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ObamaCare’s Real Price Tag

ObamaCare’s Real Price Tag
The funding gap is a canyon by year 10.

As ObamaCare sinks in the polls, Democrats are complaining that the critics are distorting their proposals. But the truth is that the closer one inspects the actual details, the worse it all looks. Today’s example is the vast debt canyon that would open just beyond the 10-year window under which the bill is officially “scored” for cost purposes.
The press corps has noticed the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate that the House health bill increases the deficit by $239 billion over the next decade. But government-run health care won’t turn into a pumpkin after a decade. The underreported news is the new spending that will continue to increase well beyond the 10-year period that CBO examines, and that this blowout will overwhelm even the House Democrats’ huge tax increases, Medicare spending cuts and other “pay fors.”
Democrats will return in the fall with various budget tweaks that will claim to make ObamaCare “deficit neutral” over 10 years. But that won’t begin to account for the budget abyss it will create in the decades to come.
Cost of ObamaCare Higher than Expected - WSJ.com

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Health Reform and the Tax Pledge

Health Reform and the Tax Pledge
Polling and focus groups have led the president astray on his top priority.
By KARL ROVE

Americans are now seeing the damage that polls and focus groups can inflict on White House decision-making. President Barack Obama is no longer shaping the public dialogue on health-care reform. Instead, he is losing control of his agenda and resorting to rhetorical tricks and evasions.
Every administration has to take into account public opinion. Without doing so, Abraham Lincoln said, little can be achieved. But too much polling doesn’t raise presidential vision. It narrows and pulls it down. Substituting a weekly dose of opinion surveys for thoughtful consideration is causing White House aides to find new scapegoats whenever administration policy initiatives get into trouble.
We see this on health-care reform, which the president’s pollsters told him—six months into the debate—he must instead call “health insurance reform,” a phrase he repeated five times in his prime-time news conference and at least 20 times in five days of appearances since.
There are no polling data or focus groups on earth that can help Mr. Obama out of this jam. He has set in motion events he appears unable to control and commitments he cannot keep. Great communicators succeed when the ideas they are communicating are sound. Tax-and-spend liberalism doesn’t work, no matter how pretty its package.

Karl Rove: Health Reform and the Tax Pledge - WSJ.com

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Teamsters Ratification of Contract Changes Moves YRC Worldwide Comprehensive Plan For

Teamsters Ratification of Contract Changes Moves YRC Worldwide Comprehensive Plan Forward
- Immediate cost savings from modified agreement estimated at $45 million monthly, increases to $50 million monthly in 2010 - Company signs additional asset sale contracts with NATMI for $81 million

YRC Worldwide Inc. (Nasdaq: YRCW - News) announced today a major step forward in the company's comprehensive plan, with a majority of its employees represented by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters ('IBT') voting '"yes" to ratify a modified labor agreement.
"With the support of our employee-owners and other stakeholders, we continue making progress with our comprehensive recovery plan - realizing efficiencies from the YRC integration, restoring financial strength and positioning YRC Worldwide for future success," said Bill Zollars, Chairman, President and CEO of YRC Worldwide. "The contract changes enable us to reduce our cost structure, preserve capital and be more competitive in the marketplace."
Teamsters Ratification of Contract Changes Moves YRC Worldwide Comprehensive Plan Forward - Yahoo! Finance

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Why Ayn Rand Is Still Relevant

Why Ayn Rand Is Still Relevant

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More than 25 years after her death - we are still in love with and obsessed by all things Ayn Rand. Visit a book store and you'll still see plenty of that precious shelf space devoted to her and her novels. Two of her books, Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead combined have sold more than 12 million copies in the US.
Her influence over the Reagan White House is legendary and now her ideas are again front and center as a new White House faces its this current economic crisis. Earlier this year in an editorial for the Wall Street Journal editorial, a writer said basically everything you need to know about how to fight a recession can be found in Rand's novel, "Atlas Shrugged."
Atlas Shrugged shows us an all-too-familiar pattern: Washington do-gooders blaming the problems they’ve created on the free market, and using them as a pretext for expanding their power. And more: it provides the fundamental explanation for why the government gets away with continually increasing its control over the economy and our lives. The explanation, according to Atlas, is to be found in the moral precepts we’ve heard all our lives.

