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Another Great Depression Comparison
ThoughtOfferings takes a unique angle on Great Depressions comparisons, and instead of focusing on earnings and multiples, demonstrates the similarities between corporate dividends which, like everything else, indicate an eerie comparison to the dark days of 1930. The chart and commentary below are sourced from TO:
- While Doug Short's charts have already shown the similar stock price trend now compared to the Great Depression, the recent trend in dividends and earnings is amazing similar to the Great Depression trend as well! (At least if one compares operating earnings today with reported earnings back then, since operating earnings did not yet exist).
- While anything could happen in future months, the current trajectory of dividends (down 11% from peak) is looking slightly steeper than the Great Depression decline. Since reported earnings have fallen so severely even relative to the Great Depression, and reported earnings are a closer representation of actual cash flow than operating earnings, the downward pressure on dividends seems like it should be much greater than during the Great Depression — unless reported earnings can stage a miraculous recovery. Is there a reason I'm not aware of why this conclusion is wrong? If correct, bonds may look increasingly attractive relative to stocks for income-seeking investors.
Dividends, along with CapEx and Taxes, are the key corporate cash outlay mechanisms. And if CapEx trends are any indication, and taxes will not be a concern for most companies due to massive accumulated NOL carryforwards during the last 2 years, it is increasingly likely that dividends will continue to suffer and decline, probably to GD corresponding levels. This is going to impact traditionally dividend-heavy issuing REITs most of all, which will likely continue to issue stock-based dividends for years, thus increasingly diluting existing shareholders, while preserving the much needed cash for the CRE crunch starting in 2012.
As for the historical comparison, ThoughtOfferings sums it up best:
To me, the clearest value in these charts is yet one more piece of evidence that this recession/depression is very comparable to the Great Depression, despite the claims of many people that this period is "nothing like the Great Depression." And I did check the data for the years since WWII and found no other dividend declines near as large as today's, so this is not a normal recession pattern. That said, these charts say nothing about the future and what will result from current government stimulus and any structural economic differences that may be relevant. Stock prices, earnings, and dividends could immediately start heading sustainably higher and break from the Great Depression trend, or they could keep heading down. My personal view is that the downside probabilities are much higher than the upside ones (with flat being another feasible path somewhere in between), but everyone needs to make their own determinations and none of this is investment advice.
So there you have it - another data set confirming that the similarities between today's situation and that of 80 years ago can be extended to yet another dimension, with the main sticking difference, of course, of free liquidity and tight bid-ask spreads compliments of those remaining computers who still trade this market.
h/t Richard
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shhhh Comrade Obama is on TV
I can not figure out the underlying strategy behind the health care stuff. It's OBVIOUSLY vital to some larger plan but don't know why.
you are correct - obama was appointed president
over hitlary because the oligarchy thought he
would be able to shove health care down our
throats since she had a failed record...so we
have hillary care 2.0 before us...
the reasons are entirely totalitarian and have
nothing whatsover to do with concern for those
without insurance....
compulsory universal health care has 3 goals:
1. complete ownership of personal information in
order to better control the person and people
2. control over breeding to remove undesirables
3. control over death to remove undesirables and
to feed securitized life insurance policies to
wall street.
the main purpose is population control and
eugenics....
regarding the latter point, there are firms which
buy out life insurance policies from senior
citizens before maturity such that the seller
does not suffer the huge surrender value loss...
the buyers of these securities carefully select
tranches to find those people with the highest
likelihood of dying...the hope is that they
can buy securities whose underlying people are
closest to death and earn the huge windfall....
now if the government controls your health care
you can be assured that some folks just ain't gonna
make it...
http://dailyreckoning.com/could-wall-street-be-any-less-popular/
Ya. That makes sense. I tried to completely shut off any sort of normal sympathetic reaction during the speech by shutting down heart chakra to nothing and that speech was just so faked, shaked and baked. I still think it has to do with getting more taxes and more control over persons wealth as well giving larger pools of cash to eat from. He just made up that crap about Kennedy and his wife even felt a bit ashamed about it. Well not him but his speech writer. LOL She still has a little bit of heart left but not much.
