A couple of days ago, I wrote about my theory that as long as the interest rates stay low, the stock market will remain high — because no one has any other place for investment. The rates have stay historically low for nearly a decade now, so investors have seen little-to-no return in many usual places.
Just today, we hear the the Fed has rejected yet another rate hike, and furthermore, has “downgraded its forecast for economic growth in 2016 for the third time this year. It now projects growth this year to be 1.8%. In June it forecast growth of 2%.
As the Fed has hesitated to raise rates, there is a growing debate about its credibility. Many economists and investors say the Fed’s hesitancy to raise rates — and conflicting messages from its top leaders — has eroded public confidence in the central bank.”
It is unlikely that a rate hike will happen on November 1-2, so close to the election. If a rate hike is to happen, it would be more likely to be in mid-December. It will be interesting to see how both the markets, and the Fed, react to the outcome of the November elections.
We’ve all seen the video which raises new questions about the health status of Hillary Clinton. I’ve largely left these questions alone because I try to avoid reckless speculation. However, the video does raise some new questions:
The Hillary press team was largely silent for 90 minutes after the video. Later, it emerged that Hillary was diagnosed with pneumonia on Friday. “But just after 5 p.m., a campaign official said Mrs. Clinton’s physician, Dr. Lisa R. Bardack, had examined the candidate at her home in Chappaqua, and Dr. Bardack said in a statement that Mrs. Clinton was “rehydrated and recovering nicely.”
“Secretary Clinton has been experiencing a cough related to allergies,” Dr. Bardack’s statement said, adding that on Friday morning, after a prolonged cough, Mrs. Clinton was given a diagnosis of pneumonia. “She was put on antibiotics, and advised to rest and modify her schedule,” Dr. Bardack added. “At this morning’s event, she became overheated and dehydrated.”
Now, if she was indeed diagnosed with pnuemonia, why was she subsequently at a fundraiser with Barbra Streisand later that same evening? This is the same incident that Hillary used the now famous term “basket of deplorables” in reference to Trump supporters.
According to reports on the event, “tickets for the gala start at $1,200, with limited availability, and go as high as $250,000. Donors who raise six figures get a meet-and-greet reception with Clinton.”
Does this mean that Clinton engaged in a private meet-and-greet while sick with pneumonia, and didn’t disclose her illness? Was she contagious then? How does one get told to “rest and modify her schedule” and then proceed to a high dollar fundraiser.
“Hillary Clinton will meet with a bipartisan group of former national security officials on Friday, a group that includes ousted former CIA Director David Petraeus and former George W. Bush Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff.”
According to a tweet by MSNBC captured by The Gateway Pundit that Friday, at 5:13pm in New York, MSNBC urged its followers to “Watch Live: Tune in to @MSNBC to watch Hillary Clinton speak after attending a major national security meeting.”
Watch Live: Tune in to @MSNBC to watch Hillary Clinton speak after attending a major national security meeting. pic.twitter.com/RzX9YRiWs4
This briefing was post-meeting, and pre-fundraiser. Did she notify any of the distinguished guests at the meeting that she was sick with pneumonia? The press at the briefing? Anyone she may have come in contact with? If not, why not?
She’s either lying about actually having pneumonia or she’s did not disclose a serious, and potentially contagious illness with the hundreds of people with whom she came in contact on Friday: national security folks, press, donors, supporters. Which one is more deplorable?
Data compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that government employees in the United States outnumber manufacturing employees by 9,932,000, according to data released today. CNS news has the highlights:
Federal, state and local government employed 22,213,000 people in August, while the manufacturing sector employed 12,281,000.
The BLS has published seasonally-adjusted month-by-month employment data for both government and manufacturing going back to 1939. For half a century—from January 1939 through July 1989—manufacturing employment always exceeded government employment in the United States, according to these numbers.
Then, in August 1989, the seasonally-adjusted employment numbers for government exceeded the employment numbers for manufacturing for the first time. That month, manufacturing employed 17,964,000 and government employed 17,989,000.
Manufacturing employment in the United States had peaked a decade before that in June 1979 at 19,553,000
From August 2015 to August 2016 seasonally-adjusted manufacturing employment declined by 37,000–dropping from 12,318,000 last August to 12,281,000 this August.
