If Anything Can Stop This Bull, It's Obamacare

If Anything Can Stop This Bull, It’s Obamacare

By Rick Ackerman Posted on February 18, 2014, 6:05 am EST Last Updated February 18, 2014, 6:32 am EST

Spin control cannot conceal the fact that Obamacare is the worst policy disaster in U.S. history. For scores of millions of Americans, the hardship it has already inflicted on them is too acute to assuage, much less refute. It has put a choke hold on the economy the effects of which are being felt by virtually every business and household. That is why mere political debate must soon give way to more urgent measures that will effectively kill the law. If so, it can’t happen soon enough. Healthcare costs consume nearly 20% of the nation’s GDP and are a key concern of every employer. How long can businesses survive the ponderous uncertainties that Obamacare has placed on them? How long can spending by America’s middle class continue to hold up if household incomes are being depleted by soaring insurance premiums and policies with five-figure deductibles?

Given the huge new tax represented by Obamacare and the chaos it has visited on businesses both small and large, it seems inconceivable that the economy will grow in 2014. If a slowdown is coming, however, the prospect doesn’t appear to be troubling Wall Street’s tiny, fevered brain. Although the Dow Average got off to a horrendous start in 2014, dropping 1248 points in the first five weeks, two-thirds of that has been recouped in the last eight trading days. This was to be expected, since short-covering rallies are typically far more ferocious than those sustained by merely bullish buying. But is this one sufficiently overdone that prudent bears should be thinking about getting short again?

A Timing Problem

The answer is yes, but with an important caveat. Although we’re convinced that any rally to new record highs is Mr. Market’s way of setting a trap that will ultimately inflict as much carnage on bulls as it already has on bears, it is dangerous to get too aggressively in its way. A particular problem with timing right now is that so many gurus and market-watchers seem to be expecting a nasty correction following a surge in the next few weeks to at least marginal new highs. Whatever happens, the majority cannot be right. So how do we position ourselves against the expectations of the herd?

There are a few possibilities. One is that the Dow will fail to confirm last week’s Nasdaq rally to record highs and the one that seems likely to occur in the S&Ps this week. That would make the DJIA especially scary to short – but also a fetching opportunity for the contrarian with the guts to step in front of a speeding freight train. Another possibility is that the broad averages will get short-squeezed to much higher levels before the bear turns savage. If so, we can time our entry using the 17622 Dow target that I disseminated here earlier. Finally, there is the possibility that stocks will collapse from unspectacular new heights, even though ‘everyone’ expects it. If the stock market does none of these things, we will still have minor Hidden Pivot targets that we can try to leverage in either direction. This might be called the hair-trigger approach, and it is increasingly on display in the Rick’s Picks chat room, where the tempo of tradable ideas has picked up in recent weeks. Click here for a free opportunity to visit the room, which draws experienced traders from around the world.

moi22 February 25, 2014, 12:24 pm

@Vile Vlad
I looked at that Rare Earth you tube clip. Hey Big Brother. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xRePb7VKrk

Those long haired guys were coming at it from the left but they had the right idea. They were rebelling against a conservative America in 1972. Big Brother was seen as oppressive right wing Federal agencies such as the FBI. None the less the Federal gov’t was a lot leaner and efficient back then

Today is the exact opposite with a bloated Federal govt dominated by a permanent entrenched liberal bureaucracy no matter if Democrats or Republicans are in power in DC, The snoops and oppressors are liberals who seek ever more concentration of power into Washington DC

On NSA never believe their lies about not storing all personal electronic transmissions here in America. Meaning phone and internet email etc. You don’t spend a few billion on a huge data storage center in Utah unless this is intended.

Your transmissions are not looked at and evaluated. They are just stored in case there is reason to evaluate them. Retrieval of your data is a few mouse clicks away according to Snowden and I believe his evidence
paul February 24, 2014, 8:31 pm

Liberals never want to hold government accountable. They’ll attack conservatives all day long but get rid of some government hack, never in a million years!
Liberals simply do not care if government robs Paul to pay Peter as long as liberals get the cookie they voted for nothing else matters.
paul February 24, 2014, 7:26 pm

So politicians figured out poor people wanted health care and of course politicians wanted the votes.

The rich people wouldn’t pay the poor people couldn’t pay so how does one pay for adding millions of people to the health care load? Premiums & deductibles went up for people who didn’t qualify for subsidies.

Of course liberals support government. Its how they legally redistribute wealth from producers to non producers in order to pay for health care and a myriad of other entitlements.

Of course liberals couldn’t care less who gets stuck with the bill. In another 10 or 20 years most of them wont be around anymore and it wont be there problem anymore will it?

Of course Obamacare and all the other broken government promises didn’t solve the problem of escalating health care costs but solving problems is not what the government does.
Andy Gutterman February 24, 2014, 2:32 pm

What is fascinating about the current conservative viewpoint is its 100% anti-government.

Since 100% of government is corrupt, untrustworthy and 100% incompetent that means we have to trust the private sector to solve our problems, like they did in the 1970’s by insisting on catalytic converters for automobiles.

Wasn’t it the private sector that forced the car companies to install catalytic converters on all cars, and wasn’t it the private sector that eliminated leaded gasoline?

I can go on and on about how the private sector improved the life of the common man, such as building the Interstate highway system we all use every day, or other such examples.

We can TRUST the private system to look out for us 100%, like they did with the financial system in 2008.

Who needs government?

Andy
paul February 24, 2014, 7:51 am

Generally, people advocating government solutions are pleased with social agendas. Issues of corruption, trust, and confidence are irrelevant in the face of social issues they approve of therefore let’s have more of the same. So they gently try to herd folks to their view point while ignoring the fact that, to date, no one has been punished for a government screw up. James Clapper, Lois Lerner, Jon Corzine, Kathleen Sebelius off the top of my head to make the point.

No, I will not support government that is this corrupt and not only rewards bad behavior but actually endorses it.
mava February 24, 2014, 3:17 am

And (referring to my post just above), why is it possible to defraud the system this way? Can it be fixed?

Never! The reason is, that in such a system the the signing party is not the same as the party paying. Whenever such is the case, it is always then possible to defraud the process. Any system where such discrepancy exist, is principally defraud-able, and should be examined to find more fruitful cracks.
paul February 24, 2014, 2:15 am

RA voiced concern over government corruption, broken trust, and I will add confidence. Ignoring these concerns will not regain any of the above.
mava February 23, 2014, 4:05 am

L.V.M. said that every government program always achieves results that are directly opposite to those declared.

Medicare tries to underpay, but ends up overpaying. Because it is ridiculously easy to artificially create the situation in which it begins to pay. Talking about grandmas paid by entrepreneurs to come in for a visit, get bunch of pills prescribed, never receive pills and walk away. For that, they get a cab ride and an electric blanket. Ha-ha. This is how it “works” !

&&&&&&

Even the very largest insurers, including Blue Cross, are able to negotiate no more than 30% off providers’ ‘list’ prices. Medicare, on the other hand, pays only cost, plus 10%, based on its own estimate of a provider’s actual operating costs. RA
Rick February 23, 2014, 1:40 am

Medicare ‘works’? Nothing government has ever touched even remotely works, Andy. What Medicare in fact does is egregiously underpay for everything, forcing private insurance to make up the difference. If you read Brill’s essay, I shouldn’t have to explain this to you.
- Andy Gutterman February 23, 2014, 3:11 pm
  
  Yes. Well, we have a problem. The cost of medical care relative to income has grown several thousand percent faster than the growth in income. Medicare has found a way to cap costs, so now its up to private insurance to do the same. Someone has to rein in the cost of medical care, the MOST expensive on the planet with some of the lowest returns on expense.
  
  I can remember paying $35 for a doctor’s visit in 1969, out of pocket. Do it today….
  
  I quote from page 43 in Brill’s article:
  
  “In July 2011, an 88-year-old man whom I’ll call Alan A. collapsed from a massive heart attack at his home outside Philadelphia. He survived, after two weeks in the intensive-care unit of the Virtua Marlton hospital. Virtua Marlton is part of a four-hospital chain that, in its 2010 federal filing, reported paying its CEO $3,073,000 and two other executives $1.4 million and $1.7 million from gross revenue of $633.7 million and an operating profit of $91 million. Alan A. then spent three weeks at a nearby convalescent-care center. ”
  
  “Medicare made quick work of the $268,227 in bills from the two hospitals, paying just $43,320. Except for $100 in incidental expenses, Alan A. paid nothing because 100% of inpatient hospital care is covered by Medicare.”
  
  Only Medicare seems to have the power to restrain excessive costs of medical care. Further on that page:
  
  ” And then there’s the fact that Alan A., a retired chemist of average means, was able to get care that might otherwise be reserved for the rich but was available to him because he had the right insurance. ”
  
  “Medicare is the core of that insurance, although Alan A. – as do 90% of those on Medicare – has a supplemental-insurance policy that kicks in and generally pays 90% of the 20% of costs for doctors and outpatient care that Medicare does not cover. ”
  
  I read the Medicare reports I get for my Mom. Medicare sets the rates, her supplemental insurance pays the difference between what Medicare pays and the Medicare approved amount.
  
  What doctors and hospitals charge for medicine is OBSCENE.
  
  You can read the entire page here: http://www.zoominfo.com/p/Alan-A./2008241374
  
  Here you can read a synopsis and analysis of Brill’s Special Report.
  
  http://radioornot.com/blog/health-care-in-the-us-government-sanctioned-extortion/
  
  Andy
  
  &&&&&&
  
  As I keep reminding all of the liberals in here, there are few significant problems in America that cannot be traced to the fine hand of Government. If private healthcare insurers are hard pressed to come up with a way to cap costs, their problem began with The Government making health insurance a tax-free benefit to employees. RA
- Andy Gutterman February 23, 2014, 3:18 pm
  
  ‘When hospitals say they are losing money on Medicare, my reaction is that Central Florida is overflowing with Medicare patients and all those hospitals are expanding and advertising for Medicare patients,’ says Blum, deputy administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. ‘Hospitals don’t lose money when they serve Medicare patients.’
  
