Tuesday, April 15, 2014
Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, April 15, 2014
Well, folks... happy income tax day!
Mary... happy birthday, my love!
Government... local, state, federal... go f--k yourselves you incompetent corrupt bastards!
So... here's the news I wake up to this morning:
Not only did I blow one expensive snow tire via the Jersey side of the PIP on February 28th, but this morning when Mary went to have the remaining snow tires dismounted and radials put back on our mechanic informed us that unbeknownst to us, the two snow tires we'd kept on the front were shot too - one with an inside bulge, the other an outside bulge - all from "normal" winter driving.
(As for the remaining 3rd snow tire... heck... I assume it's still good but I'll have to have it checked. It had been quickly dismounted and stored back in February... it too may be shot but at the time no one noticed since the attention was on the blown tire getting Mary back on the road.)
Folks... America is literally falling apart. This winter - and the incompetence and corruption of various arms of government which either can't (or simply won't) properly fulfill their basic missions - has cost me $500... $600... perhaps as high as $700 which will be payable this fall when I'll need to purchase at least three (and perhaps four) new snow tires.
Hey... folks... as I wrote above, we only found out about the two "compromised" snow tires upon their dismounting! You folks reading this might wanna check your own tires... and suspensions... sooner rather than later.
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* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/16/us/politics/census-survey-revisions-mask-health-law-effects.html?_r=0
The Census Bureau, the authoritative source of health insurance data for more than three decades, is changing its annual survey so thoroughly that it will be difficult to measure the effects of President Obama’s health care law in the next report, due this fall, census officials said.
* FOLKS... RE-READ THE ABOVE! THEN CONSIDER: THIS IS THE OPENING PARAGRAPH OF A NYT PIECE.
* FOLKS... WHAT'S IT GONNA TAKE...?
The changes are intended to improve the accuracy of the survey, being conducted this month in interviews with tens of thousands of households around the country.
* "IMPROVE." UH-HUH.
But the new questions are so different that the findings will not be comparable, the officials said.
(*SMIRK*)
An internal Census Bureau document said that the new questionnaire included a “total revision to health insurance questions” and, in a test last year, produced lower estimates of the uninsured.
* WOW! WHAT... A... COINCIDENCE...
(*ANOTHER SNORT*)
Thus, officials said, it will be difficult to say how much of any change is attributable to the Affordable Care Act and how much to the use of a new survey instrument.
(*PURSED LIPS*)
With the new questions, “it is likely that the Census Bureau will decide that there is a break in series for the health insurance estimates,” says another agency document describing the changes. This “break in trend” will complicate efforts to trace the impact of the Affordable Care Act, it said.
* WOW... RIGHT OUT IN THE OPEN...
A major goal of the law is to increase the number of people with health insurance. The White House reported that 7.5 million people signed up for private health plans on the new insurance exchanges and that enrollment in Medicaid increased by three million since October. But the administration has been unable to say how many of the people gaining coverage were previously uninsured or had policies canceled, so the net increase in coverage is unclear.
* UH... FOLKS... THAT'S NOT ALL! SIGNING UP DOESN'T NECESSARILY EQUAL PAYING UP! IF YOU'VE SIGNED UP BUT HAVEN'T PAID UP DO YOU HAVE INSURANCE? THE ADMINISTRATION SEEMS TO BE ANSWERING THIS QUESTION WITH A "YES."
(*SNORT*)
* FOLKS... THE ARTICLE AT THIS POINT GIVES THE OTHER SIDE THEIR CHANCE TO DEFEND WHAT'S GOING ON. YOU CAN ACCESS THAT REPORTING BY READING THE FULL ARTICLE FOR YOURSELVES VIA THE LINK PROVIDED. BUT FOR NOW I'M GONNA SKIP TO THE NEXT KEY POINT WHICH EVEN THE NYT FEELS DUTY-BOUND TO NOTE (IN PARAGRAPH 13):
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)
Another Census Bureau paper said “it is coincidental and unfortunate timing” that the survey was overhauled just before major provisions of the health care law took effect. “Ideally,” it said, “the redesign would have had at least a few years to gather base line and trend data.”
(*SMIRK*)
* COINCIDENTAL...??? REALLY...??? DO ANY OF YOU TRULY BUY THAT...??? COM'ON...
Mr. O’Hara of the Census Bureau said the agency was not planning to release coverage data from early this year in its next report.
(*SILENCE*)
The White House is always looking for evidence to show the benefits of the health law, which is an issue in many of this year’s midterm elections. ... [T]he White House Office of Management and Budget approved the new questionnaire.
