Tag: Failure
We’re Doing Grant, Not Patton, But Neither One Had A Goof Like Ryan Screwing Things Up
Guest Post by Kurt Schlichter
Paul Ryan should walk around Congress for the next couple of weeks wearing a sign around his neck that reads, “I am a failure.” It’s not that everyone else doesn’t already know that he’s a failure – oh, that’s one message that he’s succeeded in getting out Lima Charlie – it’s that it doesn’t seem like he knows that he’s a failure. Perhaps some signage would remind him to wipe that smug, smarmy grin off his face, and inspire him to achieve something other than nothing.
HILLARY’S PROUDEST ACCOMPLISHMENT
The Fed has fueled inflation — and it’s helping the rich
Higher stock and real estate prices don’t benefit average Americans
It may come as no surprise that in the aftermath of an epic single-family housing boom and subsequent bust, millions of more people have been renting — without much new multifamily housing supply until recently.
This situation has let to strong gains for apartment REITs and an astonishing ability for property owners to raise rents.
Now a research paper by Rob Arnott and Lillian Wu of Research Affiliates in Newport Beach, Calif. asks why the CPI doesn’t reflect the inflation that is apparent in places where people spend their money.
Arnott and Wu argue that the four biggest expenditures for most people — rent, food, energy, and health care — have been rising. Since 1995, rents have been rising at 2.7% clip, energy at a 3.9%, food at 2.6%, and health care at 3.6%. Notably, these four expenses account for 60% of the aggregate of people’s budgets, 80% of middle-class budgets, and 90% of the budgets of the working poor.
Indeed, these Four Horsemen are galloping along, outstripping headline CPI, but it has taken six years of massive government spending, borrowing, and central bank stimulus for real per-capita GDP to regain its pre-recession peak.
Continue reading “The Fed has fueled inflation — and it’s helping the rich”
IT’S AN IDEAL WORTH FIGHTING FOR
Guest Post by The Pessimist Chemist (TPC)
I attended a “pro-Bernie” rally yesterday. Not to lend my support, but to study the opposition. The main speakers were from out of town and had no idea who we were, so they spoke more candidly then they might have had they known we were “the enemy.”
My wife and I showed up a little late so we could get spots around the edge of the crowd and not end up buried in it. It was obvious our presence made some of the locals anxious. They know where we stand, and don’t like it, even if they do want to like us as people.
Long story short: The Socialists are in this for the long haul. They are targeting local/small elections and wish to build a popular movement to grant the government even more control. In order for this plan to work they absolutely must shift the narrative as far away from social programs as possible.
These people view the fruits of my labor as their god-given right, and will fight tooth and nail to prevent themselves from being held responsible for any of their own choices.
The longer our country allows this movement to go on, the more dangerous it gets. It does not take very many people of action to make sweeping changes in history.
The American Revolution had a paltry percentage of the popular vote, let alone active participants. The same can be said of the rise of Nazi Germany and the Third Reich.
The unfortunate nature of the Libertarian-leaning conservatives is that we just want to be left alone, and thus don’t actively recruit or rabble-rouse. The days are fading where we could say “leave me alone” and expect any semblance of compliance with the request.
But as Socialism rises, so too must Capitalism. We cannot work with the Socialists to bring a Reckoning down on our Crony Capitalist rulers, we must strive to tear down both movements as they are equally evil. We cannot allow the failures of Socialism in South America, Asia, and Europe to be swept under the rug. We must loudly parade them out in the open, mocking a decaying system and putting forward true American ideals as the only way to win.
Despite its corrupt rulers and government, America is still the Greatest Nation that ever existed, and its an ideal worth fighting for.
Obamacare disaster will be Obama’s enduring domestic legacy
On the foreign-policy front, he is the anti-Reagan for certain. Reagan defeated Soviet communism and left us a safer world; Obama presided over the rise and metastasis of the Islamic State and left us a far more dangerous one.