  Everyone can read the entire Brill Special Report here: https://www.scrollkit.com/s/qGxD42P
  
  &&&&&&
  
  An absolute must-read, and thanks for the link. Regarding Blum’s statement, it is surely not Medicare reimbursements — and most surely not Medicaid reimbursements — that have made it possible for hospitals to grow obscenely, often paying administrators of large complexes seven-figure salaries. Again, this is the fine hand of Government at work, since it is federal tax rules that allow the hospitals to expense growth so that they ‘look’ like non-profits. In fact, as Brill points out, some of the most profitable hospitals in the country are ‘non-profits’. RA
VILE VLAD February 22, 2014, 11:30 pm

for those of you take care about market chart parallels, there’s been a lot of talk recently,
about how closely the current overall ussa market chart dji charts, mirrors the 1929 chart.
and it’s true. however, something more interesting IMO, which I have not read anywhere,
but something I noticed (from going back to my own trade errors in late 2011/early 2012),
is also how closely parallel they are, dji action in june-aug. 2011, to today’s dec-feb. action.

Also, I recently saw a %-daily-move study, comparing 1929 to today, and it’s also uncanny.
what does this all mean? well, human nature never changes. and neither, do the results.

on that vein, I recommend 2 dilapidated books from my shelf, for market-mania history buffs.
manic build-up, growing ebullience, full out mania, and then–their catastrophic end results.

the more recent one, from 20th century, “since yesterday”
(subtitled “the 1930’s in america, september 3, 1929-september 3, 1939”)
by frederick lewis allen.

and of course, he chose september 3, 1929 to start his story, since that was, the dji’s top day,
“a day like any other day”, he said, if I recollect, and as chilling an opening, as I’ve ever read.

add the days. sept. 3, 1929 top, to oct. 29, 1929 crash, are 56 days.
and dec. 31, 2013 top, to feb. 25, 2014, if it is to be 56-day analogous.
I doubt it. though I still bet on it. because human nature always +/- same. so, april puts.

$$$$$$$$$$$

the other great mania book is older, probably the greatest mania tome, of all time.
“extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds” by charles mackay, 1841.

and just go to your medium and ask bernard baruch, if I lie, about importance of mackay’s book.
VILE VLAD February 22, 2014, 10:03 pm

host, saw you erased, or not posted, much of what I wrote herein on your blog this week.
even my retort that reading way out-dated quigley was a waste of time, and recommending others.
whatever. won’t waste my time again recommending anything to you, since you know so much.

however, I was struck by something you wrote me above, and decided today to look at it.
I forewarn, I know little about internet ‘intermingling the unwashed masses’ companies,
like facebook or linkedin or even twitter, I never owned a ‘smart’ phone, and never intend to.

however, I do know some about the markets, having dealt in them on and off, for 30 years.
anyway, what interested me in what you wrote me above, was your comment on ‘linkedin.’

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
ackerman said above—
[Speaking as a 40-year veteran of the options game, making money on puts purchased because you have a hunch the market will tank is only somewhat easier than winning a lottery jackpot. To take one absurdly overpriced high-flyer, LNKD, as an example, how do you make money on puts when they are trading with an implied volatility of 170? Anyone who sells you those puts is just as bearish as you are, and the risk incurred in selling them is discounted in the price he charges you for the option.”]
$$$$$$$$$$$$

well, since I haven’t bought my few april puts yet, plus with my 16.2k dji resistance still holding,
and already having been tested twice (dji area that I labeled as bear’s last stand, 2 weeks ago),
I said, what the hell, host is supposed to be a market pseudo-genius, let me look into ‘linkedin,’
maybe I can get even more option leverage, buying puts on an ‘absurdly overpriced’ net stock.

well, bottomline, I won’t. not on linkedin, anyway. because ackerman is right on both counts.
first, to only say, ‘absurdly’, is an understatement, IMO, for a better adjective, would be ‘insanely.’
and second, the PREMIUM on the LNKD puts, is so EXTREMELY high, I’d never touch puts
like that, even though LNKD looks like a 90% certainty, from all I see, for price to be cut in HALF,
and easily, within the next few months (after another retry, IMO, to get back above it’s 200 dma).

(however, for those of you with big money, LNKD is a great stock to short, above $200, IMO)

(and I wonder what this says, for all other ‘darling high-flyer’ internet stocks,
since it’s starting to look even more each day, like year 2000 dejavu all over again
(check out link below, in that the current net-stock measure of worth, is based on ‘eyeballs’)–

“INTERNET COMPANIES VALUED ON ‘EYEBALLS’ AGAIN”
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/02/20/whatsapp-facebook-eyeballs-valuation/5655125/

and this is what I saw, on LNKD chart–
after a continued trickle-down, since late 2013, then
a massive breakdown on january’s dji fall, on big volume, easily breaking it’s 200 dma,
and with a weak follow-through since then trying to recover from dive, and on low volume,
plus with powerful-looking death-cross occuring right now, for even 50 dma is swan-diving.

bottomline—$160 area is bull last stand, because below that, there is just air, no support,
so if $160 goes, you are looking at gap-filling quickly, in low $120’s, a 40 buck sudden drop.

and as to LNKD fundamental’s, they are MUCH worse, IMO. and just from reading them,
I can’t understand, the MAD euphoria that must be going on, for it to be so OVERVALUED.

a $200 stock with ZERO dividends. that ought to scare you right away, and stay way away.

a STRATOSPHERIC p/e of 837. (at first I thought it was a misprint, but no, I checked).

a ‘projected’ forward p/e, by end of 2014, of 88.
(this means that, in best of all bullish idealistic worlds, 88 p/e, is the very best they can do;
meanwhile, historically, even an overly bullish overall market, runs at around 20 p/e).

and company ‘insiders’, ONLY hold 1.1% of their stock. (yes, that’s right, only ONE percent).

and even this minuscule 1.1% insiders, are running for the hills. why? I don’t know.
but this is what THEY know, and are ACTING on it. SELL, SELL. that’s their motto.

insiders trades, over LNKD last 6 months—
buy transactions?—-ZERO.
that’s right. zero insider buying over last 6 months.
sell transactions?—-117.
that’s right. over 100+ sell order over last 6 months.
but what’s worse is this.
this 117 sell orders, dumped 2.7 million shares.
and guess what.
you know what insiders now only hold?
only 1.35 million shares.
in other words, insiders, which know the most about the company, dumped 2/3 of their shares,
over last 6 months. not a good sign. haha.

and on top of this, institutional investors dumped an additional 8.4 million shares also,
over last 6 months, representing 8.5% of their holdings, since institutionals are by far,
this companies biggest shareholders, so, they have to take their time, DUMPING shares.

as to ‘book value’, it’s currently running at 22:1. in the old days, anything over 2:1 book value,
was considered overpriced. but don’t know how today’s magical accounting, explains 22:1 bv.

anyway, this net company’s data and chart, read like a horror show, waiting to happen.
and only current 21st century net pipe-dreams, cheery mario-style, are propping it up.

and I repeat, I wonder how this 1 net company, reflects all the others, and their future.
Greta Feishman February 22, 2014, 9:55 pm

Looks like RA now dons full membership of the delusional tea party, who would rather take the country to default than pay the bills for expenses already incurred. But that’s a side show. Here is RA concerned about how much it costs the US consumers for health services; 20% by his count. And disingenuously he tries to tie that to Obamacare, the law that is just about a year old. So the 20% cost for healthcare is not ACA’s doing; rather it is the doing of the for profit healthcare industry that can charge $50 for a couple of aspirins if you are unfortunately admitted to hospital where the bills can run up fro $3000 per day to no upper limit. Never heard RA rant about the gouging of Americans by the healthcare industry. But just because BHO is ideologically from a different political spectrum than RA its all his fault to bring millions of Americans some semblance of healthcare.
My sense is RA drifts so far from this financial blog moorings because recapping tea party talking points in his blog is a sure fire way to capture clicks.
But here is what RA and his ilk don’t understand.
Widening inequality is the greatest threat to our economy and democracy. The good news is that grass-roots groups all over the country are beginning to tackle it — seeking a living wage; organizing co-workers at Walmart, McDonalds, and other low-wage corporations; pushing for a more progressive tax system; getting more dollars and resources into poorer schools; expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit; limiting executive pay; exploring new forms of profit-sharing, gain-sharing, and worker cooperatives; and seeking to get big money out of politics. Its the force of nature whose time has come.

&&&&&&&

Greta, you had better don a flak vest if you plan on coming back, since you argue just like Gary — i.e., by deliberately or ignorantly misstating, bending or flagrantly misinterpreting what others have said. That is certainly true of what you’ve written above. Concerning your personal views, they are so ideologically benighted as to be undeserving of a response. RA
Andy Gutterman February 22, 2014, 2:29 pm

In reply to Rick’s so called rebuttal of my call for a single payer system. I read the Time issue, cover to cover. Our health system is eternally corrupt. Does any part of it work at all?

Medicare. It works. You pay in, the government tells the medical community how much its going to pay for services, it pays for said services. Some people pay in and never use it, others pay in and use it to excess. Just like insurance.

Extend it to everyone. Impose stricter controls over cost of services, and what services should be implemented. Make the private sector justify all its outrageous tests and charges.

We CAN do this, we only have to have the political will. That’s the problem right there. We have the party of No in conflict with the party of Yes, and neither side wants to compromise.

So we got Obamacare. It might work. Anything might work. It might fail. Anything might fail. Some people think its working well, others think the opposite. I doubt we will find out for certain before the next election. Its all about the next election, then the one that follows, and so on. What’s good for the country always takes fifth place, its party first, second, third and fourth.

And you w0onder why I think our system is going to implode.

Andy
- VILE VLAD February 23, 2014, 6:20 am
  
  ‘medicare works’ you say andrew? (and the host told me to take you seriously, so I am.
  
  I have a tendency to remember much of what I read, even if it was decades ago.
  
  and amount of doctor/patient medicare huge scams, bleeding ussa citizens tax dollars,
  are so many, so enormous, billions of dollars, don’t want to waste my time stating obvious,
  because anything that ANY world government intercedes in, in PRIVATE business,
  ends up wholly CORRUPT to the core, and so many of you amerikain, are so brainwashed,
  that you don’t see the obvious, that there is no such thing, nor will ever be, as ‘security’,
  there is no ‘security’, that is a baby illusion, that this is just way, STRONG milk the weak,
  under ALL philosophically ‘goodie-goodie socialistic’ democracies, eventual 100% corruption,
  
  I mean, just look at the worst case ever, IMO, the fannies and sallies and freddies.
  putrid gov-managed ‘lending’ system. based on pure marx socialism–that EVERYONE,
  ‘should’ OWN a home, no matter their circumstance or capabilities, or ABILITY TO PAY.
  needless to say, the THIEVERY within system of these ‘maes’, was top I’ve ever read.
  
  and your ussa ‘medicare’, scams in that, come in third, after of course, social in-‘security’.
  (fyi, I read original 1936 s.s. main poster, decades ago, and in fine print, at the bottom of it,
  it said (paraphrasing): “there is no guarantee you will ever get back money you paid”.
  AMEN TO THAT. haha.
  