edited:
Dang. This is how they are going to handle the baby boomer problem.
also this.....
obama was selected, not elected. he was groomed for this position since the day he was noticed by the zionist political arm of the aipac. obama is nothing less than a extension of the old chicago jewish mob facit of jewish political power in these amerikan states. there are a lot of muslims in chicago that are saying obama is not a muslim and never was, even though he has a muslim name more or less, one of many names he has used over his life , i might add.
they didn't choose hillary because they figured they could not trust her. remember. she kissed arafat's wife that time back in 1999...aipac does not forget and never forgives. of course hillary is jewish and she is also from chicago. so they win either way and this is the name of the game anyway. we always have two choices and both choices are controlled by the same people, our true enemies.
http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/12143/gop-jews-air-ads-showing-first...
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21449.htm
According to a nationally prominent Zionist spokesperson, former Congressman, Federal Judge, White House Counsel to President Bill Clinton and early backer of Obama, Abner Mikvner, “Barack Obama is the first Jewish President”. Mikvner’s affirmation reflects both Obama’s one-sided and longstanding commitment to the State of Israel and loyalty to the Zionist Power Configuration (ZPC) in the United States, as well as the long-term and successful effort of a network of financially and politically powerful Jewish Zionists to ‘embed’ Obama to their ‘Israel First’ political apparatus. What is striking about the latter is the demeaning and arrogant claims made by some leading Jewish Zionist about their ‘central roles’ in the making of Obama’s professional and political careers – in effect denying the President-Elect any credit for his own academic or professional success. (Historically this has been mirrored in the continuous claims of some American Jews to have fought and won the battle of Civil Rights in the 60’s on behalf of African Americans – essentially denying black Americans any independent political role in their own struggle.) Even their personal flattery about his ‘wisdom’, ‘brilliance’ and ‘intellectual acuity’ is always linked with his unconditional support of the State of Israel. One can envision how quickly his Zionist colleagues would replace their plaudits with crude insults regarding his intelligence if he suggested Israel end its starvation blockade of Gaza… Needless to say the Zionists know their man, as they confidently proclaim, he is a cautious and prudent politician, who measures power before he speaks, especially as he has filled the White House, economic councils and security apparatus with Zionist zealots.
Zionist's? Where did that come from?
Oh, that was just the obligatory anonymous fringe Jew-hater drive by.
If he had any guts, he'd put his name to it like some other white supremacists/separatists do.
IMO this whole Zionist conspiracy is just more smoke and mirrors, but that's only because I love yanking back curtains.
He lives in a house where the TV talks to him and the tinfoil is plastered over all the windows...
I saw a bumper sticker once that said "Ask Me About The Tin foil On My Windows."
Hahahaha. Wrong blog buddy. But I do find your ignorance humorous. Marla, perhaps we up the captcha difficulty?
No shit! the zionist conspiracy is way out of place here.
Somebody will buy a peprback edition of it at the airport though I'm sur.
Dude; LOL
Yep, I'm sure they won't pull the plug on Grandma but give them twenty or thirty years and pulling the plug on you will definitely be on the table.
You really can't take a TODAY approach to this issue, get down the road a bit, imagine the entrenched bureaucrats, budget-funding issues, politics, ..you die, sorry, Goldman Sachs gets your life insurance payout. You're screwed.
I am tiring of the White House chatter, the guy needs to get some work done and quit being an attention whore, maybe GE/NBC can just set up a separate cable channel for him.
i had enough of his and WH staff's chatter for a couple of months already. be like Bush talk as little as possible.
Bush talked as little as possible only after he got his war for daddy. The rethuglicans and the whinocrats only appear different to divide the ignorant.
Health care is rot-gut whiskey, gun fluid and a swab, cauterizing brand and sanitary napkin, bed-blanket-fluids-love. In order of health emergency magnitude.
Truth is most doctors and hospitals harm or kill more than they spare.
Use discretion, avoid hospitals, and for god's sake, don't get sick.
Healthcare Reform 2020
Seriously?
