Tuesday, July 22, 2014

ObamaCare Fun Fact #1947 (no subsidies for you)

All the millions of people who signed up for Obamacare on the federal exchange — and the true numbers were disputed — expecting to get tax credits as subsidies now will not get those subsidies.

Consumers who purchased health plans on an insurance exchange run by the federal government would see an average premium increase of 76 percent if the plaintiffs prevail over the Obama administration, according to Avalere Health….

The ObamaCare law (remember Nancy "we have to pass it to know what is in it" Pelosi) specifically states that the tax credits for insurance from the ObamaCare exchanges are only for those exchanges set up "by the states". The D.C. court has ruled that because of this specific wording, insurance purchased from the Federal exchange is not eligible for those tax credits / subsidies. So anyone purchasing health insurance from the exchange, in states that did not setup their own exchanges, "no credit for you". This will likely be appealed but it is the word of the law so unless Roberts decides to just make shit up again, another law will need to be passed to fix this "issue".

As expected "Obama administration says health care subsidies will keep flowing despite court decision." the king will not be denied. The law is for the "little people".

Saturday, July 19, 2014

An Open Letter to Attorney General Eric Holder

“You are the first attorney general in the history of the United States to be held in contempt of Congress. This had nothing to do with your skin color, and everything to do with your failure to explain how the United States government provided guns to Mexican drug cartels that were eventually used to kill Border Patrol agent Brian Terry in 2010. This story may have disappeared from the headlines, but many of your fellow citizens are still upset our federal government would ever give guns to foreign criminals. Compounding this tragic error, neither you nor anyone else in the administration has explained what happened the night Terry lost his life. All we really know is that he was at the wrong end of a gun you approved handing over to drug dealers.”

That's right, it is not about race!

Friday, July 18, 2014

King Obama decrees again...

The law is what Obama says it is regardless of any silly words on paper.

The administration just took Obamacare away from the territories

The Obama administration just gave a Obamacare waiver to all US territories. How nice of them. In addition:

“The Department is committed to working with states and the U.S. territories in order to implement the health care law in a way that maximizes coverage options for consumers," the spokesman said. "As such, we are providing additional flexibility to the territories in order to implement the law in a way that recognizes their unique situations.”

Its good to be the king!

Thursday, July 17, 2014

The true cost of a cheeseburger?

Here is an article in the NYT that discusses the "true" cost of a cheeseburger. In includes gems like:

...certainly not a consequence of selling harmful food at addictively low prices.

So now low prices are additive

it certainly isn’t the sum of the costs to the world; those true costs are much greater than the price.

Didn't you know that the dollar menu cheeseburger you just got from McDs affects the WORLD! You hater!

If we acknowledge how much burgers really cost us we might either consume fewer, or force producers to pick up more of the charges or — ideally — both.

The burger "actually" costs me exactly what I paid for it.

The big-ticket externalities are carbon generation and obesity.

There it is! The stable of the left, carbon foot prints! How DARE you engage in something that does not 100% account for the carbon foot print!

The cost of this carbon is hard to nail precisely, but the government’s official monetary valuation of greenhouse gas pollution is roughly $37 per metric ton of CO2 emissions. Many experts, however, double that rate; others multiply it nearly tenfold. So the monetary value of the carbon emissions produced by the average cheeseburger might range from 15 cents (the official government rate), to 24 cents (conservative independent sources) and $1.20 (high independent). The average of these three estimates comes out to 53 cents per burger.

So, when we can't place an exact number on something, we just make shit up! We then include the made up shit in our average so that we can skew the average high! How nice.

There’s some evidence that red meat intake may increase risk of cardiovascular disease and mortality, but like many of the speculative externalities discussed below, it’s impossible to assign a cost to this.

Again, there is a cost cause there might be a link cause it seems like there should be, cause some feel it is so cause darn it, may, might, could...

Correlation is not causation, of course, and it seems likely that foods high in sugar and other hyperprocessed carbohydrates are most responsible for high obesity rates, but burgers certainly played a role in rising caloric intake.

Correlation is not causation. Darn, accidentally included an actual fact! Don't worry, we will ignore it with the venerable "but"...

Some other costs are only vaguely calculable, and we have numbers, but the ranges are so great that they’re useless; what matters, though, is that the numbers are above zero.

Seems like most of what is included here falls into the "vaguely calculable" bucket and they were included so why stop? Is it because if you said the "real costs", the "social costs" of a burger were $1000 per instead of $4, you would be laughed at outright instead of in secret?

So what is the answer? He doesn't say but one can guess. If the "true cost" of a burger is more, why lets put a "social costs" surcharge on burgers and give the extra $4 per to the government cause they are just so good at managing the money they get now. What does it matter that this is all fluff, it is working so well for the "carbon credits" scam, why not try it here too? Who cares that the will reduce the food options for millions of low income people, they have proven (by buying these things) that they are not responsible enough to have this choice. The Government will, heck MUST step in and help them make the right choice.

God these people are insufferable! I wish it were possible to give them a taste of the world they want without dragging the rest of us into it.

Thursday, July 10, 2014

The great civility of liberals

Virginia Democrat Offers Reward For Nude Photos of Big Game Hunting Texas Tech Cheerleader Kendall Jones…

Mike Dickinson, the Virginia liberal Democrat seeking the House seat currently held by Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., despite not being on the ballot, offered a $100,000 reward for nude photos and videos of Kendall Jones, the 19-year-old Texas Tech cheerleader who recently made news with a series of hunting photos on her Facebook page.

Yep, the Democrats are the "nice" and "civil" folks while the conservatives and Tea Party folks are knuckle dragging racists.