Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, January 22, 2014


Still in the midst of a news lull...

 On the bright side, I have been making headway getting through Dexter via NetFlix!


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3 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/ali-meyer/record-20-households-food-stamps-2013

A record 20% of American households, one in five, were on food stamps in 2013, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

The numbers also show there were a record number of individuals on food stamps in 2013 and that the cost of the program, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), was at an all-time high.

In the past five years alone, the number of households on food stamps has greatly increased. In fiscal year 2009 – Oct. 1, 2008 through Sept. 30, 2009 - the number of households on food stamps was 15,232,115. Five years later, in 2013, that amount had increased by 51.3%...

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

In 2013, the monthly average for individuals on food stamps hit an all-time-high of 47,636,084, according to the USDA, an increase of 1,027,012 over the 46,609,072 individuals who were participating in the program in 2012.

* OBAMANOMICS...

That number has dramatically increased from five years ago. In fiscal year 2009, the number of individuals participating in the food stamp program was 33,489,975. In 2013, the number was 47,636,084, an increase of 42.2%. Furthermore, the cost of food stamps, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), has reached an all-time high. For fiscal year 2013, the SNAP program cost $79,641,880,000, which is a 164% increase over the past decade.

During the last five years, the SNAP program grew by 36.8%, from $58,223,790,000 in 2009 to $79,641,880,000 in 2013.

January 22, 2014 at 5:53 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101353168

On Tuesday, Sears said that it will shutter its flagship store in downtown Chicago in April.

* ONE... MORE... TIME...

On Tuesday, Sears said that it will shutter its flagship store in downtown Chicago in April.

It's the latest of about 300 store closures in the U.S. that Sears has made since 2010. The news follows announcements earlier this month of multiple store closings from major department stores J.C. Penney and Macy's.

* O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A!

Target said that it will eliminate 475 jobs worldwide, including some at its Minnesota headquarters, and not fill 700 empty positions.

(*PURSED LIPS*)

Experts said these headlines are only the tip of the iceberg for the industry, which is set to undergo a multiyear period of shuttering stores and trimming square footage.

During the recession, the number of shopping center vacancies rose by 5.5 percentage points to 11%, according to ICSC data, and has since recovered only 2.1 percentage points. Shoppers will likely see an average decrease in overall retail square footage of between one-third and one-half within the next five to 10 years

* SO EVEN THE 2.1% "RECOVERY" IS SIMPLY AN ABBERATION; OVER THE NEXT DECADE AMERICA IS SET TO LOSE AT LEAST 3 OUT OF EVERY 10 RETAIL OUTLETS AND PERHAPS LOSE AS MANY AS 5 OUT OF 10... THAT'S WHAT THIS ARTICLE IS TELLING US...

"I believe we're going to hear a lot more announcements in the coming months," Burden said. It's "an indication that there is a shift in the retail environment and it's one that will continue."

* IT'S AN INDICATION (A FURTHER INDICATION) THAT AMERICA IS FUCKED!

January 22, 2014 at 6:07 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101354183

Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini told CNBC on Wednesday that ObamaCare has failed to attract the uninsured...

* HAS TRUTHFULLY TOLD CNBC THAT OBAMACARE HAS FAILED TO ATTRACT THE UNINSURED!

...and he offered a scenario in which the insurance company could be forced to pull out of program.

* PULL OUT...?!?! DOES HE REALLY BELIEVE THAT IN AMERIKA 2014 AETNA WILL BE ALLOWED TO SIMPLY "PULL OUT?" (DON'T PUT IT PAST OBAMA TO SIMPLY ATTEMPT TO NATIONALIZE ALL AMERICAN HEALTHCARE VIA EXECUTIVE FIAT.)

AETNA will be submitting ObamaCare rates for 2015 on May 15.

"Are they going to be double-digit [increases] or are we going to get beat up because they're double-digit or are we just going to have to pull out of the program?" Bertolini asked in a "Squawk Box" interview from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. "Those questions can't be answered until we see the population we have today. And we really don't have a good view on that."

(*CLAP...CLAP...CLAP*)

Bertolini said that so far ObamaCare has just shifted people who were insured in the individual market to the public exchanges where they could get a better deal on a subsidy for coverage. "We see only 11% of the population is actually people that were firmly uninsured that are now insured. So [it] didn't really eat into the uninsured population."

January 22, 2014 at 6:19 PM

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