The 22,213,000 government employees in August, according to the BLS, included 2,790,000 federal employees, 5,120,000 state government employees, and 14,303,000 local government employees.
What happens when the government uses its power to give money from one group of people to another group of people? It’s happening. It’s not supposed to happen. See, in our Constitution, the government has the right do things — limited things — in order to safeguard the rights of the people. Our Constitution relates to individual rights; it’s not a document on democracy. Unfortunately, these lines are becoming more blurred all the time.
Maybe democracy as a system of government by itself cannot work; in other words, if a democracy allows two foxes and a chicken to vote on what to have for dinner, it reveals a fatal flaw — because it allows an unfortunate outcome. Of course the two foxes are going to vote on having the chicken for dinner!
At the same time, democracy is the only best form of government if the majority protects the rights of the minority, whether it’s racial, economic, or whatever — those rights must be protected. But this applies to all. In the same way, a democracy voting to allow the lower 51% to usurp the property of the upper 49% is just as intolerable as usurping rights based on gender, religion, or race.
You can elect a Chavez or a Castro in a duly elected election, but you can’t allow him to just use the fact that he got a majority of the people’s as an excuse to abuse a minority of the people. People just can’t vote to take all the money for themselves.
You could have a referendum on whether the richest people (making over $200,000/year) should give their money to those making under $200,000. You could vote that… but not really because people also have the right to their own property. What then? How do you resolve this kind of conflict?
There is no mandatory, compulsory requirement to vote. If our Founding Fathers want to put voting in the Constitution they could have, but they didn’t. On the other hand, our Constitution specifically does not allow our government to take money from somebody and give it to someone else. Our Constitution merely gives the Federal government enumerated powers, and it in no way allows us to take money from some people and give it to someone else that the government has deemed more worthy.
When Barack Obama stated for the first time that he would take money from one group and give it to another — when he announced he was going after millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share — it was the first time he verbally stated something unconstitutional.
In contrast, the states are allowed to make laws to do that — they don’t have Constitutions with enumerated powers as in the case of the federal Constitution.. States can legally, actually vote that more wealthy people must give money to less wealthy people. If and when that happens, people have the right to move within the United States to a different state with different laws — but yet still remain a US citizen. You can see the effect of this mentality even now, as high tax states have seen a population exodus to states that are less punitive.
So, what do when it is happening at the federal level? Vote for a new president? Perhaps that will change it. But how do we curb the effects of people receiving more and more wealth transfers and benefits? The unintended consequence of such policy is that the recipients will learn to always vote for the person that will create or continue policy that will benefit the voter in a tangible, direct, and economic way. As a result, the elections become less fair and based on being an informed citizen, and more on “How can I benefit? What’s in it for me?”
In this way, it logically follows that the argument could be made that you shouldn’t be able to vote if you have a conflict of interest. The suggestion of curtailing voting rights from those who are recipients of such egregious and unconstitutional policy is indeed drastic. But perhaps it should be a consideration for those who are too short-sided to see the long-term problems for this country — because the idea that our federal government can economically abuse a segment of the population for monetary gain is also radical.
Earlier in the month, Steven Russolillo correctly reported on weak business investment as a key reason for poor economic growth. However, it was incredibly frustrating that as an economic writer, Russolillo, could actually suggest this was a surprising phenomenon. It’s not surprising. In fact, it’s downright predictable. The Obama Administration has been steadily undermining businesses for years and this is the fallout of their policies.
Even though Russolillo should have known this, he could have also easily interviewed any number of business owners for his article; if he did, he would have found a multitude of reasons for weak business investment, including 1) anti-business attitudes; 2) threats of higher taxes; 3) actual higher taxes; and 4) increased government regulations. Instead, Russolillo made the rookie mistake of only talking to fellow economists, the ones who look at data and trends instead of actually being in the trenches of everyday business activity.
Russolillo acts as if low rates are the only key to business spending; they’re not. Businesses won’t spend if they continue to feel the threat of the government’s heavy-hand. Better to keep the company stabilized than attempt to stretch and expand and invest; you have no idea what new regulation or new tax will continue to wreak havoc on your long-term business plans and cash flow — they way this administration has done for the last seven years.