1. All other industrialized nations have public health-care. Yet some how they are not "hitlerized".
2. Like population control would be a bad thing? Free birth control for every person over the age of 16, plus decent sex education, would be the greatest plan politicians would NEVER endorse.
3.Control over death to remove the undesirables is currently being executed by the insurance companies. You think they aren't going to benefit massively by securitizing life insurance policies?
+10
incidently, China is still buying California....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e68x0czcCSw
One of Prof. Panarin's predictions include California becoming part of China or under Chinese influence...
http://tinyurl.com/a4wkge
Well said Lizzy...
ditto, the arguments against socialized health care fall short of any rationality when you critically examine other western industrialized nations effectiveness in implementing it in their own countries.
This is a nation of greedy, self-absorbed individuals that are unwilling to look deeply into the root causes of the conditions they find themselves in.
Both sides of the isle, in the house and the senate, have been bought and sold long ago. The differences between right and left is mere window dressing to influence both sides of the non-debate to the gain of those that are in power.
The New World Order has arrived people. Wake up!
i never said that they would be hitlerized and
yet in holland which has legalized euthanasia
large increases in death of elderly have been
recorded...
population control is a bad thing...there is no
need for it and when administered by the state
spawns enormous evils...there is no reason why
the state should invade anyone's bodies and play
god over life and death and parcel out care
based upon their determinations of merit...i am
not interested in subsidizing anyone's choices
which also have moral facets...
i also do not see sex education as the province
of the state
no doubt that insurance companies are playing
god over life and death which is one reason i
would not want to scale it up to the government...
this is a great fallacy of socializing
costs - it actually increases them and produces
life threatening delays in care which is why
many from europe and canada come here to operations.
a government which saw no moral issue in administering
syphliss to blacks will feel no constraints for
other forms of experimentation....
the insurance companies will not benefit
from securitized life insurance policies as they
will probably have increased payouts and losses...
the same totalitarian creeps who own obama want
to own everyone else....no thanks.
"this is a great fallacy of socializing
costs - it actually increases them and produces
life threatening delays in care which is why
many from europe and canada come here to operations"
Let's see the choices:
Have the possibility to get an operation right away but be denied by the HMO / get it but be in depth $50k+ OR get it for free but have to wait a bit.
Hmmmmm....I will go with the latter choice. That's what we have in Canada.
No---we don't all wait like the MSM in America wants you to believe; I never waited for any of mine. And my wife got her transplant immediately. All for $100/month universal healthcare. And she doesn't even have to wear a hammer and sickle tattoo over her scar.
Yes---some of us might to the USA for a quicker operation---those are the ones who can afford to jump the line e.g. hip surgery. Those cases are few and far between; I have never heard of anyone, rumour or first hand, go to the USA for anything medical. Check out how many Americans are going to special hospitals in India and other countries for cheaper, better, and faster operations.
And no---we haven't killed off all of our elderly. No soylent green up here.
Sex education not being the province of the state? Really. So no AIDS information? Ignorance better? Let's go back to coat hanger abortions?
Stop it with the MSM bullshit on non-USA healthcare.
The healthcare corporations make billions keeping people like you brainwashed with knee-jerk jingoistic rhetoric.
I do not believe that universal health care is a bad thing. I only disagree with the approach the current administration is taking. Once again, it seems like the government is blurring the line between provider of service and facility and enforcer of service. They might give you lower costs, but only if you tolerate the ever inreasing public debt and loss of privacy.
The general impression I get is that a simple straight forward socialization, which would be good IMO, is the not the goal here, and instead it is the meshing of public and special interests. They seem to think that once the infinite balance sheet of the government comes into the equation, backing the private system, everything will be fixed.
The health are system is fundamentally flawed, just like the economy was back in February, but the administration seems to think that putting a couple hundred billion into the system along with a new web of efficiency improving beuraracy will be the bandaid that fixes everything.
And population control IS a bad thing. No matter how you spin it. Nothing against spending more on eduction but I am very much against having the government involved in life or death decisions, no matter how supposedly complicated or simple.