* AGAIN... FOLKS... I'M POINT OUT KEY POINTS WHICH BUTTRESS MY CASE. FEEL FREE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE. DECIDE FOR YOURSELVES WHETHER SOMETHING SMELLS FISHY.
The new survey asks people if they have coverage through an exchange, if it has premiums and if the premiums are subsidized.
* SHOULDN'T THE EXCHANGES BE THE ONES ANSWERING THESE QUESTIONS SINCE ONLY THEY HAVE ACTUAL RECORDS... AND KNOW WHO HAS ACTUALLY POINT...???
People generally know if they have health insurance, but not necessarily the type of coverage. A study by the Census Bureau said that the line between public and private coverage is blurry.
* GEEZUS... (FOLKS... I COULDN'T MAKE THIS STUFF UP IF I TRIED!)
“The same exact coverage will be construed as private by some and public by others,” it said.
* AGAIN... UNBELIEVABLE... JUST UNBELIEVABLE...
* BOTTOM LINE:
Kathleen Thiede Call, a professor at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, said, “The health insurance data reported in September of this year will not be directly comparable to what was reported last September.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/10767878/Infants-unable-to-use-toy-building-blocks-due-to-iPad-addiction.html
Rising numbers of infants lack the motor skills needed to play with building blocks because of an “addiction” to tablet-computers and smart-phones, according to teachers.
Many children aged just three or four can “swipe a screen” but have little or no dexterity in their fingers after spending hours glued to iPads, it was claimed.
Members of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers also warned how some older children were unable to complete traditional pen and paper exams because their memory had been eroded by overexposure to screen-based technology.
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2014/04/15/attention-shoppers-fruit-and-vegetable-prices-rising/?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsFifth
The cost of fresh produce is poised to jump in the coming months as a three-year drought in California shows few signs of abating, according to an Arizona State University study set to be released Wednesday.
* A LARGELY MAN-MADE DROUGHT... AN "IDEOLOGY DRIVEN" DROUGHT.
The study found a head of lettuce could increase in price as much as 62 cents to $2.44; avocado prices could rise 35 cents to $1.60 each; and tomatoes could cost 45 cents more at $2.84 per pound. (The run-up in produce prices is in line with other projections showing that overall food cost gains are expected to accelerate this year.)
http://money.cnn.com/2014/04/14/news/economy/beef-prices/
Beef prices are at a record high; the price of a pound of ground beef has hit $3.55 a pound, a record high even when adjusted for inflation, according to government readings for February.
That's up 56% since 2010.
The average for round steak is at $5.28, among the highest prices seen in the last 20 years.
(And it's gotten worse lately. In February, beef posted the biggest month-over-month price increase in more than a decade thanks to bad weather.)
[And...] the cost of other staples, such as milk, butter, eggs, fruit and vegetables are climbing. With a severe drought ravaging farms across most of California, prices are at risk of shooting significantly higher this year.
* AGAIN... FOLKS... THE LEFTIST POLITICIANS IN CALIFORNIA (AND ELSEWHERE) HAVE DELIBERATELY MISAPPROPRIATED WATER RESOURCES AWAY FROM GROWING AND GRAZING! (FOLKS... LOOK AT THE BUNDY RANCH IN NEVADA! THERE'S IS THE ONLY CATTLE RANCH LEFT IN THE AREA! THE FEDS HAVE PRESSURED ALL THE OTHERS OUT OF BUSINESS!)
* FOLKS... YES... THE GOVERNMENT IS DELIBERATELY STOKING FOOD INFLATION AND HAS BEEN DOING SO FOR YEARS.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303325204579465983227387064?mg=reno64-wsj
If the states are laboratories of democracy, then a great comparative policy experiment is taking place in America's Great Lakes region.
Democrats in Illinois have been pursuing their blue-state model of higher taxes and union-dominated government.
Neighboring states since 2010 have gone for lower taxes and union reform.
The comparison is especially apt because Illinois Democrats are doubling down on their strategy in this election year. Governor Pat Quinn has announced plans to make permanent the "temporary" tax hikes that were supposed to sunset at the end of this year. Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan last month floated a 3% surcharge on income over $1 million, only to have it shot down by some in his own caucus. Yet Democrats are still flogging a progressive income tax, which Mr. Quinn all but endorsed last year.
All of which makes it an ideal moment to consider how the Quinn-Madigan policies are working.
One way to judge is to compare Illinois with four other Great Lakes states that the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) lumps together for its annual survey of economic performance by the 50 states.