Domestically, Ronald Reagan told the American people: “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.’ ” Obama wanted to convince Americans that they were not terrifying. And the way he was going to do it was through the only great liberal legislative achievement of his presidency: Obamacare.
He failed. Even before he leaves office, Obamacare has begun unraveling.
The law was passed over the objections of a majority of Americans, it is still opposed by a majority of Americans — and their opposition has been vindicated. Last week, UnitedHealth Group announced that, after estimated losses of more than $1 billion for 2015 and 2016 under Obamacare, the company was pulling out of most of its ill-fated exchanges.
Continue reading “Obamacare disaster will be Obama’s enduring domestic legacy”
THE OBAMACARE DISASTER ACCELERATES
UnitedHealth, America’s largest health insurance provider, says it will exit from most ObamaCare exchanges next year, citing more than $1 billion in losses.
CEO Stephen Hemsley says his company “cannot continue to broadly serve the market created by the Affordable Care Act’s coverage expansion due partly to the higher risk that comes with its customers,” as reported by the Associated Press.
The announcement came after UnitedHealth revised its projection for 2016 to $650 million in losses, up from a previous estimate of $525 million, after ending 2015 some $475 million in the red.
As the AP tells it, UnitedHealth had “second thoughts” almost immediately after announcing it would expand participation from four state exchanges to 34.
As of last November, the company was debating a complete exit from all ObamaCare exchanges, but has apparently decided to remain active in a “handful” of states, which Hemsley did not specify in his conference call to report company earnings. It has already been announced that the company was pulling out of Arkansas, Georgia, and Michigan.
The Washington Post cites a Kaiser Family Foundation study that estimated about 1.1 million ObamaCare customers would be left with a single insurance provider to “choose” from, if UnitedHealth withdrew from every ACA exchange. According to this analysis, “the impact could be significant in some areas, particularly in rural areas in Southern states.”
The Associated Press notes that some other big insurance players, such as Aetna, have reported heavy losses from the ACA exchanges, and are expected to “trim their exchange participation in 2017.”
“A dozen nonprofit health insurance cooperatives created by the ACA to sell coverage on the exchanges have already folded, and the survivors all lost millions last year,” the AP adds.
DEPT. OF EDUCATION – OUR WORK HERE IS DONE
It appears a few children were left behind.
The Department of Education was created in 1979 and now has an annual budget of $73 billion, with 5,000 government bureaucrats roaming its hallways. When you include all Federal, State and Local spending on public education it totals about $700 billion per year, or $13,000 per student. The Department of Education was created to improve the education of our children.
After 37 years and trillions of dollars “invested” in our children, see below what they have achieved. The public school teachers who have been on the front lines for the last 37 years work 9 months per year, earn above average salaries, get awesome benefits, and have gold plated pension plans – all at the expense of taxpayers. And look what they have accomplished.
The tens of millions of illiterate drones think they deserve $15 per hour because it’s fair, even though they can’t count to fifteen or spell fifteen.
STAGGERING ILLITERACY STATISTICS
California
- According to the 2007 California Academic Performance Index, research show that 57% of students failed the California Standards Test in English.
- There are six million students in the California school system and 25% of those students are unable to perform basic reading skills
- There is a correlation between illiteracy and income at least in individual economic terms, in that literacy has payoffs and is a worthwhile investment. As the literacy rate doubles, so doubles the per capita income.