Why Ayn Rand Is Still Relevant - Bullish on Books Blog - CNBC.com

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Deal Journal

Mean Street: Somehow, the American Dream Lives On

Meet Lauren DiCrecchio (right), age 29. She has a buzz cut, a nose ring and tattoos on both arms. She likes French rap and ’straight edge’ hardcore music, but cares neither for politics nor religion. She is America’s future–and in less than an hour’s conversation, Lauren gave me hope that the American dream will somehow live on.
Lauren works a kiosk at the giant King of Prussia Mall, selling language-education software. But that’s only a part-time gig. Her main job now is driving a FedEx delivery truck and she loves it.
Fact is - Lauren just loves working. “Forty hours is easy,” she says. Fifty, sixty hours, no problem. “Seventy is normal. But I was working 77 hours and to keep driving at FedEx, I had to cut my hours,” she says. So Lauren recently gave up her third job at the mall’s Apple store.
Mean Street: Somehow, the American Dream Lives On - Deal Journal - WSJ

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Morning Bell:

Is Obamacare Consistent With Our First Principles?

During one of Sen. Arlen Specter’s (D-PA) early health care townhalls in Lebanon, Pennsylvania; mother of two Katy Abram told the audience: “I don’t believe this is just about health care. It’s not about TARP. It’s not about left and right. This is about the systematic dismantling of this country. I’m only 35 years-old. I’ve never been interested in politics. You have awakened the sleeping giant.” Abrams is dead on. Our federal government has, unfortunately, long been drifting away from the limited government principles first envisioned by our founders. But over the past eleven months, that drift has turned into an all out sprint towards an undemocratic, technocratic, leviathan state … a type of government that our Constitution was specifically designed to prevent.

Morning Bell: Is Obamacare Consistent With Our First Principles? » The Foundry

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Opinion WSJ.

Palin Wins

If she's dim and Obama is brilliant, how did he lose the argument to her?

The first we heard about Sarah Palin's "death panels" comment was in a conversation last Friday with an acquaintance who was appalled by it. Our interlocutor is not a Democratic partisan but a high-minded centrist who deplores extremist rhetoric whatever the source. We don't even know if he has a position on ObamaCare. From his description, it sounded to us as though Palin really had gone too far.

A week later, it is clear that she has won the debate.

Palin Wins - WSJ.com

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Opinion

The Greenback Effect
By WARREN E. BUFFETT

Here, the United States is spewing a potentially damaging substance into our economy — greenback emissions.
To be sure, we’ve been doing this for a reason I resoundingly applaud. Last fall, our financial system stood on the brink of a collapse that threatened a depression. The crisis required our government to display wisdom, courage and decisiveness. Fortunately, the Federal Reserve and key economic officials in both the Bush and Obama administrations responded more than ably to the need.
The United States economy is now out of the emergency room and appears to be on a slow path to recovery. But enormous dosages of monetary medicine continue to be administered and, before long, we will need to deal with their side effects. For now, most of those effects are invisible and could indeed remain latent for a long time. Still, their threat may be as ominous as that posed by the financial crisis itself.
An increase in federal debt can be financed in three ways: borrowing from foreigners, borrowing from our own citizens or, through a roundabout process, printing money. Let’s look at the prospects for each individually — and in combination.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/19/opinion/19buffett.html?_r=1


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Honda

Report: Honda to sell electric cars in US

TOKYO - Honda Motor Co. plans to introduce electric vehicles in the U.S. early next decade, joining a growing number of automakers vying for the lead in clean technology development, local media reported Saturday.
Japan's second-biggest car maker, which has focused on gas-electric hybrids so far, is building an all-electric prototype to be unveiled at the Tokyo Motor Show in October, according to the Nikkei financial newspaper. It said Honda would begin sales of electric vehicles in the United States in the first half of the decade.
Report: Honda to sell electric cars in US - News Wires - CNBC.com

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Personal Finance

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What You Should Know About Risk