  ‘so gooooo, big brother, they get what they deserve, as they’re always, the sheeple herddd…’
  
  (my lyrics, but inspired and to the tune of rare earth’s ‘hey, big brother’, 1971)
  and here is rare earth in live open concert playing it, for you oldtime, classic r&r fans–
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xRePb7VKrk
  love youtube. got so much great old free crap in it, it’s amazing.
  - VILE VLAD February 23, 2014, 7:10 am
    
    and andrew, I should have added, to comply with host’s request that I be ‘on topic’,
    that IMO, that the current ‘obama-scare’, will surpass in wholesale corruption -if let be-
    all of the 3 prior ‘care’ corruptions, PUT TOGETHER, of the maes, s.s., and medicare.
    
    however, I still think, obumba will go away, nixon-style, once ussa market crashes big.
    (question–wasn’t it nixon, that repeatedly said,
    ‘let me make this perfectly clear’, just like obumba?
    and didn’t nixon also see himself above all constitutional law, just like obumba?)
    
    so I continue to think obumba will have nixon-like ‘white’-house exit, straight ahead.
    
    and as to ussa’s top commie ‘it takes a village, and I will run it’ stalin hillary, don’t worry.
    every time I see a pic of her (rare these days) she looks ever sicker.
    
    [Others have noted this, Vlad. But it’s hard to tell, since there are always (presumably) out-of-sequence photos where she looks healthy. RA]
    
    besides, once obumba is impeach-deposed, it is guaranteed republicans will win 2016.
    hope it’s that rubio guy. and just for pulling a great filibuster show, just like jimmy stewart.
Andy Gutterman February 22, 2014, 2:13 pm

moi22,

I read your MEN article. That’s the idealized world of Ayn Rand, et al.

There is only one problem with it. We are NOT all created equal. (We are not created, but that’s another story!)

So eventually the premium stock is going to advance faster and farther than everyone else, and eventually they are going to own everything, such that everyone else is for all intents and purposes, slaves, doing what they are told to do.

So if you are a member of the elite group then all is well with the world.

If you are not, well, maybe you just have the wrong genes. You were born into the class you belong in. (India, anyone?)

Which group are you in? The same could be asked of everyone on this forum.

So how do we solve this problem of some people being more equal than others? The end result is always going to be the same:

The FEW own the MAMY.

Andy
- VILE VLAD February 23, 2014, 12:08 am
  
  andrew, you are first I’ve heard or read, that hit upon, only flaw, in jefferson’s constitution.
  
  “we hold these truths, to be self evident, that all men are created equal…”
  
  for that is a total lie. and I wonder is jefferson did it on purpose, or… nah, it’s on purpose.
  
  for the real truth is, without doubt whatsoever, THAT NO ONE IS EQUAL. NO ONE.
  
  because indubitably, each human is unique. even within races, creeds, educations.
  and even amongst entitled, or not entitled.
  
  however, what jefferson was -maybe- trying to say, was that EVERYONE WAS EQUAL,
  UNDER THE LAW. nice try, but, as you ALL know, even that, is ALSO a huge lie.
  
  however, it is good to see, that someone else sees, each and every human, is NOT equal,
  in ANY respect, and that this is one of the biggest philosophical lies, of modern times.
  
  but I know why ‘they’ do it, of course. because it is easier to pack sardines, in big cans.
  - Andy Gutterman February 24, 2014, 2:41 pm
    
    Vile Vlad,
    
    I learned at a very early age that we were not created equal. In early grade school I rarely participated in class, got into trouble a lot, spent time outside the school when I really disrupted the class, lots of time in the corners, and lots of Homer Simpson blackboard writing. (Back then you were PUNISHED for aberrant behavior) I had ADD, although we didn’t know what that was at that time.
    
    Yet when they gave us the standard achievement and intelligence tests I always scored at the very top. Zero effort to do so, never had to really think about it, always finished first, then wondered what do I do while waiting for everyone else to get done. School was BORING.
    
    I wanted to drop out in the third grade, but my father explained the rules. In school until you were 16. No exceptions. Yuck!
    
    Nothing equal about me and the others students.
    
    I learned this lesson very early. And paid dearly for it.
    
    Andy
moi22 February 21, 2014, 12:43 am

Yes Mario. All the libs go by on pollution is out of sight, out of mind. So if Chinese cities and industrial zones are choking and have dirty water they don’t care. Just so long as they can buy their glittering electronic prizes cheap. China spews mega-tonnages of “evil CO2” into the world’s atmosphere, libs here don’t want to know about it. They much prefer (and these are high IQ people) hearing recent lies from Obama that global warming has created the current California drought. When various global warming projections have California getting wetter. No climate scientist will back up Obama on this but truth is irrelevant to him. The only thing that counts in Obama’s world of Washington DC, is will the rubes (voters) buy what he says. Republicans do this too but much less because the mass media only carries Democrat propaganda. Every time you see Reid, Pelosi, Obama smirk you can see they know this is true

In general people prefer lies and women more so “tell me lies tell me sweet little lies, tell me lies, tell me lies” by Fleetwood Mac written by Christine McVie, Eddy Quintela.

Politics gets more feminized every year (here USA) as we see the decline of guy jobs (farming, mining, manufacturing real world useful tangible items) and the increase in female oriented jobs (by and large glorified paper shuffling) thus more female power in marriages, in relationships, in all society. A consumption based economy is a feminized one. A production based economy is a guy’s economy. Simple yin and yang at work. This all equates into more money for the gals (here USA) and more catering to them by hack politicians. See an old speech by Ronald Reagan on youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXBswFfh6AY This kind of strident honest expression scares off female voters. This is why conservatives have problems in America. There are other reasons too of course….

On FoxNews right now (The Five) they are talking about “House of Cards” That DC is more corrupt and sleazy than Hollywood. Bye for now.
moi22 February 20, 2014, 11:39 pm

Thanks Rick. With your kind words I will be back under moi22 or moi222. I have posted before on a hit and run basis. We have exchanged words before on the great deflationist C. Vern Myers who came up the hard way and visited-evaluated many mines in his life.
(who liked coal btw as you well know) I love the fracking revolution! I have a load of fruit trees growing (some are 20 ft tall) that are taking in (sequestering) dreaded CO2 and breathing out oxygen. Unlike these liberal city dwellers who have misplaced fantasies on how nature works and what-where real pollution is such as in industrializing coastal China. I know this eco stuff and know where the proper eco vs prosperity balance is.

For your delectation http://www.motherearthnews.com/nature-and-environment/real-wealth-zmaz81jfzraw.aspx
mava February 20, 2014, 10:05 pm

Why does there need to be any kind of government healthcare? Where is the need for it?

If someone wants healthcare, this means he wants some doctor to wake up and come to work. If so, then shouldn’t the “needy” person be ready to at least do some work to compensate the doctor?

See? There is no need for any “system”. If you work and you benefit someone else by your work, you should have saved some of the economic records of that (money compensation received) to use as a compensation for your doctor.

Now, if you need the doctor to work, but you yourself refuse to work, or you spend everything you make, then this means you have no need for healthcare.

There is no need for the stuff you cannot afford. There is only a wish. The “need” is a demand for a good or service where there is the readiness to exchange funds for it at a certain rate. Anything not readily funded is not needed.

We are going to kill our economy because we want to satisfy so people’s WISHES, not needs.
moi22 February 20, 2014, 9:13 pm

Keep up with the news Gary. The EPA will be imposing new Draconian rules on diesel truck emissions that will cost truckers hundreds of millions. But in the real world will accomplish nothing
http://hotair.com/archives/2014/02/18/obama-orders-more-epa-regulations-for-fuel-efficient-super-trucks/
Busy work for useless eaters in DC

EPA rules are making us shut down coal burning plants to stop “CO2 pollution” and putting coal miners out of work. Where is your liberal solidarity for the working class!!! Meanwhile China and India add to coal burning (electrical) capacity all the time. Thereby negating the EPA’s feeble attempts to stop anthropogenic global warming which is a group think lie. A myth. The EPA’s feel good rulings hurt real world people.

While in DC they clink glasses at their cocktail parties and brag to each other about their fantastic do-goodism which hurts people.

&&&&&

A very fine post, Moi. Your handle is new to me, but I hope you’re going to be a regular in here. RA
- Mario February 20, 2014, 11:53 pm
  
  Please don’t talk to me about coal and pollution, we’re freakin’ suffocating over here in the worst pollution on the planet. Undoubtedly the sacrifice made for economic growth in China AND the west who cleverly exported it.
  - Andy Gutterman February 22, 2014, 1:46 pm
    
    Mario,
    
    A few years back when my shop was in Charlottesville just over the mountain a young Chinese couple came in to look around. They bought a couple of books, and while paying for them we struck up a conversation.
    
    I asked them about pollution in China.
    
    Very simple and obvious answer, paraphrased by me:
    
    We WANT what YOU have and we WANT it NOW! (Reminds me of The Door’s When The Music’s Over)
    
    Damn the pollution! We don’t want to take 100 years to get rich, we are going to do it much faster.
    
    My take on this was the Chinese would get it, but the getting of it might kill some of them in the process.
    
    Time will tell….
    
    Andy
  - TMM February 25, 2014, 12:35 am
    
    The main difference that people don’t seem to grasp is that human life does not have the same value in China as it does in the West. When the population is 4-5x greater than the USA, there are so many more people to sacrifice in the name of progress, profits, etc.
    