The Nation
- In a study of literacy among 20 ‘high income’ countries; US ranked 12th
- Illiteracy has become such a serious problem in our country that 44 million adults are now unable to read a simple story to their children
- 50% of adults cannot read a book written at an eighth grade level
- 45 million are functionally illiterate and read below a 5th grade level
- 44% of the American adults do not read a book in a year
- 6 out of 10 households do not buy a single book in a year
The Economy
- 3 out of 4 people on welfare can’t read
- 20% of Americans read below the level needed to earn a living wage
- 50% of the unemployed between the ages of 16 and 21 cannot read well enough to be considered functionally literate
- Between 46 and 51% of American adults have an income well below the poverty level because of their inability to read
- Illiteracy costs American taxpayers an estimated $20 billion each year
- School dropouts cost our nation $240 billion in social service expenditures and lost tax revenues
Impact on Society:
- 3 out of 5 people in American prisons can’t read
- To determine how many prison beds will be needed in future years, some states actually base part of their projection on how well current elementary students are performing on reading tests
- 85% of juvenile offenders have problems reading
- Approximately 50% of Americans read so poorly that they are unable to perform simple tasks such as reading prescription drug labels
(Source: National Institute for Literacy, National Center for Adult Literacy, The Literacy Company, U.S. Census Bureau)
CBO Misses Its Obamacare Projection By 24 Million People
Submitted by Jeffrey Anderson WeeklyStandard.com,
Three years ago, on the eve of Obamacare’s implementation, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected that President Obama’s centerpiece legislation would result in an average of 201 million people having private health insurance in any given month of 2016. Now that 2016 is here, the CBO says that just 177 million people, on average, will have private health insurance in any given month of this year – a shortfall of 24 million people.
Indeed, based on the CBO’s own numbers, it seems possible that Obamacare has actually reduced the number of people with private health insurance. In 2013, the CBO projected that, without Obamacare, 186 million people would be covered by private health insurance in 2016—160 million on employer-based plans, 26 million on individually purchased plans. The CBO now says that, with Obamacare, 177 million people will be covered by private health insurance in 2016—155 million on employer-based plans, 12 million on plans bought through Obamacare’s government-run exchanges, and 9 million on other individually purchased plans (plus a rounding error of 1 million).
In other words, it would appear that a net 9 million people have lost their private health plans, thanks to Obamacare—with a net 5 million people having lost employer-based plans and a net 4 million people having lost individually purchased plans.
Continue reading “CBO Misses Its Obamacare Projection By 24 Million People”
7 Obamacare failures that have hurt Americans
The Affordable Care Act never would have been passed had Congress known how it would develop
Obamacare barely passed Congress in 2010. If people had known how it would develop, the health-care act would likely never have become law.
Back in 2009, when the law was proposed, and in 2010, when it was signed, the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) proponents were giddy with optimism. Proponents proclaimed the many promises of Obamacare. Millions of people would be enrolled by 2016. The number of uninsured would decline dramatically. Health-care costs and premiums would drop. Everyone would have coverage. The federal deficit would decrease. Of course, as President Obama promised, everyone would be able to keep their plans and their doctors.
The truth has turned out to be very different. That’s why all Republican candidates say they want to repeal the program. Here are seven things about Obamacare that turned out to be very bad.
Continue reading “7 Obamacare failures that have hurt Americans”
CORRUPTION
Guest Post by James the Wanderer
In 1981 I was a fresh young fellow, just out of college, and needed a job. I joined the Port Arthur Research Laboratories of Texaco Inc. in Port Arthur, TX, which was the most lucrative offer I had gotten out of college. It was one of a couple of offers I had received at the time; another was a company that made fibers for carpets and other things, Millikan. There was something of a stigma on them at the time, for periodically the owner would fire an entire corps of engineers if something went wrong, and was known for it; other companies would eagerly hire the fallen, since it was known that Millikan did this, despite having only hired the best he could find. But I was not interested in this, so I went for stability, which was TXC (their stock exchange symbol back then, hereafter a handy shortcut for the name); they were known for their veteran employees, and rarely fired anyone except for theft, incompetence or similar good reasons. I was neither a thief nor incompetent, so I took their offer.
Here I must apologize; despite the passage of over a quarter-century, I have not been able to establish that ALL the people I worked with are dead, retired or otherwise employed. And TXC had people of honor, character and discipline, which I have come to value wherever I find them; so EVERY name here is a pseudonym, to protect those who might still be serving in some capacity for their successor company, which turned out to be mainly Chevron, or somewhere else. I have no interest in gossip, nor maligning by association those who honorably do their jobs in this world. The worst perpetrators in these stories are dead, so it serves no purpose to name them either.