Businesses are tired of being treated as an both a source of extra government revenue and a playground for intrusive, burdensome policies that hurt, rather than help, our economy. It’s a no-brainer to anyone who is anyone in the business world why businesses are hesitant to invest; it’s a shame that more economists don’t know how to engage in critical thinking and basic journalism.
Massachusetts launched a new (modest) fee within the transportation industry with the stated attempt at modernization. But this isn’t that at all. It is a nickel taken for every transaction from one group of companies, and the proceeds will benefit another group of companies — their own competitors.
This new fee is imposed on “transportation network companies, or TNCs, such as Uber, Lyft, and Fasten. When Governor Charlie Baker signed a law earlier this month regulating TNCs, it included a little-discussed component. For every trip, the TNCs will have to contribute a nickel to a new fund to support modernization, training, and improvement of the taxi and livery industry. The 5-cent fee will stay in effect until the final day of 2021.”
Imagine having to involuntarily contribute to a fund whose stated purpose is the very companies/industry with whom you compete! That’s exactly what is happening here. It’s estimated that the nickel fee will generate about $15 million in revenue over the next few years, collected by Mass Development, the state economic development agency.
What’s worse is that there is no actual plan on how the money will be spent support modernize, train, and improve the taxi and livery industry — it’s still up in the air. But since the fee is now a given, this article here gives a wealth of interesting suggestions for the agency; it simultaneously exposes the fact that the Massachusetts bureaucrats are engaging in crony capitalism at its finest. Why is the government in the business of picking winners and losers among businesses?
This is an excellent editorial piece from the Wall Street Journal discussing the surprise announcement that Aetna, one of the leading insurers in this country, was withdrawing from the vast majority of Obamacare exchanges. But instead of sitting up and seriously considering this massive defection as a wake-up call (unlike all the previous failures), the Democrats want to blame Aetna itself in order to safeguard the narrative that Obamacare is working perfectly well. I have reproduced the piece in its entirety below; it’s worth the read.
“Democrats claimed for years that ObamaCare is working splendidly, though anybody acquainted with reality could see the entitlement is dysfunctional. Now as the law breaks down in an election year, they’ve decided to blame private insurers for their own failures.
Their target this week is Aetna, which has announced it is withdrawing two-thirds of its ObamaCare coverage, pulling out of 536 of 778 counties where it does business. The third-largest U.S. insurer has lost about $430 million on the exchanges since 2014, and this carnage is typical. More than 40 other companies are also fleeing ObamaCare.
The mass exodus will leave consumers consigned to the exchanges with surging premiums and fewer options, but don’t mention these victims to Democrats. They’re trying to change the subject by claiming Aetna is retaliating because the Justice Department is trying to block Aetna’s $37 billion acquisition of Humana.
The 2010 ObamaCare law makes it nearly impossible for non-mega insurers to operate, and a tide of regulations has encouraged consolidation. Aetna says the Humana tie-up will create economies of scale that could sustain the money-losing exchange policies.
But Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren is now emoting on Facebook that “The health of the American people should not be used as bargaining chips to force the government to bend to one giant company’s will.” This week the Administration also released a July 5 letter from Aetna in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. Democrats claim the document shows CEO Mark Bertolini conditioning Aetna’s ObamaCare cooperation on merger approval.
This is some gall. Aetna was answering a June 28 “civil investigative demand,” in which Justice’s antitrust division specifically asked how blocking the merger would “affect Aetna’s business strategy and operations, including Aetna’s participation of the public exchanges related to the Affordable Care Act.”
Soliciting sensitive internal information that Aetna is legally compelled to provide—and then making it public to sandbag the company—is the behavior of political plumbers, not allegedly impartial technocrats. If police tried this, it’d be entrapment.
Mr. Bertolini had merely replied that the legal costs of an antitrust suit would strain Aetna’s performance. The insurer would have “no choice but to take actions to steward its financial health” and “face market realities,” such as reducing unprofitable business. Public companies have a responsibility to shareholders, and the wonder is that any insurer is still part of the exchanges.
ObamaCare’s troubles aren’t the result of any business decision. The entire industry is caught in the law’s structural undertow. Despite subsidies, overall enrollment is flat, there’s too much monthly churn, and the exchanges aren’t attracting enough healthy people to make the economics work.