    We knew people during the Tiananmen massacre that were connected to the top party echelon at that time. They were willing to kill MILLIONS to maintain their system, not just the thousands that died. Compare that to Kiev where a hundred deaths was enough to overthrow the ruling party.
- gary leibowitz February 21, 2014, 9:10 pm
  
  Good point! Why not bring back the sweat shops with children, woman, no fire safety rules, no child protection rules. Surely that change must have cost jobs! Great argument. In North Carolina they certainly don’t know anything about environmental rules or science. just like folks here. The coal ash spill is an environmental disaster yet the officials in charge seem to think its best to do nothing and allow the seepage to continue to contaminate the ground water. JOBS.. jobs… jobs… The mantra when anyone tries to encourage to expand our narrow minded myopic view that only the here and now matter. Imagine if we used that excuse in the 1800’s. The other distraction is that any quack can claim the exact opposite of scientific consensus and latch onto it because it fits your political agenda. Shameful how we label people that have the interest of the future population as dreamers and wasteful, while we continue to destroy our children’s future. This very same forum or something similar, in 50 years time, will look back and blame YOU for allowing this to happen. Yes lets be cautious here, on the side of industrial productivity. Being wrong and even wasteful to protect out future generation is a label I am willing to wear. Destroying it for all time is not. Pick our choice. But you must be feeling better for the curtailing of food stamps for the lazy, discontinued extended unemployment benefits for the slackers, and an immigration policy that assured below the poverty line cheap labor to continue.
  
  Lynch those blacks for conscription. And so it goes. we never seem to mature enough to break this cycle. I am sure everyone here is saying that it makes sense to cut the social programs since YOU yourselves see no benefit from it. Hope no one here has to go thru the humiliating experience of asking for help. We should go back to the old ways of relying on family for total support. that will certainly free up any government debt in the future. Lets start a campaign. No medical care, no ambulance treatment without cash to back it up, no school free programs, no worker unions, no corporate rules or regulations. Yes a free world is what you want, and I wholeheartedly agree. Survival of the fittest. By golly with the largest wealth displacement ever on record I do believe you are winning that battle. But I can understand your need to further that trend. Land owners unite!
  
  The really bizarre situation I can’t get my head around is RICK’s insistence that all governments are there to destroy its citizens. He agrees with almost all conspiracy theories except one. He changed his mind on the world trade conspiracy because he trusted an individual that told him that the science was there to back up a natural cause. Isn’t that strange? To ignore all the scientific data out there and cling onto any whackos views posted on the world wide web, yet simply because a few close friends told him to ignore those whackos in THIS particular case he does so.
  
  As usual these is close-minded dismissal views from all here. Keep up your delusional view that the last 5 years is a hoax. Lets not assume that human nature tries to solve problems that they themselves help develop. Lets not assume any job that allows you to cheat and gain money and power is only reserved for politicians. Lets not assume that every one of you would most likely become the predator given the same circumstance. No, politicians are a special breed, cloned from a secret laboratory in order to maintain the “Puppet Masters”.
  - VILE VLAD February 23, 2014, 7:40 am
    
    “The really bizarre situation I can’t get my head around is RICK’s insistence that all governments are there to destroy its citizens.”
    el garo says.
    
    no, el garo. yawn.
    as always, you distort everything anyone else says, to suit what’s in your mad commie head.
    
    for socialist goverments -like ussa fully is- don’t ‘want to destroy’ their productive citizens,
    but, they do want to milk them and milk them, and for as long as they can, in myriad ways.
    
    you are very boring, gary. why don’t you go away to a socialist site, where you belong?
    I sometimes wonder that. why you stay here. even though you are loathed by most.
    some secret mission of your own, to disrupt free-thinking capitalists. so go for it.
moi22 February 20, 2014, 6:16 pm

I see Obamacare as the ticket leading to a single payer system. Its the only system for health care that makes any kind of sense at all.

You have a touching faith in the competence of our entrenched liberal bureaucracy in DC. Grow up! They care about their paychecks and some power. They could care less about you and me. 80% of Federal employes vote Democrat.

You know the main reason the NSA expanded so much into collecting-storing your data in Utah? Due to bureaucratic empire builders within. Who also have NSA contractor buddies who make millions and billions off an NSA that grossly exceeds its mission. One can guess what the bribes and kickbacks are, as in please deposit those gold bars in Singapore for me.

The EPA’s work is done. The air is clean. But since it is a glorified jobs program it refuses to die/ Mission accomplished so it invents CO2 pollution to justify those 15,000 EPA jobs. Many (most?) of them affirmative action jobs. I would love to stroll through a few of their offices and see what the workforce looks like. I am sure that 90% could care less about (alleged) pollution but want that big bad bloated Federal paycheck and bennies.

As always follow the money as the prime motivator in DC. Power too (House of Cards)
Money/sex/power
- gary leibowitz February 20, 2014, 8:41 pm
  
  EPA is what you chose to argue with? They are the least funded, most ignored, and most ineffective agency. Clean air and water? Lets see. Coal is by far the most used fuel here in the United States. Oil drilling off shore, tankers, fracking, Monsanto’s genetically altered food supply, reducing restrictions on contaminated fish, etc…
  
  The world is awash in pollution and we stand here today debating whether man has altered our eco-system.
  - Rick Ackerman February 20, 2014, 8:48 pm
    
    Where to begin? I’ll let others argue themselves blue-in-the-face. Sort of like explaining alternate side parking to a raspberry, to paraphrase a comedian whose name eludes me at the moment.
  - Mario February 20, 2014, 11:49 pm
    
    Parking pollution raspberries Beijing duck? LOL
- Mario February 20, 2014, 11:50 pm
  
  Who can’t love House of Cards…
moi22 February 20, 2014, 5:56 pm

I am not a socialist but socialist style health care can work well enough in mono-ethnic nations such as Finland or Iceland. In America it will never work due to too much ethnic and racial fractionation. The idea of a shared fate here gets less every year since WW2. It was not always so but we have too many incompetent AA hires in the USG who will run OCare into the ground. This means, gays, feminists, blacks, minorities etc. Too many incompetent dialed in contractors (aka white guys) building websites and OCare infrastructure. The Nordics and Scandies are relatively honest. Just google “national transparency” and US is about #17

Why does Putin rule? He sits in Moscow and looks down on the lower latitudes and laughs. For Mario. See where Peking is? Way up North to lord over the flakier Southern Chinese. Same as the NE Brahmins here used to rule all of America. The North rules the south on the material and warfare levels. What happens is that in times of peace the Northern people relax and get seduced by the cultures (music, sexual mores etc) of the South and take them up

(before you say I am racist…. I am Jewish not an Aryan Nation member)
- Mario February 20, 2014, 11:43 pm
  
  Moi, truth is your comments fit. Indeed the Chinese are often considered as the jews of the east and Chinese do perceive of Beijing as the high northern emperor govt running the show for the kingdom.
  
  Cheers, Mario
Andy Gutterman February 20, 2014, 1:46 pm

I see Obamacare as the ticket leading to a single payer system. Its the only system for health care that makes any kind of sense at all. This idea we have that the private market can provide health care is fine, if you only want health care for the top 40% of the population, while the rest of us make do with nothing, or face bankruptcy when something does happen.

Its the old dichotomy of “If you have money then what’s the problem, if you don’t then you see problems everywhere.”

Andy

&&&&&&&

You cannot — let me repeat this: CANNOT!!! — build a single-payer system on top of our corrupt, breathtakingly overpriced one. (See Steven Brill’s essay concerning healthcare’s Master List, which ran at novel-length in ‘Time’ magazine.) Attempt to start from scratch, however, as Europe had the opportunity to do, and you risk a lost decade with respect to medical school enrollments, tightly rationed healthcare services and the exit of capital from the healthcare sector.

Anyway, after the botched Obamacare rollout, who in his right mind would trust The Guvvamint to rebuild the healthcare system from scratch??? The Catch-22 is that Obamacare has already so thoroughly damaged the healthcare system that insurers will never be able to repair it. The impetus will have to come from providers themselves — beginning perhaps with a push from activist doctors who are mad as hell and not going to take it any longer. RA
- Mario February 20, 2014, 11:37 pm
  
  That private sector eaction seems to be happening with for example CVS Pharmacy’ s Minute Clinics and similar…they’ve opened 800 so far…
Redwilldanaher February 20, 2014, 5:55 am

Enjoyed the takedown of the intentionally ironically named aca. However I enjoyed the responses to magustool and stephentool even more. Nothing but fraud and failure emanates from completely corrupted too powerful central governments historically but those two along with el garo and the other regular collaborators can’t wait to hand even more of their freedoms and even more power over their lives to them. The most bankable bet out there right now is persistent madness in the face of overwhelming empirical evidence. So successful has been the mind control methods.
VILE VLAD February 20, 2014, 2:23 am

have much to say today, and respond to some posts above, but I’ll start with business.
the ussa stock market.

not been able yet to place my puts vs. dji. however, I expect that tomorrow I’ll be able to.
and that pisses me off, because I would have plunked them in as soon
as dji hit my previously (repeatedly stated, as host said) cited target area, of 16.2k area.
however, due to today’s chart pattern, even though there was impulsivity, current pattern
requires at the very least a morning follow-thru drop tomorrow, to confirm, at small degree,
that what we are seeing, COULD be, START of the– BIG one. AND IF SO, IT WILL BE FAST.

one thing I learned, from sudden reversal in just 1 week, of bull/bear confidence ratio,
is that in today’s MEGA-fast INFO world, EVERYTHING, happens MEGA-FAST.
and WAY before, there’s ANY time to ACT.

so let’s see what tomorrow brings. because from all news and data I now read, ALL is VERY bad.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$

I will add a few links herein, to state what I think.

first, going back to something I said about 2 months ago, that 2014 crash will exceed
the rich stockmarket scammers, jumping out of windows, at a higher rate, that 1929.

