Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, February 25, 2014


Looks like yet another slow news day...
(*SHRUG*)

 I'll try and make the best of it, though!

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7 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://washingtonexaminer.com/volunteering-falls-to-10-year-low-in-the-u.s./article/2544585

Volunteering fell to the lowest rate in 2013 since the government has been measuring it, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Tuesday.

(*SIGH*)

* AGAIN... FOLKS... AMERICA IS IN DECLINE... THERE'S SIMPLY NO IGNORING THE FACTS.

February 25, 2014 at 3:32 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/371907/2000-there-are-29-percent-more-big-banks-and-24-percent-fewer-small-banks-veronique-de

Since the financial crisis, U.S. banking assets and deposits have continued to consolidate in a handful of large banks.

[T]he five largest banks by assets now hold 44% of US banking assets and 40.1% of domestic deposits — up from 23.5% and 19.5%, respectively, in early 2000.

Correspondingly, small banks’ share of domestic deposits has fallen from 40.4% to 23.0t since early 2000, and their share of U.S. banking assets has declined from 35.8% to 19.5%.

Regulatory compliance can be a particular challenge for small banks with limited compliance expertise. Regulatory expenses absorb a larger percentage of small banks’ budgets than of their larger counterparts’ budgets. Although correlation is not evidence of causation, as financial regulation has increased since 2000, so has banking concentration.

* REPEAT...

[A]s financial regulation has increased since 2000, so has banking concentration.

The Dodd-Frank Act, passed in 2010, imposes a new set of regulations that are disproportionately burdensome to small banks. Moreover, by designating the largest financial institutions as “systemically important,” Dodd-Frank creates a market expectation that designated firms are too big to fail and generates funding and other competitive advantages for the largest U.S. banks.

* IN SHORT... DODD-FRANK MADE THINGS WORSE, NOT BETTER - JUST AS PREDICTED! (FEEL FREE TO BROWSE MY STAND-ALONES AND NEWSBITES OF THE TIME, FOLKS!)

Since the second quarter of 2010 — immediately before the July passage of Dodd-Frank — to the third quarter of 2013, the United States lost 650, or 9.5%, of its small banks.

* GEEZUS...!

Small banks’ share of U.S. banking assets and domestic deposits has decreased 18.6% and 9.8%, respectively, and the five largest U.S. banks appear to have absorbed much of this market share.

* QUESTION: DOES YOU SUPPOSE IT'S THE "SMALL" BANKERS FROM "SMALL" BANKS WHO ARE CONSTANTLY GOING FROM "THE PRIVATE SECTOR" INTO THE FEDERAL RESERVE AND/OR TREASURY DEPARTMENT... OR DO YOU SUPPOSE IT'S THE "BOYS AND GIRLS" FROM CITI AND GOLDMAN, ET. AL. WHO SPEND THEIR CAREERS GOING FROM REGULATED TO REGULATOR TO REGULATED TO REGULATOR?

(*SMIRK*)

* ASK YOURSELVES... DO YOU SUPPOSE DODD-FRANKS ACCELERATED THIS "NORM?" (RHETORICAL QUESTION.

Mounting regulatory costs threaten to accelerate the shift towards big banks and away from small banks that have long been important members of the financial industry and the local communities they serve.

* AND THAT'S HOW THE OLIGARCH WANT IT, FOLKS! OLIGARCHS SERVED BY THE LIKES OF FORMER DEMOCRATIC SENATOR DODD AND FORMER DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSMAN FRANK. (FOLKS... RECALL... 2010... DEMOCRATS CONTROLLED THE WHITE HOUSE, THE SENATE, AND THE HOUSE...)

If banks are driven out of business by regulation, customers will have fewer options.

* EXACTLY THE POINT...

February 25, 2014 at 3:32 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials-obama-care/022414-691028-obamacare-to-boost-premiums-for-two-thirds-of-small-businesses.htm?p=full

Cross off another ObamaCare promise.

Released into a news black hole last Friday, an official Obama administration report finds that ObamaCare will push premiums up for two-thirds of small businesses.

The report came from the actuary for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services — which means it's from the administration's official ObamaCare number cruncher.

"We are estimating that 65% of small firms are expected to experience increases in their premium rates," the report said, "while the remaining 35% are anticipated to have rate reductions."