Are you still game to take a bull market by the horns or ride out a long slump?
The volatile ups and downs of the market this past year have led many investors to rethink their appetite for risk. It's a crucial element in an overall investment plan, but many people likely don't know where they stand these days.
Some investors may be tempted to turn to an online calculator for help. While such tools can be useful to help pinpoint what's most important to you in retirement or how much of a loss you could stomach, their use as genuine assessors of your ability to handle investment risk is limited.
What You Should Know About Risk - WSJ.com

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New Penn

Teamsters: YRC gets little interest in New Penn

YRC Worldwide Inc. has been exploring sales of subsidiaries that include New Penn Motor Express Inc. but has received little interest, its union said.
That leaves New Penn union workers with little choice if they want to keep the subsidiary operating past September, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters members said in a letter to New Penn members. Falling trucking valuations and the potential of having to cover unpaid pension payments have kept most potential buyers away, the union said in the letter, dated Aug. 18.
“Unfortunately, we have been formally notified by YRCW’s vice president of labor relations, and have also accumulated evidence from the field, that YRCW is prepared to shut down New Penn entirely and rebrand all remaining equipment and terminals as YRC exclusively going forward,” the letter said. “As difficult and distasteful as a revote is to conduct, it is our firm belief that New Penn Motor Express will not exist as a motor carrier past September if the (concessions are) rejected again.”
Teamsters: YRC gets little interest in New Penn - Kansas City Business Journal:

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For those following the Health Care Reform debate, should read this article from the CEO of Whole Foods.

The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare
Eight things we can do to improve health care without adding to the deficit.

By JOHN MACKEY

"The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out
of other people's money."

—Margaret Thatcher

With a projected $1.8 trillion deficit for 2009, several trillions more in deficits projected over the next decade, and with both Medicare and Social Security entitlement spending about to ratchet up several notches over the next 15 years as Baby Boomers become eligible for both, we are rapidly running out of other people's money. These deficits are simply not sustainable. They are either going to result in unprecedented new taxes and inflation, or they will bankrupt us.
While we clearly need health-care reform, the last thing our country needs is a massive new health-care entitlement that will create hundreds of billions of dollars of new unfunded deficits and move us much closer to a government takeover of our health-care system. Instead, we should be trying to achieve reforms by moving in the opposite direction—toward less government control and more individual empowerment. Here are eight reforms that would greatly lower the cost of health care for everyone:
John Mackey: The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare - WSJ.com

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Roundtable: Will Health-Care Reform Kill Capitalism?

In a brief respite from debates centering on the state of the economy and whether you're for Jon, Kate, or plus 8, health care has taken center stage at water coolers everywhere.
The Fool offices are no different. Our opinions are varied on the health-care reform plans President Obama and Congress are busily debating. So we asked a smattering of Fools: "Will Health-Care Reform Kill Capitalism?"
Roundtable: Will Health-Care Reform Kill Capitalism?


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Obamacare: The Only Exit Strategy
By Charles Krauthammer

Obamacare Version 1.0 is dead. The 1,000-page monstrosity that emerged in various editions from Congress was done in by widespread national revulsion not just at its expense and intrusiveness but also at the mendacity with which it is being sold. You don't need a PhD to see that the promise to expand coverage and reduce costs is a crude deception, or that cutting $500 billion from Medicare without affecting care is a fiction.
Isn't there a catch? Of course there is. This scheme is the ultimate bait-and-switch. The pleasure comes now, the pain later. Government-subsidized universal and virtually unlimited coverage will vastly compound already out-of-control government spending on health care. The financial and budgetary consequences will be catastrophic.

washingtonpost.com


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Republican Says Democrats in Cap-and-Trade ‘Disarray’

Inhofe claims delay of bill shows wavering support for climate-change law

A Senate Republican believes Democratic support for climate-change legislation is wavering after sponsors announced introduction of their cap-and-trade bill will be delayed until later in September.
Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., said the delay was “emblematic of the division and disarray in the Democratic Party over cap-and-trade and health care legislation – both of which are big government schemes for which the public has expressed overwhelming opposition.”
However, Inhofe also pointed to a letter last month from 10 Democratic senators to President Obama telling him they could not support cap-and-trade legislation that did not protect U.S. industries from competition from countries that did not adopt similar climate-control restraints. All 10 were from industrial or coal-producing states.
“Cap-and-trade has pitted Democrat against Democrat,” Inhofe said. “As to just who will win this intra-party squabble, I put money down on those representing the vast majority of the American people, who are clear that cap-and-trade should be rationed out of existence.”
Republican Says Democrats in Cap-and-Trade ‘Disarray’ | Journal of Commerce


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Obama and the Bureaucratization of Health Care

The president's proposals would give unelected officials life-and-death rationing powers.

