Still The Economy, Stupid

But he’s adding sooo many new Government Program Jobs.

Foreclosures in Carmel. Clint may have to shutter his ice cream store.

I sure miss the ocean, but not the cold fog, and not the loons.

Like a box of granola, take away the fruits and nuts and all thats left are the flakes.

Hahaha.  Me too. 

But don’t worry about Clint.  He has The Pebble Beach Corp, his stunningly beautiful development, Tehema (2000 acres, 90 lots), Mission Ranch and more money than God.  I used to really dislike him but now think of him fondly as a major contributor to the opposition of 0zer0.

Lot’s of flakes, indeed!

North or South?

 Ck out John Boehner’s face book you the stuff being said to him and the posters is horrid.  
 
Some are even sending horrid face book messages to the people who have written positive things on John Boehner’s wall.     
http://www.facebook.com/fbsitegovernance?v=app_4949752878#!/johnboehner?v=feed&story_fbid=112877585392661  

I did nt know that about Dirty Harry. I really liked Gran Torino.

CA, when you see those swarm/insulting posts, please report them as abuse.  They are not supposed to post attacks against individuals or groups.  There is no reason to allow a thread to be hi-jacked by these people.  I don’t go on DK or Huff&Puff to take abuse for my legitimate concerns or opinions…so why would I want to accept them here or on FB?  It’s one thing not to censor serious posters who have a differing opinion and quite another to tolerate vulgarity and hi-jackers…as happened on the last threads here at NQ.

This was told to me second hand by a Democrat here in town…that Clint gave McCain/Palin the largest individual donation the Repubs had received.  Who knows?  She wouldn’t have lied but I don’t know who she got it from.

I am hoping that there will be a challenge to Sam Farr here on the peninsula too.  My auto mechanic told me he saw about 200 protesters with anti-Farr signs on Monday in Salinas.  First I’ve heard of.  Of course, he has no support from the Tea Partiers.  He made no friends either giving an endorsement for a candidate in a local city election that he can’t vote in due to living outside the town limits.

That is Sestak’s job offer, right?  I hadn’t heard Stupak was offered a plum.

Dear Kenoshamarge,

Yes it can be done. In fact, because we have an evolutionary bottleneck right now, it is more likely than not that we will find a few such politicians. We will see some new comers as well, and that will add to the population pool.

I love your nom and your avatar. Are you named after Marge Gunderson?

Regards,

Arabella

Public Service Announcement: Please don’t feed the trolls.

This is what I just found which breaks down the law for businesses:

Starting this year:
You can get a 35% tax credit if you have 10 or fewer employees, and they earn less than $25,000 on average.
You qualify for a smaller tax credit if you have 25 or fewer employees with an average wage $50,000 or less.
You don’t get a tax credit if you have more than 25 employees. Also, any employee who earns more than $80,000/year will be excluded from your credit.
Starting in 2014:
States must set up health insurance pools called SHOP exchanges (Small Business Health Options Programs). These allow small businesses to group together to buy health insurance.
You could receive a 50% tax credit if you’re a company with 10 or fewer employees who earn less than $25,000 on average.
You will be penalized $750 per full-time employee if you’re a company with 50 or more employees, and you don’t provide health insurance. The government won’t charge you for the first 30 workers you don’t cover.
You will not be penalized if you have fewer than 50 employees.
You face additional fines if you don’t cover 60% of overall employee health costs, as well government-defined set of services.


Also note:
If you operate as a partnership, each partner counts as an employee.

There are a few House amendments that the Senate may pass this Sunday. If they pass, it means that:
-The penalty for not providing insurance will go up to $2,000.
-Part-time employees will count towards that 50 employee limit.
-If you buy your employees “Cadillac” coverage, you won’t face that 40% tax until 2019.

See this link for more detail:

http://www.businesspundit.com/what-health-care-reform-means-for-small-business/#comments

So basically if you’re a small business owner, have as few employees as possible and pay them poorly. Which, we all know, is a great way to stimulate growth in the economy.