The report doesn't say how big these hikes will be, but we have good reason to believe the extra costs will be significant.

One study, for example, found that 63% of small employers in Wisconsin will see premiums jump 15% because of ObamaCare. A separate study found that 89% of small companies in Maine would see rate hikes of 12% on average. Another, by consulting firm Oliver Wyman, concluded that ObamaCare would push up small group premiums nationwide 20%.

[T]hat's not at all what these Democrats had promised small businesses. They said ObamaCare would create new, fiercely competitive markets that would result in lower prices and fewer rate shocks. In 2009, Obama promised small businesses that his plan would "make the coverage that you're currently providing more affordable." Later he said it would drive small-business premiums down by 4% in its first year, and as much as 25% by 2016.

* ALL I KNOW IS THAT AMERICANS WERE SUPPOSED TO REALIZE AVERAGE SAVINGS OF $2,500. (THAT'S WHAT YOU RECALL TOO - RIGHT?)

As recently as last summer, Pelosi was proclaiming that "if you're a small business ... it lowers costs," while Waxman said the law would make "high-quality healthy insurance more affordable and more widely available for small businesses."

(Notice that nowhere — either before or after ObamaCare passed — did any Democrat say anything about two-thirds of small businesses paying more for health coverage so the lucky one-third could get rate cuts.)

* YEAH... I NOTICE!

These same Democrats also say that the CMS report suffers a "large degree of uncertainty" (which is true of any study about ObamaCare) and is "incomplete" because it didn't factor in ObamaCare's small-business tax credit.

Trouble is, this tax credit has been a complete failure.

It's so overly complex and so narrowly focused — companies must have fewer than 25 full-time workers, pay them less than $50,000 on average, cover half of premium costs, etc. — that just 170,000 claimed it in 2010, despite administration forecasts that 4 million would.

* PLUS... DON'T THESE "CREDITS" SIMPLY ADD TO DEFICITS... ADD TO THE NATIONAL DEBT? (RHETORICAL QUESTION.)

And instead of handing out $2 billion in small-business tax credits in its first year, ObamaCare has delivered a total of just $1 billion over the past four years.

* THANK GOD FOR SMALL FAVORS!

By now, we've lost count of how many ObamaCare promises turned out to be phony. But this latest revelation is a devastating blow to all those small-business owners who actually believed ObamaCare would cut their health insurance bills.

February 25, 2014 at 4:51 PM
William R. Barker said...

* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-02-25/eating-our-seed-corn-how-much-our-growth-one-time-cashouts

Anecdotally, it seems a significant percentage of our recent economic "growth" is being funded by one-time cash-outs of IRAs, 401Ks, sales of parents' homes, etc.

This is the equivalent of eating our seed corn.

Once these pools of savings/equity/capital are gone, they aren't coming back.

I personally know a number of people who have cashed out their retirement account 401Ks (and paid the taxes) to pay for their kids' college expenses - in effect, cashing out their retirement to lower but not eliminate the debt burden of their offspring who bought the "going away to college" experience.

The cashed-out 401K delighted the government, which reaped huge penalties and income taxes, as the cash-out pushed the annual income of the recipient into a high tax bracket. ("Hardship" withdrawals for medical care and education waive the penalties, but the income tax takes a big chunk of the withdrawal.)

* BTW... WHY SHOULD "EDUCATION" BE A "HARDSHIP EXPENSE" WHILE USING TO MONEY TO START A BUSINESS WOULDN'T BE? (RHETORICAL QUESTION... THE ANSWER... STUPIDITY.)

The middle-aged person who cashed out their retirement will not work long enough to save an equivalent nest-egg. Not only is time against such an accumulation of retirement savings, so is the stagnant economy: companies are slashing 401K contributions to offset rising healthcare (a.k.a. sickcare) expenses, and many workers young and old alike are finding jobs that pay them as self-employed contractors or part-time jobs with no benefits.

* YEP...

Another set of middle-aged people are withdrawing from IRAs (and paying the penalties) just to fill the gap between expenses and income.

* THE IDIOT CLASS!

For a variety of reasons, many people are loathe to cut expenses or are unable to do so without drastic changes in their lifestyle. So they withdraw from the IRA (individual retirement account) to cover expenses that are left after income has been spent. This "solution" is appealing to those whose incomes have declined in what they perceive as "temporary" hard times.