3rd jpm exec 30-something just jumped out of window yesterday, and it was a chink this time.
additionally, this is now the 6th or 7th (2 different accounts) of mysterious suicide deaths,
among the rich stockmarket (or banking) involved deaths, in last 2 months, more or less.

http://deusnexus.wordpress.com/2014/02/18/another-jp-morgan-banker/

http://rt.com/business/jpmorgan-third-banker-suicide-655/

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

even worse news, for ussa citizens tax-paying and mandatory healthcare-paying that is,
is this—
(and highly surprising to me, that info comes from a ussa guvmint agency, pontius pilate-like)

http://wallstcheatsheet.com/politics/economy/will-obamas-healthcare-and-wage-policies-actually-kill-jobs.html/5/

“WILL OBAMA’S HEALTHCARE AND WAGE POLICIES ACTUALLY KILL JOBS?”

an analysis of what ‘obama-COULDNT-care-LESS’ (plus his strived-for 10.10usd/hr. min. wage),
will truly mean in LOST jobs (MILLIONS, btw) by 2018, according to Congressional Budget Office.
and that’s as long as (for it could be MUCH worse)–
(and btw, this is my favorite -funny- quote in the article, for it is so amerikan DELUSIONARY,
and so ASSUMING, status quo current MEGA-DEBT growing trend, will remain ever same)

“…Assuming no major economic shocks or policy changes come in the next few years…”

hahaha. I could laugh about this JOKE for many hours.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$

However, the most serious thing I read today, in terms of a potential dji soon-coming watershed,
was this—

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/fed-officials-sought-early-rate-hike-fomc-minutes-190929879.html

Today, the so-called fed-reserve ‘stimulus’ (I disagree that’s what it is, but that’s what it’s called),
has not only been lowered again, from 75 to 65 billion a month, but the is already big talk,
about that, which ussa’s fraud stockmarket fears most–rising interest rates. holy moly.
looks like that mega-ugly old-dove bird, now running the fed reserve, will be CHALLENGED.

tides are turning, everywhere. and news now travel worldwide, by lighting einstein speed.
ergo, bottomline, this utter-fake market could be cut in half (or worse), in only a few days.

for all the cards are in place, once again, chart-technically. so–will the bullcrap
continue to fly, ever fake higher, or–will it finally crash, beyond imagination, worse than ’08?

tomorrow’s dji will be a clue. if slide continues impulsively in morning, it’s possible.
- Mario February 20, 2014, 4:15 am
  
  It wouldn’t occur to VV that ALL is not BAD.
  
  Like Chinese imports and experts both up a surprising 10% this past month, that US exports to China are at record highs and rising and will continue to do so, that reshoring back to American manufacturing is rising hand in hand with those increased exports, that the cost of oil, of which America now has a boatload of its own, is far lower than elsewhere. That rail traffic continues strong, that America today still ranks #2 in FDI. Apparently all the foreigners all over the world are the idiots wanting to invest in today’s America.
  
  Just sayin’.
  
  Cheers, Mario
  - allen42 February 20, 2014, 3:51 pm
    
    http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2014/02/china-manufacturing-deteriorates-at.html
  - Mario February 20, 2014, 11:30 pm
    
    Yes right, I caught that yesterday thanks Allen. It fits what i said above when I mentioned the rise of the reshoring trend of manufacturing back to America, manufacturing sector in China is feeling the pressure. Fortunately, China’s reliance on that sector continues to decline as a percentage of GDP. In fact the private sector is now larger as a % of GDP.
    
    Besides my post was focused on a set of economic trends in America besides Obamacare’s impact and what all that might mean for the bull market.
Chuck February 19, 2014, 10:42 pm

wow I finally bought some of the coffee commodity (JO) it’s practically the ONLY thing in the green today at over +8%, AND +53% YTD.
Jason S February 19, 2014, 6:01 pm

I love Kratoklastes statement,
“As someone who resides in Australia, I can tell you that the social system here is woeful: you may not pay as much in outright dollars, but if you rely on the State system you pay in WAITING TIME – the standard currency of government-provided services.”
Time has a cost and never more than in health care where it can mean the difference between life and death, productivity and idleness.

Obamacare is expensive in both cost and time since it married the worst aspects of a private-pay and nationalized healthcare systems. Somewhere down the line it will impact our growth as a country but those costs continue to be delayed via enrollment, fine and premium payment extensions. Many of the hard costs for people and companies have been kicked down the road to 2015 and 2016, so I think that is when we will feel the drag of this legislation on the economy.
Andy Gutterman February 19, 2014, 3:53 pm

Let’s see.

Prior to Obamacare I could purchase a health insurance policy for about $650/mo with a $3000 deductible.

Since Obamacare I can now buy a Silver policy for $150/mo with a $700 deductible.

So how is it that Obamacare is more expensive than whatever choices I had before it was enacted? These numbers apply to millions of other people in my situation. Much cheaper after than before.

Andy
- Jason S February 19, 2014, 6:20 pm
  
  Interesting, Andy. My silver policy for a three person family is $1200/mo (I don’t get subsidized) and my deductible is $5000 with an out of pocket max of $12000. Thank God my employer still provides health insurance (for now).
- VILE VLAD February 20, 2014, 2:32 am
  
  yeah. like anyone believes you [deleted].
  
  &&&&&&
  
  Why slander Andy? Couldn’t you have instead pointed out that one must earn less than $28,000 to enjoy the same benefits he’s supposedly getting? RA
  - VILE VLAD February 20, 2014, 6:19 am
    
    love slander. got to to keep up my VILE rep up.
    
    &&&&&
    
    Vlad: I’m going to delete posts in which you talk about yourself or others in this forum. Keep to the topic, please. RA
- Mario February 20, 2014, 4:05 am
  
  The oligarchs of America spent the last twenty years favoring the rich who are richer than ever BY FAR at the expense of America’s middle class who was genuinely and completely raped and pillaged along the way, their lifestyle and budgets growing more burdensome asking the way.
  
  Above statement accurate and true? Who could say it’s not, please step up to the plate and say your piece.
  
  Meanwhile, AFTER the above royal screwing, the oligarchs then come out with natural healthcare to even the score a bit, to subsidize healthcare costs for the people who got screwed with some of the money the rich got while screwing them.
  
  Why is this not a good thing? Because on the surface it seems quite reasonable.
  
  The answer is that it’s not a good thing because now they’re screwing everybody. They executed Ocare without first fixing the flaws in the system, such as outrageous rates for medical services that have nothing to do with cost-value and everything to do with continuing to live the pockets of the oligarchs, healthcare system, insurance companies.
  
  One could then say that’s ok because all that inflated money creates more jobs and higher wages, spreading the hot across the society, but it doesn’t. The way the American economy continues is to keep the poor poor and keep funneling more money into the hands of those who already have lots of it such as the corporations who are hoarding billions in profits while not raising wages to American workers.
  
  No, I don’t necessarily think it’s “fair” in this scenario that a household earning 150k a year has to pay alot more to subsidize the premiums of a household earning 40k. But I also don’t feel sorry for them, after all, they are a household earning 150k in the first place, boohoo.
  
  Cheers, Mario
  - Mario February 20, 2014, 4:07 am
    
    Apologies for my damn kindle auto correct, I should have read through the post before submitting, I’m sure you can figure out what the words were supposed to be.
VILE VLAD February 19, 2014, 8:32 am

and ackerman, unless you are already a top 10%er (serving 1%ers, which wouldnt surprise me)
then burn quigley’s tragedy and hope anticuated secret-society apologista, and clintonista opus,
since even rand’s own subjective ravings, in her own magnus opus, atlas friggin shrugged,
is more INDIVIDUALIST pertinent, to ever continuous battle, of lone producers vs. moochers.
so you’re better off reading survivalist books, like ‘lucifer’s hammer’, than ‘tragedy and b.s.’
’cause it’s ah comin. like lighting storm. and know, ‘lucifer’ is mostly set, in your colorado.
so dont mock what I say, boy. ’cause even by your thoughts, what’s comin will be swift. unruly.

&&&&

Bill Lowe, an Atlanta art dealer with a great mind, suggested that I read ‘Tragedy and Hope’. I was prompted to put it at the top of my list when a citation turned up in an inflation v. deflation piece on the web (click here). Here’s an excerpt that may whet the appetites of some readers:

“Our closest view of these people came from Professor Carroll Quigley, who said that he was given access to their records in the early 1960s. This is what he wrote in his book, Tragedy & Hope:

“It must not be felt that the heads of the world’s chief central banks were themselves substantive powers in world finance. They were not. Rather they were the technicians and agents of the dominant investment bankers of their own countries, who had raised them up, and who were perfectly capable of throwing them down. The substantive financial powers of the world were in the hands of these investment bankers who remained largely behind the scenes in their own unincorporated private banks. These formed a system of international cooperation and national dominance which was more private, more powerful, and more secret than that of their agents in the central banks.

“In another passage, he writes:

“The powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole… Each central bank sought to dominate its government by its ability to control treasury loans, to manipulate foreign exchanges, to influence the level of economic activity in the country, and to influence co-operative politicians by subsequent rewards in the business world.

“So, was Quigley telling the truth? I don’t really know, but Quigley maintained an excellent reputation. This wasn’t a man given to wild stories.

“And if Quigley did tell the truth in 1966, is it still true?”
VILE VLAD February 19, 2014, 6:36 am

Highly disappointed you did not allow my PRIMARY post today, to see the light of day, ackerman.
However, I did see, you had no problem in using my ideas, in your own’s market comments today.
something you have done before. but then again, plagiarism is the highest sort of compliment.

&&&&&&

I got home from a poker game late last night, hardly in the mood to redact your primary post, which I’d noticed at first glance contained some possible racialist flags. Concerning plagiarism, I know you were just joking. RA
gary leibowitz February 19, 2014, 5:30 am

As long as consumers can still dip into more credit, reduce their savings, and keep their job, expect corporate profits to stay well.

The last quarters productivity and cost levels confirmed this. It certainly helped that consumers are once again feeling good. They forgot the pain of the crisis and want to quickly move on. As for corporation I really wouldn’t lose sleep over the Obama Care additional costs. They certainly hadn’t given any of their profits away these last 5 years. If anyone can afford to take a hit it is companies and the top income earners. They have made so much money these last 10 years its impossible to take it back. As for the small business and middle-class I wonder how they stayed afloat these last 40 years, let along since the mortgage debacle.

I will also place a wager that the Obama Care costs will actually reduce the deficit. The additional cost burden seems to be on corporations and the upper middle to higher income bracket. It seems, for now, to be a redistribution of wealth, a true socialist cause.

I also have qualms about starting such a huge bureaucratic system today. Seems ill conceived since corporations will not start to feel altruistic about giving back to their workers in the form of wage growth. Their excuse to hold back has been the mortgage debacle of 5 years ago. Now they will have yet another reason to horde that cash. Imagine everyone touting the same reason why companies have refused to increase wages. Yes the dreaded inability to see a clear path to the future. No direction. No political will. The enormous profit growth for 5 years in a row seems to indicate they wish for even more non-direction. Am I the only one that sees this mega-bubble as the single reason why wages stayed stagnant and inflation dead, with muted economic growth.

As for a reason why we could stumble this year, yes I have to agree. The additional costs will affect companies profit margins and reduce spending from the upper-middle class to top tier. For the group that will pay less for their health care I believe the impact to the economy will not offset the losses.