And to pile on, Arlen Specter at an appearance in York, PA has basically told Sestak to put up or shut up. And that keeping the facts of such an attempted bribe is a felony – misprision I believe is the term.

Arlen and Sestak are going to go head to head in the Dem PA Senate primary.

Hmmm…CBS story all gone.

In today’s Boston Globe is a story about a small Mass. town’s decision to drop insurance for its school cafeteria workers. The town estimates it costs around $20K/year to cover each of their insurance policies. Let’s see: $20,000  to cover or $2000 penalty to dump them. I think we see where this is going. Oh, and these workers earn $9-11/hour.

Maybe also… “stupak is as stupak does”?

Yep, “let me be clear”, and “notion” means the next sentence will contain a lie, usually a lie by ommission.

Good article, Larry.  The truly sad thing about the two parties today is that they ram through partisan stuff against the will of the people and they’re so isolated in their bubbles and so consumed with their power struggles, they actually think these things will enhance their “legacies” and get them re-elected.  Bush kept believing that right up until 2006 when the Democrats took the majority.  Now the Dems are doing the exact same things.  

Actually it’s the health care stupid! Passing of this historic bill has energized and united the Democrats and at the same time fractured and demoralized the GOP. The Republican’s waterloo has already resulted in finger pointing. The honeymoon with Scott Brown is already over as he is widely blamed for the historic passage of the health care bill. The GOP is now in further disarray as the Scott Brown phenomenon is beginnging to backfire. Many journalists are now predicting the public opinion will change decidedly negative towards the GOP’s effort to obstruct everything until November.

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/us_politics/view/20100324republicans_feeling_blue_as_scott_brown_fails_to_stop_health_care/

FF, you must have been drowning yourself in koolaid. The Dems will come to rue the day that they rammed this unhealthy bill through congress. November will bring their fall from power.

I have  and did. there was one indidivual that was doin it over and over and over agan.

That figure will go up once people actually read the bill, and once network news actually starts to report the actual news. Would the public be o.k. with some of the takeovers that are in the bill, but that have not been reported as of yet? The truth can’t be hidden forever and at some point the networks will either decide to become relevant again or they will have doomed themselves. It will come down to business eventually. Relevance or non-relevance? If news is your business, I don’t think it’s even a choice. The truth will come out, it always does.

At some point the network news will choose relevance over cronyism. I know they are corporations and it would seem that cronyism is the right choice for a corporation to make. But, network news is still a business and if you don’t have relevance you don’t have anything to sell. Business people are still business people and in the end they will remember that and make decisions based on their business interest.

If democrats were smart they would revisit that amendment to deny viagra to registered sex offenders. Since they are going to have to vote again anyway, there is no real reason not to let that one in. It would also go a long way to the appearance of being conciliatory. But, they are relishing their “win” and relishing rubbing the republicabs noses in that win. They are so predictably amateurish and foolish. You would think Obama would step in and correct something like this. It is very telling that he sits in his hands right now. A leader would act. Then again, maybe he really isn’t a leader. Maybe campaigning is all there is.

If democrats were smart they would revisit that amendment to deny viagra to registered sex offenders. Since they are going to have to vote again anyway, there is no real reason not to let that one in. It would also go a long way to the appearance of being conciliatory. But, they are relishing their “win” and relishing rubbing the republicans noses in that win. They are so predictably amateurish and foolish. You would think Obama would step in and correct something like this. It is very telling that he sits on his hands right now. A leader would act.

How exactly is it Scott Browns fault if he was elected after the Senate bill was passed and ineligible to vote for the House bill because he’s a Senator and not a Congressman? 

Network news report the actual news? I gotta see it to believe it. Network news is just Obama Press Agents as far as the eye can see. At least as far as the eye can see until the remote takes me away from those swampy places.

So, they get dropped today. And… in four years maybe they will be able to get tax credits for health care help. $9 and hour people can’t afford to have to buy insurance on their own in the meantime. They will wind up on Medicaid, when they used to have health insurance. Interesting how this plays out in real life with real people. Not so much hope in that.