You are a kind, compassionate, caring human being, lizzy. I can tell. But, you seem to be missing the pattern that has developed over the last few decades. The power-seekers don't take over in one fell swoop, they take it in little pieces over time. And they count on all that is good in you in order to do it. They have been counting on the decency and grand charity of the American people, who just want things to be "fair" and live their lives in peace. Do not be fooled. Don't let them use your heart to kill a nation.
The elderly Brits get killed off more often than not.
Their choice? Not anylonger.
Statistics on this don't lie.
You want a public option?
You want a heartless bureaucrat installed into office by a pharmaceutical lobby to determine whether or not you're worth receiving treatment?
I don't. That's why I and many other Canadians flock for treatment to the US. Oh well, once you're system is fucked up as ours we will fly to Mexico or anywhere in the world where good old hard cash gives you treatment when you need it.
Be warned.
1. All other industrialized nations send their worst cases to the US when they can't handle them, and are also seeking private options to their public problems regarding health care.
2. Population control, via education, is not a bad thing. But as a goal in itself via any method, is absurd.
3. Control over death to remove undesirables is happening? Proof, please? Last I saw, anyone can take extraordinary measures - all you have to do is avoid signing a DNR.
The concept that "Rationing" is happening now is a lie and a misconception. Rationing would imply that I cannot get the care I need when I want it - nor could my neighbors. Last I saw, I was able to have my elbow and knee fixed in 8 weeks, while my neighbor got his ankle healed in a similar time frame. Where was the rationing?
Sadly, since my elbow was an immediate problem, I may get that fixed with Obamacare, but my knee (a chronic problem) would be pushed off for years as they dealt with the sniffles and coughs of children who are being overindulged by their parents.
I've seen public care at work in Army and VA hospitals. It ain't pretty. When something like healthcare is "free", those who need it least overburden the system with unnecessary visits.
I see this in business, too. The deals I close that bring in the least value require the most work. I have had to develop systems to reduce effort on these accounts....something that cannot be done in healthcare.
Consider this - in almost every industry, increasing and improving capital LOWERS COST and INCREASES PRODUCTIVITY. In healthcare and education, increased capital does neither, as they are labor intensive industries. As a result, human capital carries much higher costs - thus inflation rates in these industries will almost always exceed the average.
Lizzy I've always been a proponent of gradualism when it comes to government. I don't like abrupt policy changes or abrupt (or any) expansion of government—once government arrives at the party…. they don’t’ leave. Government health care falls under this category. Before we (corrupt politicians) vote in a sweeping new healthcare reform bill, why not try a couple of simple and logical things that WE ALL KNOW WILL SLOW OR DECREASE THE COST OF HEALTH CARE!
Firstly, allow coverage to be purchased across state lines to spur greater competition. Competition always decreases the cost of a product—very simple. Secondly, why not eliminate the one-sided deductibility of health care benefits. Don’t allow corporations to deduct the cost of health coverage while not allowing the individual to deduct the cost. Allow EVERYONE to deduct the cost or no one.
We try these two very simple and logical things and then…. Gradualism is key here. No reason to turn this country into a giant health care experiment overnight.
delete
null
this post is just total idiocy
null
eugenics and populations reduction...its that simple.
Power.
What other explanation do you need?
Three things:
1.Control over life itself is a political power grab - the IRS has been used by administrations to punish opponents, what could you do if you had a hospital that everyone (friends and foes) had to frequent at your disposal? The Eugenics movement is alive and well, and many secular humanists believe we should aid "evolution" in advancing mankind including the elimination of diseases and a more beautiful looking and intelligent population through genetics. This is a fact presented without judgment, I'll leave that for the situational ethics groups to debate.
2. Demographics (obesity, smoking&alcohol cancer rates, & baby boomer aging - drive costs) I am sure the aging baby boomer generation would be considered a demographic disadvantage related to the political campaign promises that have been made from both sides (medicare/social security). It's bankrupt, Joe Biden & Obama already said it - we're out of money and we'll go bankrupt if we don't spend money. We are not guaranteed to live forever, and I can guarantee that there will be tough choices ahead. Our citizens have gotten fat, lazy, and complacent with no focus on individual responsibility for their own health (give you a hint - less calories, more activity, avoid risky behavior)
3. Medical company profits are very high and medical costs in general have continued to increase for the last twenty years for both individuals and companies (a large portion of corporate expenses). If they continue at the current rate, it will account for total GDP in 20 years.