This will not happen over night however. Still expecting a small retrace to perhaps 1790 – 1810 on SPX before the month is out, followed by another 10 percent move higher. If we retrace lower than 1790 I will reexamine my position.
- Jason S February 19, 2014, 6:17 pm
  
  Not to mention that through corporate globalization and our high corporate tax system, all that foreign generated cash is basically forced to stay on the books as cash as well since it cant be repatriated, used to pay dividends or buy back shares. One more reason for this growing mountain of idle capital.
  - gary leibowitz February 19, 2014, 9:39 pm
    
    Please lets not distort the difference between the nominal rate of 35 percent to 40 adding in city tax, to real rates. Its the lowest it has ever been at under 15 percent. Can you as an individual get rates that low? I wonder just how poor you would have to be to see that bracket.
    
    The real rate has dropped dramatically since the late 70’s. In fact the single boost to rate cuts was during GWB’s presidency. The fact is that it did not spur growth. It started at very modest rates and was slashed further. Most economists say that anything below 30 percent will NOT spur additional growth. Here we are at half that figure and NO GROWTH. I am only talking about big corporations huge tax breaks. Small businesses are not receiving much help.
  - Jason S February 19, 2014, 10:46 pm
    
    Gary, you may be skewing the facts. The bottom rate for C-Corps is 15% for income up to $50,000. It is then 25% for income between $50,001 and $75,000, 34% for income between $75001 and $100,000, 39% for income between $100,001 and $335,000 and it varies between 34% and 38% for income brackets beyond that. So corps pay quite a large percent of income tax unless they earn below $100,000.
    
    See the IRS link for instructions of form 1120 schedule J (I think it is page 17.)
    
    If I add city and state to that it would be higher, this is just the Federal rates.
- Craig February 20, 2014, 8:55 pm
  
  NAVIN!!! Your back!!! Did you have a good Federal holiday off Navin Johnson (Gary)? Boy it took you till Wednesday to troll back here…did you take an extended time off or did you go to a cut and paste seminar?
magus12 February 19, 2014, 1:10 am

Somewhere along the line, people lost sight of the fact that the boot on your neck can (and now increasingly does) belong to the private sector which has handily bought up those who are supposed to represent the vast “us”. Case in point: see Capital One’s small print regarding what rights they reserve to themselves in how they may contact you. Read and rethink the old, tired Reagan “government is the problem” and all those who think laissez-faire is the prescription. See http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-lazarus-20140218,0,2211926.column#axzz2tiZjZo59
- Farmer February 19, 2014, 4:15 pm
  
  Absolutely Magus. It was the hallmark of Fascism and Hitlerian philosophy that found a means to harness private companies to do the bidding of government and commit some of the worst atrocities known to mankind.
- VILE VLAD February 20, 2014, 3:52 am
  
  careful, your COMMIE feathers are starting to show, magus fragus alinsky twinky.
  
  “…Read and rethink the old, tired Reagan “government is the problem” and all those who think laissez-faire is the prescription.”
  
  hum.
  
  1. against best pro-free-markets ussa president in decades, ronny reagan.
  2. against freedom from govt. intervention, in free markets.
  3. against laissez-faire capitalism, as freest form of trade.
  
  and all this is only one short paragragh, from you.
  so be careful, true COMMIE feathers are showing.
  
  you sure you ain’t alinsky’s son?
  ’cause you sure sound like it,
  sparknot.
VILE VLAD February 19, 2014, 12:47 am

and here’s a fun fact, that you’ll enjoy, adding to already existing huge ussa debt, at all levels-

“Americans celebrate economic recovery with debt — lots of debt”

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/americans-celebrate-economic-recovery-with-debt-—-lots-of-debt-184726069.html

(and here is an excerpt from this article, so you all enjoy. while you can, of course).

“In the last QUARTER of 2013, consumer DEBT soared by $241 BILLION, the sharpest quarter-to-quarter spike since 2007, according to the New York Fed’s recent household credit report. Americans added $152 billion worth of mortgage debt loads in the FOURTH QUARTER of 2013 ALONE, followed by $53 billion in student loan debt, $18 billion in auto loans, and $11 billion in regular credit card debt.” (CAPS MINE)

$$$$$$$$$$$

so nah. even huger ussa debt ain’t a problem, bro. nah. so don’t worry, be happy. yeah.
a trillion dollar a year more consumer debt (add it up, it’s a tril), yet it won’t matter at all!
’cause now we’ve got, that mega-ugly female-midget, new white-haired fed-reserve grinch,
protecting us from EVER having to pay debts. ’cause we IS amerikans, and ENTITLED to debt.

yeah, right.

I can’t wait.
- magus12 February 19, 2014, 3:20 pm
  
  Ah, sexist, too. So, to sum up, racist, sexist and completely untethered to earth-bound reality altogether. A hat trick, Vlad. Congrats.
  - Wayne February 20, 2014, 3:27 am
    
    “Racist” “Sexist” Are you really that much of a brainwashed fool that you blindly spit out these empty platitudes that you were indoctrinated with at multi-culture university like they have any impact what so ever anymore?
    
    It’s funny that you mentioned that communism does not exist anymore in a previous post. Wow you really are stupid, I guess N. Korea, Cuba, etc. etc. do not exist anymore either they are fictions of the military industrial complex to maintain a perpetual budget.
    
    What about the thousands of academics and media moguls that openly admit a Marxist ideology? What about people who held positions in the US government, past and present, like Van Jones who admitted that they were communists, not to mention the hundreds that admit open flirtation with Marxist ideas. Anita Dunn named Mao Zedong as her favorite philosopher.
    
    Your mindless droning and inability to engage in critical thought and analysis, and only being able to resort to smears and pejoratives is in fact the product of indoctrination in “political correctness.” Guess who perfected political correctness? Communists did, as a tool of thought control, to keep your thoughts, ideas, and debates within the gated confounds of the parties ideology. Get in Politically (the party in charge) Correct (aligned with the party’s ideas and paradigm of thinking). Guess their legacy is still carried through the weak minded.
    
    Vlad and others like him keep this forum interesting. Drones like you are a broken record literally cut and pasting replies and retorts from left wing talking points. Even after your bankrupt ideas have been utterly refuted time and time again, you still repeat.
    
    Invincible ignorance is what the decent man faces today! I really wish you would have your own country. Oh wait people like you had, have, and will again. You destroy all the wealth, live parasitically off the productive, and kill millions.
    
    Read this post a couple time. Look in the mirror, and become a man. Think for yourself and stop being such man-puppet repeating the dogma of others.
  - Mario February 20, 2014, 3:46 am
    
    Magus, with VV, keep beating your head against the wall because it feels good when you stop. Regardless of whatever insightful points he might hit upon, he lives to antagonize as much as possible leaving Rick with the added role of babysitting his infantile narcissistic posts.
    
    On Ocare, we’ll see how this turkey plays out. I’ll call it national healthcare, a great idea, poorly executed under bad circumstances in the first place which were ignored.
    
    Cheers, Mario
Aint No February 18, 2014, 8:45 pm

Rick Ackerman,

maybe change your radio dial. Obamacare may be a loss for business in general and some of the middle class but its a bonanza for the Health Care industry which, as you say, consumes 20% of GDP at present and now, thanks to Obamacare, will for the foreseeable future.

All of course in the name of helping the poor. But Obamacare is not what’s gonna bring this sucker down. Would appreciate a little more Kondratiev and a little less Limbaugh in your commentaries. Sue me.
- Rick Ackerman February 18, 2014, 9:08 pm
  
  By your logic (and Paul Krugman’s, by the way), we should simply send more money to Washington, ostensibly to nurture a government more wasteful and costly, even, than our healthcare system.
  
  Regarding Kondratiev, I blogged with the late, great Long Wave Group more than a decade ago, but the discussion petered out after the 56-year cycle failed to produce the epic crash that had been promised all of us permabears. I assume the cycle has since been conveniently extended by 30 or 40 years, much like those 1929 chart overlays that have been updated and recirculated every few years since the early 1970s.
  
  Thanks for the comparison to Rush, which is inspirational.
- mava February 19, 2014, 6:37 pm
  
  Very good point indeed, Aint No.
  
  If, the government was our rich uncle, and was dispersing its own accumulated savings to subsidize the Obamacare, then indeed, by how Gary puts it below: “As long as consumers can still dip into more credit, reduce their savings, and keep their job, expect corporate profits to stay well.”
  
  Consumers dipping into those accumulated saving of the government would insure that “Obamacare is not what’s gonna bring this sucker down.”
  
  However, this is not what is going on. Our government creates this credit out of thin air, and then subsidizes the Obamacare. In addition, and the larger of the two, the Obamacare is funded thru violent forced redistribution – i.e. forced donations from well to do, to not so well to do.
  
  This credit, that the government creates, obtains it’s purchasing power by the virtue of being indistinguishable from the credit based on real accumulated savings of the people.
  
  Thus, we have Obamacare, being funded by two primary means: Hidden theft from accumulated savings and open burglary of those same accumulated savings. We can now unite these two, because they have one and the same characteristic – it is all savings that would not be spent this way voluntarily.
  
  So, Obamacare would not be funded voluntarily. This is the main point. What does it tell us about those funding it? It tells us that this funding is to our detriment, because we fund things to our advantage voluntarily. This is the larger economic outcome of Obamacare – undesired, unnecessary drain on our resources. We are the economy. If there is a drain on our resources, it is then the drain on our economy. Our economy cannot be doing well while we are spinning into a disaster. When such is the apparent case, then there is a disconnect between our judgment and the reality.
  
  Going back to your initial argument that we can obviously see the Healthcare industry doing well, yes. Absolutely indistinguishably from a Window repair guy doing very well in the country where the government routinely breaks everyone’s windows. Such repairmen is then the focal point of an accelerated burn of the capital, nothing else. No desired good is being produced. He will do well indeed (the repairman).
  
  Being a focal point of capital burn is the same as being the driver of a vehicle powered by an internal combustion engine. There is the vehicle, moving easily where before it was a dead weight. There is the driver, where before we saw a walker. But this is not an example of an economy that is doing well. It is simply an example of one of the ways that previously created and stored potential energy is being used up, nothing more.
  - VILE VLAD February 20, 2014, 3:26 am
    
    very well said, economic erudite ruskie mava baby.
    