Blame the law’s architects, not Mr. Bertolini, who must wonder what happened to the political goodwill he has tried to bank over the years. Aetna was inclined to accept the exchanges as loss leaders to support ObamaCare’s mission of universal coverage. The company led ObamaCare’s industry pep squad in 2009 and 2010.
The calculation then was that subsidies would open a new market, and consumers would be mandated to buy their products. But in the final frenzy to pass the law, Democrats decided that insurers made too much money and they imposed price controls on profit margins. Now insurers are accused of declining to throw away more money.
The ObamaCare implosion means that about a quarter of U.S. counties will have only one or two plans, and in some zero. Areas in Arizona, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Texas seem to be hardest hit, though the extent of the damage is still emerging.
Democrats figure they have insurers over a barrel because a Hillary Clinton Presidency is coming. She’s running on higher subsidies for beneficiaries, a taxpayer bailout for the industry, and a “public option” akin to Medicare for the middle class. In health care the solution to a problem caused by government is always more government, which will create new problems and beget more government.
Republicans have no obligation to participate. They had no hand in creating this mess and they’ve been mocked by Democrats and the media for years for warning about ObamaCare’s flaws and trying to repeal and replace the law. Assuming the GOP holds at least the House, they should insist that any “fixes”—which are fast becoming inevitable—create a rational health-care market. Democrats deserve to be held accountable for the collapse of their ideas.”
Aetna’s decision to withdraw from 11 out of 15 state exchanges is a big deal; it follows the paths of UnitedHealth Group and Humana, both large insurance companies who have also chosen to cut ties with Obamacare. (Incidentally, the DoJ is trying to block a Aetna-Humana merger; are they worried about competition?)
A short analysis by Market Watch provides some insight into the decision and the current state of Obamacare:
**Aetna explained the decision as a way to “limit our financial exposure moving forward,” after pretax losses of $200 million in the second quarter and losses totaling $430 million on individual products since January 2014. The company did not specify what portion of the losses was attributable to individual public plan offerings.
**The company criticized the ACA’s “inadequate” risk-adjustment mechanism, which is meant to limit insurers’ losses as they start covering sicker individuals. It’s a common criticism from health insurers, which have long said that the risk-pool program isn’t working the way it’s supposed to, though others say big insurance companies should instead change their model to keep costs down.
**Of Aetna’s exchange membership this year, more than half is new, with those needing expensive care making up “an even larger share” in the second quarter, the company said.
**Coupled with the risk pool, this makes premiums costlier and “creates significant sustainability concerns,” the company said.
The affect of these withdrawls means fewer insurers and fewer choices for consumers than when the law first began several years ago. That’s not good. The law needs some reform. MarketWatch notes, “The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has indicated a willingness to make changes to the risk-pool mechanism, although it’s unclear whether legislation to that end would be passed.
Any fixes will also depend on strong enrollment figures. Premiums have increased for 2017, but the financial penalty for not having health insurance has also increased. Whether that penalty, an average of $969 per household, according to a Kaiser analysis, will prompt increased enrollment is a “big wild card,” according to a co-author of the Kaiser report. A rise in premium costs “suggests additional enrollment growth is not a given,” said Riggs, having potential negative implications for hospital and managed care, along with investors in those spaces.”
Will this have an impact on the 2016 election? It will be interesting to see — especially since the open enrollment period is slated to begin on November 1, just days before the 2016 election. The cost of premiums, especially if they are substantially higher, may affect people’s voting decisions. Of course, don’t put it past the Administration to delay open enrollment until Nov 15 and shift everything by two weeks, in order to avoid a “November surprise”. The only thing that’s not a surprise at this point is that the law continues to founder considerably, at the expense and disruption of everyday citizens.
I always like to periodically check in on what’s going on in the world of federal debt and federal tax collections. The good folks over at CNS News consistently report the figures that come out of the U.S. Treasury so we can periodically see how our federal finances are doing. Here’s the latest snapshot:
During the 90 full months President Barack Obama has completed serving in the White House—February 2009 through July 2016–the U.S. Treasury collected approximately $19,966,110,000,000 in tax revenues (in non-inflation-adjusted dollars), according to the Monthly Treasury Statements.
During those same 90 months, the federal debt rose from $10,632,005,246,736.97 to $19,427,694,579,786.64—an increase of $8,795,689,333,049.67.