Strategically, something must change. I would argue tort reform should be included and any public choice should be an option only not mandatory. Without tort reform, I would ask how the government would actually reduce costs - in a country that accepts abortion, it is not really a large ethical jump to also accept euthanasia. The youth of the nation won't stand by and be taxed 95% to ensure baby boomers live to be 110 years old.
Spot on.
Except for the fact that not only the Supreme Court has set guidelines for judgment size (BMW), but most states have already implemented tort reform...
This is why obama had to go to the healthcare industry and beg them to flat out reduce their costs...
I can't count the number of times I've gone to a mechanic or dentist and been told, "this is the price if you have insurance, but it's half this if you don't."
Rather than outsourcing just our manufacturing jobs to China can't we outsource elective surgeries as well? The Doc's might get pissed but hey...
#64644 - Spot on. I have already outsourced any major dental work (e. g. crowns or root canal treatments) I need to Poland. One crown here in New England costs US$1,150.00, in Poland - less than US$200.00. Some Americans travel closer to home, i. e. to Costa Rica and Panama to fix their teeth there.
So-called health care reform has been and still is mainly about totalitarinism and political oppression, but in THIS moment it is mainly about the expediency of diversion to cover and obfuscate the criminal ponzi banking system's gargantuan thievery that is still in progress. Lencho
They gotta bunch failing MediCare with a younger group.
To no one in particular:
Do you know anyone who has ever had to visit a series of doctors before an accurate diagnosis was found?
If not, have you ever seen the commercials on TV for the "Cancer Center of America"?
Look, no one has ever died because an insurance company refused payment. Many, many have died because doctors have refused to act unless a payment method was established
But I guess I'm alone in this.
Medical schools in this county are very restrictive of
of admission, but when is the last time you were seen by a doctor with a degree from the US?
Why is this?
(On the lighter side, why do they almost all have the last name of Patel? Google it and be amazed!)
Have you ever seen the bills submitted by physicians and other health care concerns for your care or how much the insurance company actually paid? Have you ever considered that the difference between billed and paid = tax deduction?
Have you ever heard of a CPT code or read the AMA's description of its use? If so, have you ever had the temerity to actually question a bill? A consultation fee is not a 2 minute inquiry into what my symptoms are. There is no separate fee for making the incision and then another for suturing it back up.
Is "reasonable and customary" really an insurance company conspiracy? Is this the same fee your doctor charged in his home country?
Have you ever called in advance and "shopped" for a price, Have you ever seen a list of doctors in your area on sanction from Medicare for their questionable practices?
Insurance companies have both but will vary on what they pay based on a myriad of factors.
**Did you or have you ever heard one politician say one thing about reforming the other side of the issue, (the other tango partner as it where)?**
You sure didn't tonight.
You probably never will.
I wonder why?
"Is this the same fee your doctor charged in his home country?"
Yes, because his home country is probably the US now. I get my healthcare at one of the top medical research universities in the US, and there are many foreign born doctors, all of whom are highly qualified and intelligent professionals who I am happy to trust with my medical care, mostly educated in the US too.
I don't care where my doctor comes from, I care what his skill level is (which in the case I just stated is top quality). You should be happy that we still have world class facilities that can attract top talent from all over the world. This is one of the few true assets remaining in this country (of course Obama will probably fix that).
I don't know if we breathe different air up here in Canada but we have public health care and enjoy it.
I have a wife and two children. We pay about $100/month for universal healthcare. We get all medical treatment free of charge (no deductible). We have had CTs, MRIs (and no, we didn't wait 6 months), Xrays, blood tests, operations, a bone marrow transplant, chemo, etc. and didn't pay an extra dime. Please don't fall for the old argument that our taxes are so much higher--I make $70k (about $60k+USD) and pay 30% total income tax
Up here, we just can't understand how Americans are so complacently paying $500+ for inferior welfare and then screwed by HMOs when making a claim. Americans pay the most for healthcare of any industrialized nation.
