Monday, April 19, 2010
Barker's Newsbites: Monday, April 19, 2010
It seems that my buddy Phil agrees with my cyberpal Rodak that my typical newsbites are too long and that there are too many of them.
(*CHUCKLE*)
So be it!
I've just gotta say once again that to my way of thinking...
(The correct way of thinking by the way...!!!)
(*HUGE FRIGG'N GRIN*)
...there's no such thing as providing "too much" information.
Once again, regardless of whether I provide four newsbites on a given day or twenty-four... or thirty-four... the first paragraph of each individual newsbites gives one the "heads up" on what topic or issue that particular newsbite concerns.
You're interested... continue reading; you're not... then on to the next!
To complain that "there are too many newsbites" is like complaining that The Great White Way has too many theatres... or that your local library stocks too many best sellers on their "new books" shelf!
(*CHUCKLE*)
Folks... this ain't Drudge!
I ain't trying to be Drudge...!!!
There's already a Drudge Report - and thank God for that!
Nope. What "Barker's Newsbites" are is a collection of "newsbites" that if read will make one... er... better informed.
Better informed in a focused way... with yours truly directing that focus!
(*GRIN*)
Now some (hell... perhaps none!) of you may feel that you don't need my guidance to know what you should be reading, news-wise...
(*CHUCKLE*)
...and that's fine!
(Of course you're wrong... but it's a free country - for now!)
(*GUFFAW*)
But if you gain any insights from my newsbites that you probably wouldn't otherwise... isn't that a "win" for you...???
One more time: Barker's Newsbites is a distillation of my day to day "knowledge intake." It's more or less "the best of the best" of my day's readings. I'm editing and sharing... that's all.
Anyway...
(*SMILE*)
Don't get the wrong idea about this post. I'm not "mad." I'm not even frustrated. Hell... I'm not even disappointed! Truly... I'm not!
I'm not "chiding" my buddy Phil or cyberpal Rodak. I "get" the constructive criticism.
I simple reject it...
(*WINK*)
Enjoy today's newsbites, folks!
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3 comments:
http://www.openmarket.org/2010/04/16/obama-dodd-financial-bill-would-futher-enrich-goldman-sachs/
* THOUGH THIS IS FROM FRIDAY AND GOES OVER SOME OF THE SAME MATERIAL (RE: DODD BILL; GOLDMAN SACHS) I'M POSTING IT HERE TODAY BECAUSE IT'S PARTICULARLY WELL WRITTEN AND THUS COMPREHENSIBLE.
[On Friday] the SEC charged giant investment bank Goldman Sachs with more than $1 billion worth of securities fraud for its dealings in the subprime mortgage market.
Ironically, at the same time the SEC is seeking justice for Goldman’s alleged victims, President Obama and Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT) are pushing a bill would reward the firm with potentially billions of dollars by instituting a so-called “resolution authority” that would, in practice, be a permanent bailout fund.
Supporters of Dodd’s bill maintain that it does not create bailouts because the failing firm’s shareholders would be wiped out and its managers would be fired. But what they don’t say is that the money from the $50 billion resolution fund would be used to frequently give creditors of this firm a better deal than they would have in bankruptcy.
Recall that during the financial implosion of late 2008, Goldman was not bailed out directly by taxpayers, but instead received tax dollars as a creditor of AIG.
Goldman received $12.9 billion in the “backdoor bailout” of AIG because of the credit default swaps it owned that AIG had insured.
Goldman and other of AIG’s counterparties were paid by the government 100 cents on the dollar in this bailout, whereas creditors in bankruptcy court often get less than 50 cents on the dollar.
So as American Enterprise Institute scholar and Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission member Peter Wallison puts it: “That act - paying off the creditors when the government takes over a failing firm - is a bailout. It doesn’t matter that the management lose their jobs, or that the shareholders get nothing. When the creditors are aware that they will get a better deal with the failure of a large company than they will get with a small one that goes the ordinary route to bankruptcy, that is a bailout.”
To top it off, the fees for the Dodd bill’s resolution fund that would pay off a failing firm’s creditors would come not just from banks but from a broad array of Main Street businesses. Stable life, auto and home insurance companies would have to pay into this fund to subsidize the failure of the next high-roller, and the fees they pay would likely be passed on in the premiums their policy holders pay. And the bill’s definition of “nonbank financial company” is so broad that it could cover manufacturers only tangentially involved in extending credit, such as those that lease equipment to their customers. This would raise prices and cost Main Street jobs.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-20002722-38.html
The U.S. Justice Department has abruptly abandoned what had become a high-profile court fight to read Yahoo users' e-mail messages without obtaining a search warrant first.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/nyregion/18insure.html?hp
New York’s insurance system has been a working laboratory for the core provision of the new federal health care law - insurance even for those who are already sick and facing huge medical bills - and an expensive lesson in unplanned consequences.
In 1993, motivated by stories of suffering AIDS patients, the state became one of the first to require insurers to extend individual or small group coverage to anyone with pre-existing illnesses.
New York also became one of the few states that require insurers within each region of the state to charge the same rates for the same benefits, regardless of whether people are old or young, male or female, smokers or nonsmokers, high risk or low risk. Healthy people, in effect, began to subsidize people who needed more health care.
The healthier customers soon discovered that the high premiums were not worth it and dropped out of the plans. The pool of insured people shrank to the point where many of them had high health care needs. Without healthier people to spread the risk, their premiums skyrocketed, a phenomenon known in the trade as the “adverse selection death spiral.”
“You have a mandate that’s accessible in theory, but not in practice, because it’s too expensive,” said Mark P. Scherzer, a consumer lawyer and counsel to New Yorkers for Accessible Health Coverage, an advocacy group. “What you get left clinging to the life raft is the population that tends to have pretty high health needs.”
Since 2001, the number of people who bought comprehensive individual policies through HMOs in New York has plummeted to about 31,000 from about 128,000, according to the State Insurance Department.
At the same time, New York has the highest average annual premiums for individual policies: $6,630 for single people and $13,296 for families in mid-2009, more than double the nationwide average, according to America’s Health Insurance Plans, an industry group.
* MARY AND I WILL PROBABLY DROP OUR INSURANCE COME THE NEXT PREMIUM RISE. IF ONE OF US GETS SICK, WE'LL "RE-UP" THEN.
The new federal health care law tries to avoid the death spiral by requiring everyone to have insurance and penalizing those who do not, as well as offering subsidies to low-income customers. But analysts say that provision could prove meaningless if the government does not vigorously enforce the penalties, as insurance companies fear, or if too many people decide it is cheaper to pay the penalty and opt out.
Under the federal law, those who refuse coverage will have to pay an annual penalty of $695 per person, up to $2,085 per family, or 2.5 percent of their household income, whichever is greater. The penalty will be phased in from 2014 to 2016.
(*SNORT*) (*MIRTHLESS CHUCKLE*)
* YEAH...??? $1,390? THAT'S HOW THEY'LL "PUNISH" US...??? HELL... THAT'S BARELY SIX WEEKS WORTH OF OUR PRESENT PREMIUM COSTS!
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