Did you even read the article I linked? The Democrats are crediting Scott Brown for the passage of the bill, the article also stated many Republicans are irked at Scott Brown. It is very unlikely a party that is so fractured and in such disarray can win anything in November.

There is incentive to drop employee insurance now. The tax credits for insurance are four years away. So, between now and then Medicaid will explode. But they will counter with “who knew”? These guys knew. You are right. This is a gift to insurance companies now, but it is also a path to government insurance. Not to mention the cost estimates and projections are all false now because everything will change as people are dropped from insurance and dumped into Medicaid.

And here’s more good news that passing THIS health care bill will be bad for business per Investors.com and traced back to Heritage.org:

Supposedly:
“The Senate health bill (H.R. 3590) introduced by Senator Reid (D–NV) contains provisions (Section 1513) that would impose a tax penalty on any company with more than 50 employees that hires someone who qualifies for, and opts to accept, a health insurance premium subsidy —a penalty of $3,000 per employee per year. And the qualifications for that taxpayer subsidy depend on the worker’s family size and family income, not just the pay from that employer. A worker with more dependents would be more likely to qualify, and one with a working spouse or other family members would be less likely to qualify—and the IRS would be required to provide this family information to the employer.

If the bill is enacted, there would be three devastating results.
First, employers faced with the choice of hiring—for the same job at the same pay—say, a single parent of three, and a parent of two with a working spouse (or a teenager with working parents), the employer could face a $3,000 annual penalty for hiring the single parent—and is therefore likely to deny that person the job. Likewise, if one company lays off an employee with a working spouse, that could generate a $3,000 tax penalty for the other spouse’s employer—unless the other employer lays off the other spouse as well.
Second, if the employer hires two people in different family situations for the same job at the same pay, they could have vastly different health insurance options based on what their other family members are making. The one with another working family member would have to take a plan from one of their employers and pay up to 40 percent of the cost or face substantial tax penalties; the one with no (or lower-paid) other working family members could choose either the employer’s plan or any plan in the exchange—in the latter case, with a subsidy paid for by the other workers’ taxes.
Third, if more than a quarter of the employees qualify for subsidies, the company would be paying the same tax penalty as if it had not offered a health plan in the first place. Faced with paying a hefty tax penalty whether they offer health insurance or not, many companies would drop their health plan, harming the remaining workers who do not qualify for subsidies. Those workers would be forced to buy health insurance on their own, paying 100 percent of the premium (instead of 40 percent or less through the employer), and paying with after-tax dollars. Even if the company raises pay by the amount they would have paid for health insurance (less the tax penalty), employees would now face income taxes on compensation that would otherwise be non-taxed health benefits.”

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2009/12/How-the-Senate-Health-Bill-Punishes-Businesses-That-Hire-Low-Income-Workers

This bill is never going to actually trickle down. Just the amount of policy that must be written, the number of bureacracies that must be funded, is staggering. And all along the way there will be legal challenges.

I suspect this bill was nothing more then a photo op. The president wanted his legacy, kind of like his nobel prize. He wanted to take credit for reforming health care and whether or not it actually gets reformed is irrelevent.

We’ll all suffer, the economy will suffer, the Dem party will suffer, but in the end 3/4 of these ideas will never materialize.  We simply haven’t got the money or the will to actually do the work required to make it all happen, whcih is a good thing because a lot of it sucks.

So? It still doesn’t make sense that a man who isn’t eligible to vote for either of the bills is blamed for failing to stop it, while also being credited at the same time for helping it to pass. Talk about fractured and in disarray.  

The Boston Herald????…..Come on, seriously? You might as well read Huff & Puff.

FF– by golly, you’ve exceeded my expectations for inanities.
How in any scenario could you think Scott Brown is being blamed for the passage of the healthcare debacle? He wasn’t even in the Senate when they voted last December. And as a Senator, he (surprise!), was not allowed to vote for it in the House.

Do you even read what you write?

Oh, the Democrats are giving him credit.
Well that changes everything, what with the Republicans giving so much credence to anything the Dems have to say.
Not to mention the majority of likely voters hanging on their every word.