This article is to demonstrate by example the challenge of working honorably for an organization that is corrupt at the top. And how, despite the existence of honorable men and women (such as those who worked for TXC all over the world), a corrupt organization is doomed eventually.
I didn’t work at PARL for long; about eighteen months. The Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers were restless; there was strike fever in the air at the oil refinery next door, but the Research lab staff didn’t think there would be one; after all, they had “gone out” a few years earlier, and several members of the union had lost cars, boats, even homes when they had insufficient funds coming in to keep up their payments; they were too hurt from the last time to go out again so soon, so if there was a strike it would be short, a kind of face-saving gesture.
GOVERNMENT WILL NOT PROTECT YOU
Guest Post by Ol’ Remus
From time to time I’ve said on these pages you’d know collapse was at hand when emergencies come close enough together DC couldn’t get ahead of them. Then couldn’t keep up with them. Now they won’t even admit to them. ISIS is not defeated or contained. Duh. The ones over here aren’t even particularly inconvenienced. They’ve invaded us, and they continue to invade all but unimpeded. DC is not taking this seriously. Most Moslems pray for global sharia and for everyone else to be converted or enslaved. They confess their militancy this way, irreversibly and irretrievably. I’ll believe DC is serious when I see them lock down the borders and rid us of them.
Larry Kudlow via Breitbart – ISIS and related Islamic terrorists are already here. More are coming. We must stop them. My shift in thinking comes from a deep desire to strengthen homeland security. Hopefully an immigration freeze will not be in place for very long. But for now I believe we must do it. And let me add, as I have in the past, if the U.S. has the will, the urgency, and the energy to destroy ISIS, then we will destroy ISIS.
Okay, so they won’t do this. It stinks of justice. How about a Plan B. The jihadists-in-waiting know who they are, DC knows who they are, only we, their intended victims, don’t know who they are. Why not give us a heads up? Consider a neighborhood alert system similar to the sex offender registry. Body counts are no way to let us in on their secret. And planning to save the day at the last minute is nice in theory, but look who’s taking all the risk without the career benefits.
Notice also how thoroughly the perps are researched after they’ve slaughtered their personal quota of infidels. Not before. After. Then DC has all the resources it needs to investigate their movements and associates and history, with spare personnel to stage news conferences reminiscent of an NFL half time. Why not the same level of scrutiny before they were allowed in? As it is, Moslem psychos know they’re invisible until they pull the trigger, and they’ll continue to be invisible for as long as we think DC is fighting them by drawing chalk lines around our bodies.
Obamacare bailouts prove that the law is flawed and lousy
And Congress shouldn’t vote to spend billions of dollars keeping health insurers afloat
This week, as part of the reconciliation bill, Congress may vote on bailing out health-insurance companies losing money from their participation in the Affordable Care Act exchanges. With an $18 trillion national debt, Congress should stand firm and say no to the bailouts.
Sen. Marco Rubio is leading the fight against the bailouts. In a letter to congressional leaders, he wrote: “The reason these health-insurance companies are enduring a financial loss is that ObamaCare is a disastrous law. It broke the promise to lower health-insurance premiums and allow Americans to keep their health care. Now the very architects of this law are attempting to place taxpayers on the hook.”
Last year Rubio limited the bailout of the insurance companies with the ObamaCare Bailout Prevention Act. Some of the provisions were included in last year’s spending bill. The result of the measure was that, in October, the Department of Health and Human Services transferred $362 million to the losing insurance companies, rather than the $2.9 billion that they requested. That’s $2.5 billion more for taxpayers.
Continue reading “Obamacare bailouts prove that the law is flawed and lousy”
ECB & The Failed QE Stimulus
The central banks are simply trapped. They have bought in bonds under the theory that this will stimulate the economy by injecting cash. But there are several problems with this entire concept. This is an elitist view to say the least for the money injected does not stimulate the economy for it never reaches the consumer. This attempt to stimulate by increasing the money supply assumes that it does not matter who has the money. If we are looking only at the institutional level, then this will not contribute to DEMAND inflation only ASSET inflation by causing share markets to rise in proportion to the decline in currency value.