* TO BE CONTINUED...

February 25, 2014 at 5:49 PM
William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)

Another pool of equity that is being drained is the home equity in aging parents' homes. The government will only pay for one set of medical expenses (long-term care, for example) if the elderly person has assets of less than $2,000 (as I recall). Given this cap, it makes sense for elderly homeowners to transfer ownership of their home to their offspring well before they need long-term care (which can cost $12,000 to $15,000 a month).

* YEP! A SCAM! A SCAM DESIGNED TO BENEFIT THE UPPER-MIDDLE-CLASS. MAKES YA "PROUD," HUH? THE SONS AND DAUGHTERS REAP THE REWARDS OF BEING BORN INTO THE "RIGHT" FAMILY WHILE THE TAXPAYERS - INCLUDING SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF THE WORKING POOR WHO PAY TAXES - GET TO PICK UP THE COSTS OF NURSING HOMES FOR THE PARENTS OF THOSE WHO COULD HAVE AND SHOULD HAVE PAID FOR THEIR OWN LONG-TERM CARE!

A variety of other medical expenses can arise that cause the home to be sold to raise cash - either expenses for the elderly parents or for their late-middle-age offspring who develop costly health issues. Family disagreements over sharing the equity can arise, leading to the sale of the house and the division of the equity among the offspring. This cash is immediately hit with a variety of demands: a grandkid needs a car, somebody needs money to go back to graduate school (pursuing the fantasy that another degree will provide financial security), and so on - not to mention "we deserve a nice vacation, a new car, etc.", the temptations in a consumerist culture that we all "deserve."

(Once the family home is sold, the furnishings and other valuables are also sold off to raise cash. In many cases, the expense of transporting the items across the country to relatives exceeds the value of the furnishings.)

One common thread in all these demands for liquidation of equity is the short-term need is pressing. A consumerist culture offers few incentives for long-term savings other than life insurance, IRAs and 401Ks, and all of these can be tapped once a pressing need arises.

Though people may want to hang on to their nest-egg, they are faced with short-term needs: how else can I pay tuition, or this medical bill?

As incomes have stagnated and costs for big-ticket expenses such as college and healthcare have soared, the gap between income and expenditures has widened every year for the bottom 90%.

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

As incomes have stagnated and costs for big-ticket expenses such as college and healthcare have soared, the gap between income and expenditures has widened every year for the bottom 90%.

So [again,] how much of the recent "growth" in GDP results from our consumption of seed corn? It is difficult to find any data on this, something which is unsurprising as the data would reveal the entire "recovery" story as a grandiose illusion.

[W]e as a nation are consuming our seed corn in great gulps, and there will be precious little left in a decade to pass down to the next generation.

February 25, 2014 at 5:50 PM
William R. Barker said...

* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)

http://takimag.com/article/the_unfortunately_innate_nature_of_intelligence_fred_reed/print#axzz2uNX0d5W3

Human races are subspecies of Homo sapiens [sic], just as Basset Hounds and Chihuahuas are subspecies of dog. The breeds of neither are precise genetic categories: In the words of the heroic John Derbyshire, genetically “what you see is a continuum with some pretty sharp clines.” Yet the genetic commonalities are sufficient to be obvious: At a glance one can distinguish between a Japanese and a Norwegian, or a Siberian wolfhound and a dachshund.

Anyone having experience with dogs knows that these admirable creatures differ in intelligence.

Border Collies are simply smarter than pit bulls.

Since there is no political penalty for noticing this, it is widely noticed and not disputed.

Yet... if subspecies of Bowser differ markedly in intelligence, it would seem to follow that subspecies of humans, who differ in color, hair, biochemistry, facial features, brain size, and so on, might also differ in intelligence.

(That is... there is no prima facie biological reason for believing that they cannot. There are many political incentives.)

In the case of Fido, the differences clearly are not cultural, but genetic. If genetic differences in intelligence can exist between subspecies of dogs, why may they not between subspecies of humans?

People who do not want to believe that such differences exist offer several curious arguments. One is to point out that humans and chimpanzees share 98.2% of their DNA. It then follows that different subspecies of humans share an even higher percentage of their DNA. This is intended to show that humans are therefore essentially identical and that no differences in intellect can exist.