Start with Illinois's 8.7% jobless rate, which is the country's second highest after Rhode Island's 9% and has fallen by a mere 0.7 percentage points since Mr. Quinn began his second term in January 2011.
(That's when Illinois increased its flat income tax to 5% from 3% and the corporate rate to 9.5% from 7.3%.)
The nearby chart shows the jobless-rate trend in five Great Lakes states since 2010. Note the sharp decline in Michigan, where Republican Governor Rick Snyder and a GOP legislature cut corporate taxes. In the last three years, the rate has fallen to 7.7% from 11% in the Wolverine State, to 6.5% from 9.1% in Ohio, to 6.1% from 9% in Indiana, and to 6.1% from 7.7% in Wisconsin.
Only Illinois has raised taxes, while Ohio cut taxes.
Michigan and Indiana have passed right-to-work laws and Wisconsin famously reformed collective bargaining.
Illinois has also recorded the slowest personal income growth in the Great Lakes.
(But get this — about a third of Illinois's personal-income "growth" last year was driven by "transfer receipts" i.e., food stamps, workers' compensation, disability, welfare, Medicaid, Social Security, Medicare, earned income tax credits, unemployment benefits. According to BEA, these payments increased 5.2% in Illinois in 2013, the third most in the U.S., while wages and salaries ticked up only 1%.)
Some 31,000 Illinois workers left the state's labor force in 2013, while Michigan's workforce expanded by 2,000 and Indiana's grew by 11,000.
Illinois also lost about 9,000 manufacturing jobs in the last year while Michigan gained 17,000 and Ohio and Indiana each added 12,000. It's easy to see why. Illinois's 9.5% corporate tax rate is the highest in the Great Lakes and fourth in the U.S.
[S]ales taxes are 14% to 33% higher in Illinois than in other Great Lakes states, according to the Tax Foundation.
Illinois property taxes are the second highest in the country (after New Jersey) and climbing.
According to the Illinois Policy Institute, teacher pensions have gobbled up 70% of new education spending. Illinois this year will spend $7 billion from its general fund (not counting federal funds) on primary and secondary education — but another $7.5 billion on pensions. The next tax increase would be, like the last one, a more or a less a straight income transfer to government worker pensions.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303663604579503191667905848?mg=reno64-wsj
As painful as it is for Americans to pay roughly $3 trillion in federal taxes this fiscal year, the truth is that the pain has only just begun. That's because the government's record-high tax collections don't even begin to cover Washington's spending promises.
Yes, individual federal income tax rates now run up to 39.6% and the U.S. corporate income tax rate, including state levies, is now the highest in the industrialized world. But given the projected agony to come, we may look back on our time spent filling out this year's tax returns as the good old days.
Much of official Washington has lately been celebrating the government's alleged restraint in limiting this year's federal budget deficit to $492 billion. The Congressional Budget Office, which recently published this forecast, notes: "This will be the fifth consecutive year in which the deficit has declined as a share of GDP since peaking at 9.8% in 2009."
* UMM... ISN'T IT ALSO THE FIFTH CONSECUTIVE YEAR WE'VE HAD FEDERAL BUDGET DEFICITS OF $492,000,000,000 OR HIGHER...??? (MUCH HIGHER...???) IN FACT, WHAT'S THE ACTUAL NEW DEBT CREATED OVER THE PAST FIVE YEARS... HOW MANY TRILLIONS..?!?!
CBO also expects things to get worse in a hurry.
In just the next two years, with no more federal budget sequester to limit spending, annual outlays will grow by almost $500 billion, driving federal spending above $4 trillion for the first time.
* EXPLAIN TO ME AGAIN HOW "VIOLENCE ISN'T THE ONLY ANSWER..."
In that fiscal year of 2016, federal deficits will resume their upward march.
* EXPLAIN TO ME AGAIN HOW "VIOLENCE ISN'T THE ONLY ANSWER..."
By 2023 we will be back to the annual trillion-dollar deficits that characterized the Obama first term.
* EXPLAIN TO ME AGAIN HOW "VIOLENCE ISN'T THE ONLY ANSWER..."
The debt subject to limit, now $17.5 trillion, would need to rise to more than $27 trillion by 2024 to cover all the expected spending. Of course a growing economy would be a great help in financing the looming spending increases, but the current White House is more concerned with reallocating wealth than with allowing people to create it.
While we're getting depressed, we should also note that the $17.5 trillion that many people think of as the federal debt only scratches the surface of the future obligations promised by politicians. Last year legendary investor Stanley Druckenmiller calculated the net present value of Beltway commitments and concluded that "the future liabilities are $205 trillion, not $17 trillion."
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