The European Central Bank (ECB) then pushes interest rates negative to punish savers and consumers for not spending money that never reaches their pocket. Negative rates promotes hoarding cash outside of banks which in turn then inspires the brilliant idea of eliminating cash to force the objective and end hoarding. But negative rates have been simply a tax on money. The attempt to “manage” the economy from a macro level without considering the capital flow within the system is leading to disaster.
Why The Obamacare Exchanges Are Failing
Submitted by Devon Herrick via The National Center for Policy Analysis,
I reported earlier this week that the Obamacare Marketplace is slowly failing. Three days later the largest health insurer in America, UnitedHealth Group, announced it expects to lose $500 million on exchange plans next year and may exit the market in 2017.
The issue for many insurers is they were encouraged to participate in the exchange in return for a temporary risk sharing program called Risk Corridors. Under this program, all insurers paid into a pot of money and the firms suffering excessive losses were to share the funds based on a formula. However, a budget deal passed late in 2014, the ‘Cromnibus’ Spending Bill, required the program to be budget neutral. The losses far exceeded the pot of money collected by the program. Insurers have only received about $0.13 cents on the dollar of what they would have gotten under an opened-ended program.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has affirmed insurers will get their money. But the question is: where it is going to come from? CMS has $363 million to divvy up while insurers have requested $2.87 billion.
Why are insurers losing so much money? In my original article, I stated the exchange plans are suffering adverse selection due to the perverse regulations which drive up costs – making health coverage a bad deal for all but the sickest enrollees. The only people enrolling are those who are eligible for the most generous subsidies. Consider what Larry Levitt, a health insurance analyst with the Kaiser Family Foundation, told Bloomberg.
MORE MONEY, DUMBER KIDS
Hat tip Robmu1
It’s hysterical reading a NYT article about the atrocious state of our public education system. They give a couple of paragraphs with some hand picked facts, and then spend 75% of the article with excuses from the government drone bureaucrats, union teachers, and liberal academics. They have been rolling out Common Core for years. The amount of money spent per student has been going up for decades. We’ve had Headstart. We’ve had no child left behind. We’ve integrated the schools to make black kids smarter. We’ve implemented the curriculum demanded by the Federal government.
And kids just keep getting dumber and dumber. Only 40% of all Fourth graders are proficient at math. The most hysterical part of the report is that after four more years of government education, everyone’s proficiency DROPS. By eight grade, proficiency in math plunges to 33%. It’s almost as if the government wants to produce generations of dumb downed morons who remain willfully ignorant for their entire lives.
You can now see why the social justice warriors want to eliminate standardized testing. It seems black kids and hispanic kids, after decades of Great Society programs totaling $13 trillion, haven’t exactly caught on to maff and reading. If these tests are so terrible, why do Asians score 460% better than blacks and 40% better than whites in eight grade?
They should test kids on how well they use a smart phone, texting speed, and what drugs Lamar Odom used on his weekend binge at a whorehouse. The funniest part is if you asked kids in eighth grade how smart they thought they were, the scores would be above the 80th percentile. These kids are so stupid, they don’t even know they’re stupid. All those participation trophies and being passed along from grade to grade with no requirement to actually learn anything has given these idiots high self-esteem to go along with their stupidity. What a combination.
Nationwide Test Shows Dip in Students’ Math Abilities
For the first time since 1990, the mathematical skills of American students have dropped, according to results of a nationwide test released by the Education Department on Wednesday.
The decline appeared in both Grades 4 and 8 in an exam administered every two years as the National Assessment of Educational Progress and sometimes called “the nation’s report card.”
The dip in scores comes as the country’s employers demand workers with ever-stronger skills in mathematics to compete in a global economy. It also comes as states grapple with the new Common Core academic standards and a rebellion against them.