Diana — healthcare professionals everywhere are scrambling. My husband’s radiology group serves two hospitals in our area. On Monday the larger hospital called a staff meeting to discuss plans to “restructure”. Then m his group’s office manager suggested the group could economize by laying off at least one of their office personnel.

Change is coming and it won’t be what we hoped for.

Exactly, Armymom. The Dems have controlled Congress since January of 2007 and they could’ve at any time, focused on jobs and the economy. If any one of us had been hired to do a job and, after 3 and a half years had accomplished nothing, would any of us expect a raise or even to keep our jobs?

Too true OD2. They’ve painted themselves into a corner and can’t dissent now without being called the “r” word.

True too about GWB and his bunch. The angrier people got about Bush, his arrogance, and stubborn insistence he was right the more the GOP supported him. The Dems are doing the same with Obama.

If I were the Dems I’d stop celebrating. The GOP also thought the public would forget how angry they were and not sshow it at the voting booth. They were wrong.

I love karma.

Kind of a side note, but I see Osama has a new tape out. Darn convenient timing I might say as well. People are concerned with the health bill and what do you know…. the man from the lost cave pops right back in to the light. More and more, I think this guy has been dead a long time ago. But, he is probably worth more alive than dead. So he lives on, just like Michael Jackson.

FF, just misses the obvious ALL the time!! LOL!  The dems are running their spin!

Blame the other guy!  Although, this time they did the backhanded compliment route.  But the intent is the same!

Let’s Blame Scott Brown for our deviousness.

Those dems…what a sneaky bunch of bastards!  And their very own FF falls for it.  I don’t know which is funnier.

Freedom Fighter, you’re nothing but a pathetic propgandist. And the more you talking the more it makes certain for me that I will never vote for another Democrat in my lifetime.

You treat Obama as if he were a King and we the American public should be his vassals…and I’m telling you that unlike you I remember that the President is supposed to be at work for the people not in spite of the people.

You and others like you want anything you can grasp onto to say that Obama is working and doing a great job, but when you look at the particulars of this bill everyone can see it for what it really is, and that is a power grab…

If Obama was at work for the people our unemployment and underemployment figures wouldn’t be as high as they are. Let alone the bubble that is about to burst on commercial real estate.

Your propaganda BS is transparent. You are nothing but a tool. If anything I would say you were on someone’s payroll. I doubt you’re even a born and breed American with the amazing amounts of bullshit you spew on this site.

IF you are an American you obviously have an extreme lack of history and understanding of this country and what our government should do for us.

I think because health care subsidies, penalties, etc, is soley based on income. Lower earning people will cost the government more in subsidies, therefore they will need to collect more in taxes and fees, etc, from those who make more money.  It’s also a really really convenient way to keep lower income people under the governments nanny state thumb. If you are less able to get a job because you’re single with kids, then you will continue to need governement help, therefore more likely to vote for politicians who promise it. Also, it just penalizes businesses, not only financially but imagine the paperwork nightmare.  As such, businesses will totally opt out of offering insurance and will tire of playing investigative reporter trying to find out their employees personal information to make sure they meet all the confusing federal rules. Can you imagine being asked weekly by your employer the following type of questions? Has your spouse gotten or lost a job, gotten a pay raise or pay cut? Have about any of your kids? Are you getting divorced or married? If getting married, will there be any more kids in the household? What is your spouses current income? What other income does your family have that’s counted in regards to eligibility for health care subsidies. And so on. As such with employers opting out or just screwing up because the reporting requirements are so hard to understand,  it makes it so much easier for government to say the system is not working and then offer Single Pay.  That will seem so much easier, then both businesses and individuals will probably heartily embrace it.

The problem is, if they really really wanted Single Payer, they should’ve passed it this time. Billions of dollars (or maybe a few trillion) will be spent by businesses, citizens and the government implementing this plan just to realize like most new governement plans (cash for clunkers anyone?) they seriously underestimated how much time, training and cash it’d take to run smoothly. Or overpromised and underdelivered such as the mortgage refiance bill that was supposed to stop millions of homeowners from their homes going into foreclosure.  

