Looking at the raw numbers for the “47 million uninsured” number:
18 million: Can afford it but have not purchased it
8.4 million: 18-25 years old
12.6 million: Illegal aliens
9.4 million: between jobs and temporarily uninsured
8 million: Kids covered, but parents haven’t signed them up
3.5 million: eligible for government health programs, but not signed up.
There is some overlap between the figures so the total is nearly 60 million, but anyone who looks at the numbers can see that the 47 million figure is just meant to make the problem seem like something that it is not.
[Note that the numbers will obviously vary day-to-day and month-to-month, but the broad picture has been the same for years.]
I am disappointed at the hypocrisy shown by this administration. President Obama is coming to Las Vegas later this month for a political fundraiser, but he will not help the struggling families in Las Vegas and Nevada who are out of work because of his reckless comments [comments in early 2009 regarding Las Vegas business trips]. … [A]pparently our money is good enough for the President, but our tourism, jobs, and economic future are not. This is politics, pure and simple, President Obama stood for change, but all he has done is brought negative economic change to Nevada. Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons, May 18, 2009
(See http://www.ktnv.com/Global/story.asp?S=10383051)
In relation to the automobile industry (with the exception of Ford), Buy American is now un-American. That is if you think America stands for freedom, the rule of law, and due process. The UAW and the Obama Administration are acting like mobsters, shaking down senior secured bond-holders in order to pay-off a political constituency, the Unions. The only difference between mobsters and their actions is that instead of having the gun visible, the gun is held by the government.
The hedge funds and other investment vehicles that own the secured debt -which, according to the LAW, gets paid before unsecured holders- have just as many “regular people” albeit one step removed, as do the UAW retirees. But the UAW is a favored group, and a visible group Continue reading UAW and Unions versus the rule of law→
“Canada is not Mexico, it doesn’t have a drug war going on. It didn’t have 6,000 homicides that were drug-related last year. Nonetheless, to the extent that terrorists have come into our country, or suspected or known terrorists have come into our country, it has been across the Canadian border.”
The CBC reporter then asked whether she was referring to the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks and Napolitano answered:
“Not just those, but others as well. So again, every country is entitled to have a border. It’s part of sovereignty.”
Napolitano apparently missed the fact that the September 11th terrorists all entered through United States airports. Very comforting to see that level of knowledge displayed yet again in the Obama administration.
The Democrat controlled Senate is working on a Bill that would give President Obama the authority to shut down the Internet. This is the so-called Cybersecurity Act of 2009, S.773 was introduced by Senators Rockefeller, Bayh, Nelson, and Snowe.
The Bill would also give the government access to the digital records from many industries including telecommunications, banking and energy. All would be under the authority of a cybersecurity czar.
Clamp down on the free speech on the Internet in the event of a need to “protect national security” and there goes the ability to dissent.
“There’s a lot of — I don’t know what the term is in Austrian — wheeling and dealing, and people are pursuing their interests, and everybody has their own particular issues and their own particular politics.” – Barack Obama, April 5, 2009
In Austria, the official and most used language is German. Imagine if President Bush had said that.
Come with us, align yourself, come with us on the road to socialism. This is the only path. Imagine a socialist revolution in the United States,” Hugo Chavez, dictator of Venezula. March 6, 2009
Since the White House seems to be in need of economic advice, here are a few suggestions that would help to turn things around quickly. Items #1 and #2 would not cost anything.
1. Eliminate Mark to Market – for people holding until the asset matures, mark to market is crazy.
2. Reinstate the uptick rule in order to restore some balance to the market.
3. Instead of spending more than $1.2 trillion on questionable projects, much of which won’t be spent for years, stop collecting income taxes for 2009. Federal Revenue in 2007 was approximately $2.5 trillion with individual income taxes making up a bit over 40% of that. So, drop the stimulus and put the money right back in everyone’s pocket this week. Save $200 billion, and let the citizens of the company keep their own money.
4. Talk about some of the positives: lower fuel costs, productivity and the like.
President Obama referred to stocks being a good buy yesterday because of their “profits to earnings” ratio.
Now usually one uses a price to earnings ratio since in general profits and earnings are usually equal.
“What you’re now seeing is a profit and earnings ratios get to the point that buying stocks is a good thing if you have a long-term perspective on it,” President Obama, after meeting with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
One does not have to wonder how this will be picked up by the press – if it were President Bush, it would be the subject of jokes.
Perhaps that is why we have a nearly 20% decline since Inauguration day.