I just don't get it.
Please don't fall for the lobby-paid politicians telling you universal healthcare is communist, etc.
I cannot believe the level of predatory capitalism that is so prevalent.
In no way do I feel superior by living in Canada; I simply feel relieved because I am afraid as hell for what American families have in store for themselves.
Sorry--just frustrated for you guys.
Have lived in both countries and used both systems... the crap they spin about the Canadian system is insane. It's a great system. If you have a problem you just walk into a clinic and you are promptly looked after. Hospital emergency rooms are another matter but if it's serious they will get to you very quickly. Even if you are an American.
Ya plus the girls taste like maple syrup.
Sweeeeeet!
Gotta be honest, the man gives one helluva speech.
Honest to whom? If you think that was a helluva speeh I've got a chalkboard that needs some nails run across it.
What's up with Obama's head jerking back and forth? Did the Kennedy clan have a beer pong table set up in the back benches?
He's juggling teleprompters.
LOL, lost my coffee on that one.... thanx!
Seems I've seen this movie. Fine language, all the appearances, a good tan baritone uniquely delivered. Good King Bama ken fix'it fer yah.
I'll lay it on the line, for yah.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hdrcDDqRHk
Dont degrade the Fuhrer like that.
Obama’s speech was the most partisan, arrogant presentation ever given by a U.S. president. And the partisan doesn’t mean Democrat Party. It means Government Party. Obama is party leader. His speeches, his face, are everywhere…on the stump, in arranged prime time, on You Tube, in the government schools. When a congressman catches the president in a lie, the Government Party’s John McCain steps forward to back the party leader. If this scene in the halls of Congress last night does not demonstrate the hold of a one party system, then what does?
The light at the end of the tunnel???...or an oncoming Train?
Looks like Bernanke's homework paid off. He recreated it pretty faithfully even with different control mechanisms in place. Granted some of those had to be removed for the last few years to pull it off.
You forget one salient fact, during the "Great Depression", the US was a large creidtor nation and overall debt elvels were much lower. Today the corporate sate of America is a massive net creditor nation with its citizenry up to its eyes in personal debt.
great video no naked capitalism and market ticker....debtor revolt starts now...check it out
maybe we could get it on zero hedge....somebody....its critical....must see
I don't know what state that girl lives in but let me say this. It is not just that simple to say to the credit card company that you will refuse to pay them. It is a good thing, that she says she has no assets. This is good. It all depends on what state she lives in as to what will happen next about this. Make no mistake about it. Debt never goes away. There are only two ways to get rid of it. Pay it and/or settle it, or discharge it through bankruptcy and that is it. Otherwise, it lingers and it will bother her for a very long time perhaps, perhaps her whole life. They are sue happy nowadays and they will sue her at the drop of a hat. For BoA it will probably be Wolpoff & Abramson, LLP, out of jersey. the biggest collection of goons this side of hell.
If everyone decided to stop paying, they couldn't sue us all. I realize that is pie in the sky thinking, as most of America would rather get a hydrochloric enema than release the tit of the oppressive banksters, but if power in numbers ever counted, it counts now.
that reminds me of the time i was listening to patriotard radio and some preacher was on there talking about how he was going to lay hands on something and by the power of God, make it go away and all of that. I said to myself, self, why is it he doesn't go lay hands on the FED?
DOD, the problem is we have a bunch of pussies in this country that will not stand up to much of anything. That red head has some fire in her belly and for this I applaud her stand. I hope everything turns out well for her. If she lived around me, I would do everything I could to help her, not for money, just because I like it. I like beating them at their own game. It is fun to me. The juice is in the knowledge. Always was and always will be. That is why lawyers have their own little special language they use and rules that they play by. Once you get a line on what all of that means, you are in like flint and their ain't a damn thing they can do about it. When I look at a judge, I see some punk sitting on a platform 4 feet off of the floor, with a black dress on. But I digress. The fact is DOD, all you have to do to see if the sheep in this country are beaten and beat down good, is to go to traffic court some night and watch the scenes that unfold in there as these fools cry and carry on and beg and plead and beg that the mean old state will please leave them some morsels to eat after they have raped them real good over some stupid unconstitutional traffic ticket that some unconstitutional cop has written probably because some poor sap doesn't have his seatbelt on or is driving a few miles over the speed limit. I rest my case. Your witness counselor.
penny ante corruption. Your in the big league's bullpen. Straighten up and fly right, or play ball on another field.