    I most specially like this–
    
    “…Obamacare is funded thru VIOLENT FORCED redistribution – i.e. FORCED donations…”
    
    (CAPS MINE, for all socialist COMMIE hand-in-other’s-pocket SCUM, to clearly see)
    
    so thanks, mava baby. and do keep all your LAISSEZ FAIRE capitalist posts, ah comin.
Craig February 18, 2014, 7:43 pm

Oh where oh where is my wonderful little Gary (Navin R. Johnson) with his defense of all that is Democrat/Obama/Establishment with his “just a hint” of criticism to make it all a legit “sounding” opinion in his mind and not the work of a paid shill…..

I ask who has time [to constantly] post such long posts all day.*

* I noticed that the shill does not post on holidays nor late at night or weekends….must be he is not on the clock and can not get holiday or late shift time and a half. But he dies cut and paste and do many hours of “research” at MSNBC, CNN, Huffpost, MediaMatters, SPLC and all his info from various dot Gov sites…but only during government hours 9-11 and 2-4 EST…. Hmmm

&&&&&&

More than once, while similarly noting Gary’s vast output in this forum, I’ve exhorted him to ‘get a life’. Perhaps this is what he has been doing during those lovely interludes when he is away from us? For all we know, he is sipping tea at this very moment with Pope Francis. Or skiing the extreme slopes of Crested Butte. Or… RA
- VILE VLAD February 18, 2014, 8:41 pm
  
  craig, I used to think el garo was a paid shill on this site, up to around 2 years ago.
  however, since then, I have altered my view of el garo, to this–el garo is retired,
  has nothing to do all day, and is a card-carrying ussa socialist by bent and nature,
  because it is not only his long posts, it is his even longer -status quo- research
  before he even posts, since yes, el garo is selective, and only sees what he wants to see,
  as paul simon sort of said.
  
  just ignore el garo. he is knowledgeable, no doubt, on -status quo- ever socialist agenda.
  and ocassionally, he goes on longterm streaks, by just playing his 1-note johnny clarin,
  to ignore longterm humongous world debt and credit (until that 1 shocker day, of course)
  IMO, el garo is just a retired commie fkknn bore, ever tootin, his pathetic socialist theme.
  so whatever, screw him. let the old guy have something daily to do. write on, el garo.
jeff kahn February 18, 2014, 6:37 pm

And when you get right down to it, you’ll find exactly the same problem in a slightly different permutation at the heart of the financial system too.
- Chuck February 18, 2014, 8:21 pm
  
  Jeff – spot on – I mean….what in the hell is insurance anyway?? If you drive like a maniac they will charge you accordingly….and if you do really stupid things on the road they will take your license away.
  
  Cigarettes, booze, drugs, obesity, not sleeping,…..it all adds up.
  
  Even Michelle Obama knows to eat and sleep right. She grows her own veggies…..looks in shape in all her pictures…..
  
  They do not give Ph.D.s or MD.s or JD.s for common sense……
VILE VLAD February 18, 2014, 6:31 pm

talking about the dead-certain, soon-forthcoming
‘obama-COULDN’T-care-LESS’ juggernaut INTENDED killshot,
to the ussa’s white middle class, which is still the heart of amerika,
is extremely boring, as THAT is not the PRIMARY subject of today’s blog.

because PRIMARY subject of this week’s blog is—
“IF ANYTHING CAN STOP THIS BULL, IT’S…”?

the host, a professional market follower since he was 5, strongly suggests,
that it will be: “I-obama care-little-for-you-whitey.”
I disagree.

[Although it’s clear that Obama and his spouse are not much concerned about ‘whitey’, I am characterizing Obamacare in the same that you have — i.e., as an economy disaster, irrespective of Obama’s motive for shoving it down our throats. RA]

I think the current ussa market will crash from it’s own dead weight.
fake dead weight, created from the greatest massive CREDIT bubble of all time.

[No thinking person who is not wearing ideologic blinders could disagree with that.]

and then, “obama cares-to-screw-you-honkies”, will either just be the nails in market’s coffin;
or, what I think will occur (once UNAVOIDABLE soon-forthcoming market disaster hits),
“Affordable”CA will be 100% repealed by congress, as barbarically untenable, and unaffordable.

[Some astute commentators have raised the point that it cannot be repealed as long as Obama is in the White House. This acknowledges that no matter how the 2014 elections go, the GOP will not pick up enough seats to override a presidential veto. Under the circumstances, de-funding of Obamacare’s bits and pieces will be the only option. Republicans are understandably reluctant to push this remedy until after the elections.]

to wit, Prechter did a study in mid-2012, re correlations between stockmarket and ussa presidents.
and the conclusion of his thesis was, that obumba’s market, only resembled, 1 other ussa pres.

nixon.

and you all know how that ended. and I still expect the same for obumba, when market crashes.

however, besides impeachment, I’d also add pilloried, flogged, and then drawn and quartered.

[Impeaching Obama will not happen unless the voters come to favor it overwhelmingly. Flogging, of course, is out of the question — even in the unlikely event that you, Vile Vlad, are elected President. As a platform plank, though, it would surely draw some votes.]

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

I continue to opine strongly this market is very close to a crash, mostly for chart reasons.
because the rotted fundamentals have already been there for years, waiting for this–
ALLTIME MASSIVE CREDIT puppy to unravel, 100%. and it’s ahcomin’, be assured of that.

[Yes, we get that. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.]

as to myself, I am borrowing a few ussa bucks (600 only) to buy some april dia puts.
I won’t bore you with the reasons why. however, even though rick rarely disagrees with me,
don’t know where he gets data, that many market-watchers are expecting a correction now;
as I see just the opposite. there is EXTREME market bullishness now, no doubt about it.
yet, we’ll very soon see who’s right.

[Speaking as a 40-year veteran of the options game, making money on puts purchased because you have a hunch the market will tank is only somewhat easier than winning a lottery jackpot. To take one absurdly overpriced high-flyer, LNKD, as an example, how do you make money on puts when they are trading with an implied volatility of 170? Anyone who sells you those puts is just as bearish as you are, and the risk incurred in selling them is discounted in the price he charges you for the option. With call options, even in a raging bull market, making money on the long-premium side of options is nearly as difficult. If you want to emulate the pros, short at-the-money calls at technically appealing peaks.]

because I still don’t think dji’s prior high will broken. and if it is, it will only be a bulltrap, IMO.

[Odds of a non-confirmation by the Dow have somewhat improved, given today’s leaden performance. This implies The Top is already in.]
- VILE VLAD February 18, 2014, 6:52 pm
  
  I will also add to the above, that the ussa fiat dollar is still el kingo, en sud america.
  for even as dollar-index has been falling (index only reflects dollar, vs. 5 1st-world nations),
  the fiat dollar has been rising, in most 3rd-world nations. go figure. (their fiats are worse).
  
  additionally, most of the world’s mega-huge quadrillion debt, is tied to dollar.
  plus of course, all those trillions in ussa bonds,
  and all those foreign central banks, still holding them in ‘reserve’…
  
  so the ussa fiat dollar has still a loooooong way to go, years, as el kingo, of the paper fiats.
  
  however—once the ussa can no longer afford the world’s greatest military force…
  IMO, that’s the time to watch out. because good ol’ china, is just drooling to pounce.
  and become the new world strongarm ‘el kingo’, for probably MANY decades to come.
  however, I won’t give a crap by then, as I will be long gone; and that’s all I care about.
  - VILE VLAD February 19, 2014, 7:07 am
    
    situation in argentina is dire. in many ways. country becoming a 3rd-world country again.
    devaluation. currency controls. violent crimes, thefts, absconds, etc, to get/keep dollars.
    ‘elected’ queen cristina is more hated than ussa ‘elected’ king obumba, believe it or not.
    however, that will change, once ussa utter-fake credit-bloated stockmarket, finally breaks.
    then, king obumba will get his long-deserved due. and I want to watch it, on intl. youtube.
    drawn and quartered, in jefferson’s monticello. and want to watch it, again and again.
    
    &&&&&&
    
    A friend in Chile tells me that there are no South American dominoes to fall, since most countries have learned to steer clear of financial ties to Argentina. Jefferson’s Monticello, by the way, has been officially renamed Jefferson’s Plantation in a watershed Smithsonian exhibit. Speaking as a UVa grad, I am saddened to think that the new label will stick for the next 500 years — or at least until the Republic is cleansed in hellfire. RA
jeff kahn February 18, 2014, 6:26 pm

The problem with health care system is that those of any income bracket who live moderately, eat moderately, and exercise, subsidize the other 98 percent of the population from all income brackets who feel it’s their “right” to live like pigs, stuff their gullets with crap, load up on booze and drugs, a waddle around with diabetes, insomnia, obesity, heart and liver diseases and dementia, overburdening the hospitals and taking two seats on the subway, at the movies, on the airplanes and everywhere else.
mava February 18, 2014, 5:40 pm

Why argue statistical measures of medical expenditures, as if they meant anything at all, as if the socialist healthcare was actually meant to help someone, as if any of the stated government policies did mean to be what they say they are.

As if if your healthcare 8.8888% vs. mine 28.888% then you are somehow better off? Or have a better healthcare, or a worse one? None of this matters, both of our healthcare systems were designed to rob us and mire us in waiting lines, which in practice results in only the unemployed having the luxury of ever seeing a doctor. All statistic is fudged and not a single number that is quoted about this or that country actually means anything at all.

It is all a deception, designed to make you believe that you are living your life, while you are (and I) are just a cow, producing milk and waiting for the headshot.
- Rick Ackerman February 18, 2014, 5:47 pm
  
  Thank you, Mava, for shifting the discussion away from the percentage of GDP spent on healthcare. The datum is relevant to this discussion only because it acknowledges that a very significant chunk of the U.S. economy has been sucked into the chaotic vortex of Obamacare.
  - mava February 19, 2014, 5:48 pm
    
    I am agreeing with you, RA, on the devastating results of any socialist program and Obamacare in particular. I was responding to Stephen’s argument that presupposes that an advanced economy is somehow correlated to a socialist redistribution system existing first, and that a comparative analysis of the reverse of the degree of such redistribution is bound to tell us something about the relative advancement of such economy, second.
- Redwilldanaher February 20, 2014, 5:22 am
  
  Stevie and maggie know whats best for us, they will save us from ourselves.
- gary leibowitz February 20, 2014, 8:26 pm
  
  I wonder what would have transpired if we refused to change our government involvement since the Great Depression. I will bet that the current complaints on the destructive path we are headed for would already be here had we left the system alone. While it certainly wouldn’t be government debt, but rather why we have a caste system as divisive as India’s was.
  