Public Service Announcement: Please don’t feed the trolls.

DITTO

Please don’t engage the trolls.  They contribute nothing.

WH Cover Up doesn’t link but I found this while trying to get there
“That Ain’t My America” – LYNYRD SKYNYRDSometimes I wanna light up underneath the no-smoking sign
Sometimes I wish they’d tell me, how justice got so blind
I wish they’d just leave me alone ’cause I’m doing alright
You can take your change on down the road and leave me here with mine

‘Cause that ain’t my America
That aint this country’s roots
You wanna slam old Uncle Sam
But I ain’t letting you
I’m mad as hell and you know I still bleed Red, White, and Blue
That ain’t us
That Ain’t My America

I was standing there in Dallas
Waitin on a plane
I overheard an old man
Tell a young soldier “thanks”
The young soldier hung his head and said “it’s hard to believe
You’re the only one who took the time to say a word to me”
And the old man said…That ain’t my America
That aint this country’s roots
You wanna slam old Uncle Sam
But I ain’t letting you
I’m mad as hell and you know I still bleed Red, White, and Blue
That ain’t us
That Ain’t My America

It’s to the women and men who in their hands hold a Bible and a gun
And they ain’t afraid of nothing, when when they’re holding either one

Now there’s kids who can’t pray in school
$100 dollar tanks of gas
I can tell you right now this country ain’t
AIN’T SUPPOSED TO BE LIKE THAT!

NO!

‘Cause that ain’t my America
That aint this country’s roots
You wanna slam old Uncle Sam
But I ain’t letting you
I’m mad as hell and you know I still bleed Red, White, and Blue
That ain’t us
That Ain’t My
That Ain’t My America
That Ain’t My America
That Ain’t My America <img src=”http://img1.blogblog.com/img/icon18_wrench_allbkg.png”/> The Rising National Debt is running below

FF — the flaw in that argument is still that Brown was not even a dot on the horizon for the first year of Obama’s term in office. Remember back when the Senate did have 60 votes? They didn’t need to wait for Brown to show up to do what they did. They just want a convenient excuse for the underhanded play. Sorry, it doesn’t pass the smell test.

However this may not be brought up on the news, as to “cool” the flames, and it only counts if threats are made to Democrats. I have thought about the past two years, and how we on this blog, people at town hall meetings, literally anyone willing to wear a non-dem status, on their shirt sleeve, has been subjected to physical violence, filthy disgusting hate speech(think about the article Sara, or Lisa posted awhile back regarding all the hate spewed at Hillary and Sarah P.) accusations of racism, and out and out deranged internet stalking.  These are the tactics that were allowed to progress during one administration into another, then fueled fully by this administratiion with open and bias toward specific events unfolding(remember the “stupid” police vs. the Harvard -beer professor incident?). Then allowing the “teabaggers” label to go unchallenged, and used daily on actually live dinnertime broadcasts. All we have seen for way too long are the bullies on the playround making everyone either so angry they can’t think straight or so afraid they won’t say a thing. At some point we all get tired of the bullies, and it is how we choose to deal with them that will give us some sense of peace, as we know we no longer have any adults in the room, and we have very few hall monitors.
The ones who come here to high jack and be outright vile and threatening, and baiting, can be ignored, and we do try, but that also is like trying to ignore a bee sting over and over and over again. People are sick and tired of beinf belittled, shamed, discouraged, guilted into tolerence and  interrupted over and over by cruel, ugly, hate speech. Especially when one is subjected to it day in and day out. We come here to discuss, we come of our own free will, and yes we are aware we will not always agree. However, I personally have to go offline when it becomes such a constant stream of vile being spewed with no repercussions. Spoofing our names, making the most outrageous remarks to be left on here is no different than those fools some of which claim remarks and actions have been taken, and othersd where they actually have. It is Chicago style politics, from the blog, to the nightly news, the paper and everyday convesation, becuase this is how low the bar has been set. I will never believe it is ok to use racist words, even if you belong to the very race and you are using the words against your own group, nor any hate language which divides and classifies human beings in degrading terms, for the sake of minimizing them. I do not believe in violence as a form of protest; but I do believe in coming back full force, when I can thoughtfully and have had enough. Sometimes, I am only left with a “FU”, but it works. That is where I am at now, a big FU, to the dem party the slobbering followers, the administration and to anyone who thinks we are now going to be a nation of only one realm of thought to support.

