]

Vette, I've got some decades-old news for you that somehow you missed. People without insurance already come to emergency rooms and ORs - they just don't pay. The current way of handling things is for the hospital to write it off as a loss and then raise the rates on people who have insurance to cover the difference, causing everyone's rates to rise. Your insurance is already socialized to cover the poor and uninsured, just ask Aetna.

You just refuse to believe facts.

Alternate we can expand Medicaid to cover more of the uninsured working poor and then Hospitals get paid. And when hospitals get paid for everyone they no longer have to inflate their rates to cover their losses.

What part of this do you disagree with?

*points and laughs at the MORON*