By SARAH PALIN

Writing in the New York Times last month, President Barack Obama asked that Americans "talk with one another, and not over one another" as our health-care debate moves forward.
I couldn't agree more. Let's engage the other side's arguments, and let's allow Americans to decide for themselves whether the Democrats' health-care proposals should become governing law.
Some 45 years ago Ronald Reagan said that "no one in this country should be denied medical care because of a lack of funds." Each of us knows that we have an obligation to care for the old, the young and the sick. We stand strongest when we stand with the weakest among us.

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We also know that our current health-care system too often burdens individuals and businesses—particularly small businesses—with crippling expenses. And we know that allowing government health-care spending to continue at current rates will only add to our ever-expanding deficit.

Sarah Palin: Obama and the Bureaucratization of Health Care - WSJ.com

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Transports Helped by FedEx Outlook

Stocks Falter as Gold Jumps
Transports Helped by FedEx Outlook, Oil's Dive

Stocks declined on Friday, ending a recent winning streak that carried markets to the highest levels of the year.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which had risen nearly 350 points over the last five sessions, declined 22.07 points, or 0.2%, to 9605.41. But the blue-chip measure rose 1.7% this week, and is up 9.5% for the year to date.
On the eighth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, the Dow ended one tenth of a point below where it closed Sept. 10, 2001 -- 9605.51. Markets reopened after the attacks on Sept. 17, 2001.
Despite the small pullback, betting on transportation stocks, which may be among the first to benefit as the economy recovers, suggested that investors remain generally upbeat. The Dow Jones Transportation Average gained 2% amid a 6.4% surge in FedEx shares, after the package delivery giant issued upbeat earnings guidance.
Stocks Falter as Gold Jumps - WSJ.com


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9-12 Tea Party Rally in DC

Anti-Government Protests Draws Tens of Thousands to D.C.

Tens of thousands of conservative protesters crowded outside the U.S. Capitol on Saturday, a massive demonstration aimed at stopping what organizers called the over-expansion of the federal government under the Obama administration.
"Hell hath no fury like a taxpayer ignored," declared Andrew Moylan, head of government affairs for the National Taxpayer Union, urging protesters to call their representatives. "You're being ignored today by the media and some politicians."
The crowd -- loud, rambunctious and sprawling -- gathered at the foot of the Capitol after a march along Pennsyvania Avenue from Freedom Plaza. Invocations of God and former President Reagan by an array of speakers drew loud cheers, echoing across the Mall. On a windy, overcast afternoon, hundreds of yellow "Don't Tread on Me" flags flapped in the breeze, mingled with U.S. and Texas state flags.

Anti-Government Protests Draws Tens of Thousands to D.C.

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Google injects search savvy into display ad system

Google injects search savvy into display ad system

Google draws upon expertise in search advertising to sell more visual marketing messages

Google Inc. is counting on the crown jewel of its online advertising empire to burnish a diamond in the rough. Hoping to take an even bigger bite out of ad budgets, Google has melded the technology powering its lucrative search marketing network with a system that it bought 18 months ago to sell online billboards and other more visual commercials, including video.
The long-awaited combination poses another threat to Yahoo Inc., whose profits have been sliding the past three years. Yahoo is the Internet's largest seller of display advertising, a mantle that Google has set its sights on. Microsoft Corp. and Time Warner Inc.'s AOL also operate large exchanges that help manage display ads.
The upgrade announced Friday has been something Google has been working toward since it bought DoubleClick Inc. for $3.2 billion a year-and-a-half ago. Google prized DoubleClick largely for its tools for selling and serving display ads.

Google injects search savvy into display ad system - Yahoo! Finance


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