And don't forget the T to hold your hard ball.
oh one more thing DOD. Aaron Krowne over at ml-implode was imparting some advice at the bottom of that video, talking about how everyone should max out their credit cards and go buy gold and silver and bullets. Sometimes I wonder how many people are doing just that. ha ha
What if there's no fucking alternative?
The woman in the vid is a step away from being a transient. She pays here bills for now and has a place to sleep but she's in between careers.
WHAT PART OF ECONOMIC DEPRESSION DO PEOPLE MISUNDERSTAND?
U6 going towards 20% and NO JOBS anywhere! The few jobs out there are min. wage jobs that create a slave society.
Slave workers with millstones of illegitimate debts around their necks.
Tipping point is now.
Once you had "net worth" and a "portfolio" and you're loosing your job with no opportunity and no prospect of a better future, you have 2 choices:
EFF YOURSELF
EFF GOVERNMENT
Revolution is coming when TVs get turned off and the internet takes over the role of news network.
GOVERNMENT - MEDIA - CORPORATE - COMPLEX is real and cares a flying fuck about you or anyone individual. They want your money and your absolute and unequivocal obedience and discipline. They say "debt is good" - you expected to go out and take a loan. They say "nationalized health care is good" - you wonder why it's taken so long.
Think for yourself. Stop paying attention to the propaganda around you 24/7.
The debt may never go away, but time bars on legal recourse will limit the actions of any collector.
true.
one of the coolest things to happen in recent years is that they have just about 86st that scam known as arbitration. so now they go straight to the lawsuit and try for a default judgement. 99 percent of the sheep never put up much of a fight and just bend over and take it without the benefit of ky....
Talked to Chase today... and I wanted a lower interest rate on my credit card... I am at 10% which is a little too high imho... especially since I have no limit as to what I can charge... they said they have frozen every customer's interest rates and they cannot be changed... and to check back in a month or so... wonder whatz up with that... and I don't think she was jerking my chain either... never had anyone say that before.
Wouldn't hurt to call back and ask a supervisor to send you their new interest rate policy on your account in writing, since it seems to have changed since your last disclosure.
Good idea... thanks...
they can do whatever they want with your rate...
it was lying to you....
i would close the card if it were me.
ten percent? we should all be so lucky. never look a gift horse in the mouth minnesota nice...:)
just remember. one false step and it is 30 percent, faster than you can take a breath.......
They haven't frozen shit. They're now wholesale raising rates across the board, generally up a factor of 1.5, or 1.7 from where they sit now. I had a 10.49% APR, and due to "recent regulatory and economic changes" they made some changes. So, good luck.
Not entirely true, there are statutes of limitations in most states ranging from 4 to 7 years, after which the creditor cannot sue, plus each delinquent account can stay on credit report no longer than 7 years. After these two have passed that debt is effectively worthless and can only be used as a scare tactic.
Has anyone seen a chart comparing US earnings, multiples and/or dividends with Japan's dividends in the 1990s ?
What if the only thing Bernanke learned from his studies of the Great Depression was that it is most important to keep the Dow, S&P and Nasdaq pumped up? For years?
lol...nice!
I like to think the lesson he learned was this:
Monetary Policy is rather like Peter Pan. The magic only works if you believe in it.
BINGO, Dixie !!
The Fed knows the mark-to-myth strategy in financials only works if equity capitalization levels are in synch with the overall con. Thus the computer froth created by the JPM/GS crowd in a volumeless market. They know it too.
A perfect symphony with Ben as the maestro ...... a title bequeathed to him by his predecessor.