I still say bullshit. While I don’t care for the republicans, I certainly do not care for the democrats anymore either. I could type in democrtic rule and probably get the same kind of talking points. And that leaves us where we are today. Same old shit, same old rhetoric. Now my problem is which one is going to take this country all the way down. While I don’t like the republicans, I sure hell don’t like this POS and Pelosi, Reid at all. I don’t like the road we’re on. I can live with the republicans, I not sure how long I’ll get with these guys. ANd the republicans never mandated that I buy shit!

I don’t think that FF misses the obvious.  It just spouts toxic BS in the hope that We will be so disgusted that We will miss the obvious.  Too bad it doesn’t work.

Beware the half-truth; you may get a hold of the wrong half (author unknown

We have been flagging and reporting to no avail, Annie.  If you can’t take the escalation of behavior by certain trolls then step back.

When you go against a behavior it always escalates until cognitive dissonance in the subject begins to take over and then it deflates.

Right now we have a few individuals, who by either random entry or design, are coming in to agitate.  But certainly do not want them to tell their buddies they can take over the site and change the message.

IE: Guest – with the canned talking points favorable to everything Obama

I hope they celebrate themselves into oblivion.

Oblowhard is going out to campaign for it…

I simply do not engage and scroll past them.  If there’s no challenge, no response, they’ll move on.

Study hard, do well Arabella.   Psssst I finally got a job, after looking for 12 mos. A small firm, green attorneys, but I am happy. I was a nurse in my previous years, so I know what fun you are having with these classes, by the time you get done with it all you should have a couple minors as well in the sciences and math. Good Luck!

That’s why you sometimes need to disrupt the disruptor, instead of ignoring.

But hey, what do I know after twenty plus years of working with behavior management.

Hahaha, justme…guess I think I’m the old one.

Maybe where you are, but here in Red state country – no one paid any attention.  All they knew was that Kerry was worse.

So, there’s America for you.  Not a cookie cutter nation and certainly not a one size fits all republic.

Congratulations, Katmoon!

glen ford of Black Agenda is further left than I, but he brings it in this post:
http://www.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/obama-inside-man-greatest-heist-history

It ain’t just tanning salons.  Today Caterpillar and Deere announced they were gonna take big tax hits due to Obama’s abortion.  Medtronic, Zoll and other medical device makers are talking about layoffs and/or moving jobs offshore because of the new fed tax on devices (Obama’s pal Deval Patrick is freaking because MA is home to quite a few med-tech companies.)  Verizon is talking about increasing the employees co-pay on the company’s HC plan.  That’s just the beginning.  Wait until some other companies finish wading thru the 2000 page POS. 

Obama wanted a revolution… well, that’s what usually follows a full-blown economic collapse.  Great job, Hussein!

Sorry, this is from the Wash Post.

Astute observation.

Katmoon — Woohoo! Congrats! Finally someone has good news about jobs. WTG!

getfitnow — good article!

“It’s them or us – and Obama works for them.”

Well getfitnow, that takes of the mule … now for the fourty acres.

Oh, you’re talking about the democrats, fractured since May 31, 2008.

Annie – I try, but sometimes I fail.  But I do agree that when they get too responded to, it’s just people throwing insults back and forth.  Not much fun reading, and I usually just wander somewhere else….

Katmoon – What excellent news! Congrats. That firm is lucky to have you.

Finding a job is so daunting. The hardest thing is keeping up your self-esteem and never giving up. Obviously, you have the power of endurance. Above all things (next to l’audace) I admire endurance.

Your good news has made my day. Well done!

Obots can pirouette as well ex-ballerina Rahm Emmanuel, who is looking a little green around the gills lately.