In July, according to the Monthly Treasury Statement released today, the federal government took in $209,998,000,000 in taxes and spent $322,813,000,000—running a one-month deficit of $112,815,000,000.
So far in fiscal 2016, according the Treasury statement, the federal government has collected approximately $2,678,824,000,000 in taxes and spent approximately $3,192,487,000,000—running a deficit of $513,662,000,000 for the first ten months of the fiscal year.
Given that the Bureau of Labor Statistics has reported that there were 151,517,000 people employed in the United States in July, the $19,966,110,000,000 in taxes the Treasury has collected during Obama’s first 90 full months in office equals approximately $131,775 per worker.
The $8,795,689,333,049.67 in additional debt the federal government incurred during Obama’s first 90 full months in office equals approximately $58,051 per worker.
The Treasury only needs to pull in another $33.89 billion in taxes to reach the $20 trillion mark for Obama’s presidency. (The $19,966,110,000,000 the Treasury pulled in during the first 90 full months of Obama’s presidency equals approximately $221,845,666,666.67 per month).
During the first 90 full months George W. Bush was president (February 2001 through July 2008), according to the Monthly Treasury Statements, the Treasury collected approximately $16,048,182,000,000 in taxes.
(From February 2001 through January 2009, the Treasury collected $17,251,191,000,000 in taxes. Bush was inaugurated on Jan, 20, 2001 and left office on Jan. 20, 2009, when Obama was sworn in.)
The $16,048,182,000,000 in taxes the Treasury collected during Bush’s first 90 full months in office equaled approximately $110,273 for each of the 145,532,000 persons who had a job as of July 2008.
During the first 90 full months of George W. Bush’s presidency, the debt rose from $5,716,070,587,057.36 to $9,585,479,639,200.33—an increase of $3,869,409,052,142.97. That equaled approximately $26,588 in added debt for each of the 145,532,000 persons who had a job as July 2008.
Here, according to the numbers published in the Monthly Treasury Statements, are the total receipts the Treasury has brought during the 90 full months President Barack Obama has completed in office:
I just read a recent Letter to the Editor in the Wall Street Journal from a Francis X. Cavanaugh, “founding chief executive of the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board.” I guess his title allows him the ability to be an ignorant elitist, mocking the alarm of the ordinary American with the current amount of crushing US debt.
Mr. Cavanaugh writes that the “concern that ‘we have borrowed so heavily from future generations’ is baseless.” Baseless. Really Mr. Cavanaugh? As if anyone concerned with debt is a poor, uneducated, silly, misunderstood citizen, and all the smart federal people know and understand that the debt will never be paid off, never needs to be paid off, and therefore is a non-issue. How utterly wrong.
In his economic ignorance, Mr. Cavanaugh must be assuming that, as with major corporations and other organizations with indefinite lives, debt can be a part of a permanent capital structure, so there is no need to actually pay it off. But in order for the debt to be rational, it needed to be incurred to acquire something with ongoing benefit – such as land or equipment whose ongoing use will justify the ongoing debt service to pay for it.
That is the difference between the federal government and other entities that will maintain “permanent “ debt. Corporate permanent debt has funded capital improvements that will provide benefits into the future. They would never use debt to fund current operations, because this would burden future activities with having to pay back unproductive debt. In contrast, federal debt is funding only operating deficits – paying for more vote-buying crony-building current goodies than our tax receipts could provide – and which will need to be paid back by our children and grandchildren who will have received none of the goodies.And the cumulative effect of piling operating deficits on top of operating deficits is catastrophic.
Mr. Cavanaugh does not believe that the debt needs to be paid? What needs to be paid — at minimum — is the interest and the capacity to roll over the debt coming due; however, when the amount of debt explodes such as it has in the past 8 years, the interest explodes too, especially when interest incurred at historically low rates will need to be refinanced at rates much higher. Likewise, those creditors funding the debt will certainly take pause or stop funding all together. Subsequently, the interest liabilities become a debt for future generations paying for the debt service and the unfunded liabilities of the past generations’ profligate spending.
The attitude of Mr. Francis X. Cavanaugh is thoroughly repulsive — but what do you expect from a bureaucrat whose sole job was to oversee, protect, and administer the retirement savings and investment plans for Federal employees?