The obvious reason for the similarity of DNA is that the two share their underlying design: digestive tracts, lungs, muscles, cells, and so on.

(On similar grounds one could note that a Lamborghini and a dump truck share underlying design and therefore are essentially identical. Wanna race?)

But of course what the shared-DNA observation shows is the contrary of what it is said to show. It demonstrates that very small differences in DNA can produce profoundly different results. It means that a variation of 1.8% causes the difference between Wongobongo the Chimp and Marilyn Monroe.

(Your dating preferences are your own, but I am not sure the two are quite interchangeable.)

For that matter, the genetic difference between men and women as a percentage is very small. Yet the observant reader will have noticed that this minute difference produces rather impressive differences of structure, thank God, as well as profound biochemical and functional differences.

The genetic differences between such geniuses as Newton, Einstein, Shakespeare, or Hawking, and the guy in the next cubicle are vanishingly small; the effects of these tiny differences are not. A difference of only one amino residue on the beta chain of hemoglobin causes sickle-cell anemia. The genetic difference is infinitesimal, the results catastrophic.

In short, the notion that small differences in DNA cannot have massive effects is observably wrong.

* TO BE CONTINUED...

February 25, 2014 at 6:58 PM
William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)

Here we should note the dual modes of viewing intelligence, specifically Normal Mode and Racial Mode.

In Normal Mode, we all know what we mean by intelligence, and we all recognize that people vary greatly in how much of it they have. If John could read classical Greek at age three and graduated in mathematics from CalTech at fifteen, we would all agree that he was bright. If I said at a cocktail party, “Whoa! That gal Therese is smarter than five whips wired in parallel. Anybody got her phone number?” no one would tell me that I was a bigot or that Therese had exactly the same intelligence as everyone else. Rather they would say that I just knew a good thing when I saw it.

In Group Mode, everything changes according to the group being discussed. If I said that Jews were smart, and adduced all manner of achievements over the centuries, no one would deny it. Similarly for the Chinese. If I said, however, that Australian aborigines were inferior in IQ, I would be told as follows: Intelligence does not exist; it is a social construct; it is culturally determined; it can’t be measured; it has no genetic basis; the tests are biased; lack of achievement is caused by discrimination, or institutional racism running through Australian society, or geographic considerations.

(Whereas if I said that Italians were of low intelligence, the response would be to produce counter evidence; in the case of the aborigines it would be to give all manner of reasons why there was no counter evidence.)

It is remarkable how closely the observable behavior of races over the long haul tracks their measured intelligence. Arrange all the visibly distinct groups in descending order of measured IQ. Next to each put its contributions to the arts and sciences; its great civilizations present or past; its mean family income; its rate of criminality; its Nobel prizes and its scores on the GRE, and their representation in demanding universities without affirmative action.

Each of the clear disparities can be explained away, yes. E.g., for many centuries Germans were primitive while Italians and Greeks flourished intellectually, and Brazil only recently started designing airliners. Yet the aborigines never did anything. This is not probative, but highly suspicious.

Political and social consequences flow from apparent or, more likely, real differences in intelligence. For example, the Chinese are hated in Indonesia and Malaya, as have been Jews in countless places, because of consistently greater success in things requiring brains - such as making money. (An excellent book on this is World on Fire by Amy Chua.)

If no such differences in IQ existed, those around the world who produce and pay taxes might reasonably tell their welfare classes to stop being parasites and do their part. If, on the other hand, some groups are genuinely dim, the problem changes. You cannot blame people for being what they were born, and you cannot expect them to do what they cannot. The social-Darwinist approach — “Scratch, dog, who can, and the devil take the rest” — is cruel. If some cannot function, or find work, in a rapidly automating economy with high endemic unemployment, what do you do? To make matters worse, those who cannot compete intellectually tend to develop a cultural aversion to the whole idea.

It is when gradations of intelligence and hence of prosperity correlate closely with visible distinctions — for example, when north Asian students in California swamp Berkeley, greatly outperforming Caucasians — that anger arises. If dull-witted whites live in broken-down trailers in the pine barrens of the South, no one much cares. But if American Indians, racially distinct, live similarly on reservations, it is a political issue.

And that is what we face, no matter how hard we pretend otherwise.

February 25, 2014 at 6:59 PM

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