  We love to complain but never use real tested alternatives as an opposing position.
  
  What I am suggesting is radical. No matter which path we chose, a capitalist system, will always expand towards rewarding the “chosen” at the expense of everyone else. Once expanded beyond tolerance it will revert back to favoring the masses.
  
  In a “fair” world there would be no capitalist system. In a “fair” world there would also be no incentive to create advances for society as a whole. This system is the best we have come up with. It seems we are doomed to a pendulum motion. In a rising pendulum all is good with the world.
  
  The reasons we are where we are is simply. The political system is geared for favoritism to those connected. When greed expands, so does that favoritism. Politicians need to get re-elected by the masses. To do so they go into debt. A win-win situation. Make the masses complacent while the disparity between classes rises.
  
  My solution, one I have argued from day one, would be to strip all political perks and rules that allow for favoritism to take place. No public campaign money, no after office affiliation to any company that could have received favoritism during their tenure. Intensive review of family’s finances. Term limits. No pensions and health care outside the private sector norm. No ability to profit from inside information. Strict rules of behavior with very strict consequences if caught breaking rules.
  
  Stop the greed at the source. Today we have started to address the huge budget over expenditures. To cut unemployment insurance and food stamps as a token step to appease the masses is not my idea of the “right thing to do”. Politicians will always revert to attacking the least powerful, and least likely to affect their re-election. Sad when the moral thing would be to get rid of subsidies for the well to do and work your way down the list.
  
  As for Obamacare and its future consequences to us financially, all I can say is we should be balancing the injustices before we decide to abandon medical umbrella coverage’s. Can we not afford these socialist programs, or are we not willing to bring back balance to our system. No one can argue that tax burden is on the middle-class while large corporations and wealthy individuals are rewarded. No one can site where the trend these last 40 years isn’t consistent with this type of shift.
  
  Clearly as the shift of ownership of the USA is going to a more select group the benefits to society suffer. We are continuing this policy even 5 years after the wakeup call. Sad that we delude ourselves with the notion that one party over another can right these wrongs, when its the position of power and not the political association that determines our path.
  
  So lets continue to squabble over unemployment insurance, minimum wage, food stamps, and immigration status at a time when we have a moral imperative to help thy neighbor during rough times. Instead we claw our way up the financial ladder even if it means climbing over the weak. Bottom line. Survival of your personal comfort zone at the expense of the lest fortunate. It is the easiest path to take, and like scientific doctrine we follow the path of least resistance. Lynching blacks for not being able to buy your way out of serving during the Civil War, is a logical reaction. We are doing it today. Attack the disenfranchised when threatened with your own survival. It will not right any wrong, or get your personal situation changed, but it does relieve your feeling of helplessness.
  
  &&&&&&
  
  Well, I’ve culled two useful words from the 676 you’ve written above: ‘TERM LIMITS’. RA
Kratoklastes February 18, 2014, 1:06 pm

Oh, and I should point out… according to the WBWT “Health expenditure, total (% of GDP)” table, only Sierra Leone (18.8%) and Liberia (19%) have higher health expenditure as a proportion of GDP.
Kratoklastes February 18, 2014, 1:02 pm

US: 17.9% (will rise – unambiguously – as a result of the stupid and pointless foray into Soviet central planning)

Japan: 8.4%
Sweden: 9.4%
Australia: 9.0%

How were we supposed to be “surprised”? As someone who resides in Australia, I can tell you that the social system here is woeful: you may not pay as much in outright dollars, but if you rely on the State system you pay in WAITING TIME – the standard currency of government-provided services.

Besides… the US system is – specifically – designed to funnel money to the people for whom the legislation was designed, i.e., the “health care” system (hospitals, HMOs, and pharmaceutical companies). That has not changed.

Get it out of your head that Obama has – or ever had – any intention of even trying to bite the hand that feeds… policy in the US is NOT designed for the proles and peons: it’s designed for those who pay massive bribes (“campaign contributions” that politicians are allowed to keep if they don’t spend it all).

And it’s not because he’s Obama, or because he’s a (D), or because he’s black. It’s because he’s a POLITICIAN – which means he’s a sociopathic megalomaniac.
- Redwilldanaher February 20, 2014, 5:21 am
  
  Well played.
Stephen G February 18, 2014, 8:39 am

There are others more suited to confirming or refuting your ideologically-rooted claims about Obamacare and its alleged macroeconomic impacts. However the United States cannot rightly consider itself a first-world country while the rich get top health care while the poor are left to rot (and these days, most of the “middle class” should in fact be considered poor). Of course the ironic thing is that the USA’s disgraceful and profoundly selfish two-tier system doesn’t reign in costs but rather amplifies them. You say 20% of the GDP is consumed by health care. Care to take a guess at what the equivalent figure is for Japan, Canada, and other “socialist” hellholes? I think you’d be surprised.

Obama’s failing is that he didn’t have the grit to fight for single-payer even though it was the right thing to do.
- mario cavolo February 18, 2014, 11:52 am
  
  Do tell…You peaked my interest Stephen as I live in China for many years, where healthcare costs are a very low % of GDP. What about Japan and other countries…?
  
  Cheers, Mario
- magus12 February 18, 2014, 4:16 pm
  
  Well said on all counts, Stephen g. The only things I would add, however, is that 1) so far, health care costs have slowed their rise although, so long as insurers’ execs and boards are in bed with each other, that will end at some point; 2) Medicare for all is the only real solution which would free up 50% of employees’ costs and 40% of employers’ costs for deployment elsewhere and the end to the most frequent reason for bankruptcy among employees; 3) the diatribe you address is pure Kool-Aid. I like what Rick specializes in but at some point he should recognize that his forte is Elliot Wave through the jeweler’s loupe, not macro-economics. Giving credit where it is due, it is virtually impossible to be near-sighted and far-sighted at the same time.
- Rick Ackerman February 18, 2014, 5:34 pm
  
  What a fab idea, Stephen! Give the same government that has just wrecked America’s healthcare system the contract for rebuilding it — presumably so that the system can come to even more closely resemble our wasteful, corrupt, breathtakingly inept government itself.
  
  Incidentally, you should keep an eye on all of those fabulous healthcare delivery systems in Europe as the region’s slide into bankruptcy continues.
  
  ps: Now can we refocus the discussion on today’s actual topic — the by-now unavoidable effects of Obamacare on the economy and the stock market? Thanks in advance.
  - magus12 February 18, 2014, 5:44 pm
    
    Wreckage of all Western economies is the result of the Davos crowd’s transfer of all Western middle classes’ wealth upward and outward to our good friend, China. So far, not a single government in the West or their well-heeled funders have any intention of clawing back a viable manufacturing sector. We’re on to Asia and Africa and S. America and their markets largely closed to what’s left of the West’s manufacturing base. Can’t wait until China buys, hmmm….wonder which auto manufacturer they’ve got their eyes on…..
- VILE VLAD February 18, 2014, 9:15 pm
  
  interesting.
  a full-fledged commie ‘stephen g’ starts host’s blog search,
  searching for this utter fake market’s, break trigger point.
  
  exemplary.
  you reap what you sow. that now even commie worms, crawl out of holes.
  
  ‘gimme moh freebies,’ (rap music) ’cause I’s pooah fouhk…’
  (or I’d be robbin’ yuah neighbohood, unless yu dont,
  and alsoh be rapin, yuah white women fouhk… yeah…’
  
  (repeat same rap lyrics, six times)
  
  and it’s ah golden rap record recordin, foh shure…
  in today’s king obumba’s, ussa ‘obamacare’ world.
  - magus12 February 19, 2014, 3:12 pm
    
    Interesting that racist like you haven’t the courage to put your own name out there. BTW, protesting “commies” these days amounts to the same thing as protesting phlogiston . Neither exist unless you count the Chinese gov’t who now owns the West’s manufacturing and wealth-building capability. Enjoy, Sparky.
  - Jason S February 19, 2014, 5:52 pm
    
    In defense of VV, I can see a lot of similarity with the current fascist-like political system in the US with the communist vision of Marx. The primary similarity is the idea of having academics run things and being at the reigns of the nation and dictating how business should run for the benefit of the worker. But I still think what we have is more mercantile or fascist than communist or socialist.
  - VILE VLAD February 20, 2014, 3:10 am
    
    “Interesting that racist like you haven’t the courage to put your own name out there.”
    
    why, is your name really magus12? great name. never heard of it. really unique.
    
    and is it really courageous to put your birth name on the internet? or just plain stupid?
    
    well, sparkless (since you called me sparky) let me tell you a few things (and wait see if host lets me defend myself)
    
    [Yes, but only because your tiresome, characteristically overwrought defense includes the interesting list from the rabble-rousing leftist Alinsky (Obama’s muse). RA]
    
    I Am Damn Proud to Be a Racist, as you say (and do note I capitalize Racist, so it’s not racist).
    and I will not go into details about this Chosen Deliverate Fact, since it’d bore some here).
    
    brainwashed politically-correct amerikanus turkey, you ever heard of alinsky? bet you have.
    
    greatest COMMIE agitator ever. and here are his rules of subversive ussa agitation,
    of which murderous witch COMMIE hillary, is probably his most famed disciple.
    
    (and I am pretty sure now, with this, that the host will let this self-defense fly)
    
    $$$$$$$$$$$$$
    
    “ALINSKY’s RULES FOR RADICALS — “Personalize it”
    “Saul Alinsky’s rules of power tactics, excerpted from his 1971 book “Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals”
    
    1. Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.
    
    2. Never go outside the experience of your people.
    
    3. Whenever possible go outside the experience of the enemy.
    
    4. Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules.
    —————————————————————
    
    5. Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.
    
    (ASIDE–THIS IS MY PERSONAL FAVORITE. HA)
    ————————————————————-
    
    6. A good tactic is one that your people enjoy.
    
    7. A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.
    
    8. Keep the pressure on.
    
    9. The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.
    
    10. Maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.
    
    11. If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counterside.
    
    12. The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.
    
    13. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”
    
    $$$$$$$$$$$$$
    
    and if you want we can move to sun tzu’s art of war, or best of back-stabbers, machiavelli.
    
    or choose a dictator, sparkless. Studied almost all. And on ocassion, emulated some. ha.

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