It depends on how long some of these guys can cover their dividends.
Dupont currently has a payout ratio of 233.95%, like holy F*&*
That sounds like some of those fleabag CEFs that are out there. Just a wealth redistribution scheme, with a 1.5% expense ratio. Here's a fine example:
http://www.cefa.com/FundSelector/FundDetail.fs?ID=99157
Typical covered call S&P fund. Paying out 18.17%, but only earning 1.21%. The math is pretty simple.
BEO is another one.
http://www.cefa.com/FundSelector/FundDetail.fs?ID=104440
For the past many months, it's been trading at a healthy premium to NAV. And don't even get started on AOD. I have to say that the monthly payouts have made this junker a real beauty to the beer google traders out there.
"This is going to impact traditionally dividend-heavy issuing REITs most of all, which will likely continue to issue stock-based dividends for years, thus increasingly diluting existing shareholders..."
Stock dividends are not dilutive.
Depends if you are taking the stock div or the cash. I still can't grasp owning (holding) REIT stock and continually electing to receive no cash. I know the arguments made in favor of doing so; it just strikes me as gullible in the long-term.
Good point. A lot fo solid on this sight, but the fact checkers ain't New Yorker grade...
They are confusing dividends with return of capital, which some of the REIT funds do. VNQ does this managed payout thing. Vanguard makes special note of it in the prospectus. It's very common in the closed-ended fund world. At least it was until Q3 08 when everyone realized that Things Are Different Now and those payouts have been curtailed or eliminated entirely.
Listen to a Liar. Must read if you are listening/evaluating Obama's speech by Thomas Sowell.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=36218
-10
Read that on Townline today. Sowell - now he would make
a great president. I still watch old videos of him and how
he deconstructs the drones.
+10
it is 1913 all over again regarding the federal
reserve and income tax...
more importantly it is 1933 all over again with
the reichstag fire...
kenyan born indonesian cia asset barry soetoro
mubrak hussein obama is not to be trusted under
any circumstance...he's the devil in disguise with
apologies to elvis...
apparently this site gets taken over at night by right wing rednecks........I'll come back tomorrow when it's jes right wing traders..........
+100
I think Biden is actually shedding a tear as the memory of his dear friend Ted is recalled: the President is now mentioning all of Teddy's friends: his friend John McCain; his friend Orin Hatch; his friend Mary Jo; Milhous's dog Checkers
S&P 500
Obama's last few words included a very interesting
comment about why government is needed. He said
without gov't markets will/would crash. Now is this
a statement for the next crisis - to justify the propaganda
machine? Will he be saying (after the correction), like
I said on September 9th, we need government more
than ever? So my question is - is the selloff planned?
Never let a crisis go to waste especially if you can create,
or rather plan your own at the right moment.
I love one part of your prediction in particular. President Obama never fails to cite to his previous declarations of the same point, as if that somehow verifies the point. "Like I said on August 24th, it's all wee-wee'd up." Listen closely -- it happens again and again. But just because you said something stupid more than once doesn't make it true.
but when you are trained by goebels' protoges
it becomes truth because power is truth...
http://thinkexist.com/quotation/-if_you_tell_a_lie_big_enough_and_keep_repeating/345877.html
Hey John...
Does the bloated corpse symbolized America or am I barking up the wrong tree?
I think the State would have had a much easier time managing dissent if Al Gore had never invented the Internet...
i bet he kicks himself every morning over that
one.
Cramer, as well as guest contributors here at Zero Hedge have noted an inverse correlation between Obama's approval rating and the direction of the markets, ie, the recent 6 month rally in the market has been on the back of a 6 month decline in Obama's approval rating. If this rallyies the people back to Obama's side, I would surmise that the sell off would be underway.
Besides let's not forget, it was Bush who intervened into the free market to "save the free market", the gov't has already been used to postpone the crash.
Points well taken. I will watch for this very
correlation - and I hope you are half right.
There is also an obvious positive correlation over the last 6 months between avg. daytime temperatures in the US and the stock market. How long can the temperatures stay up, as we head into "autumn"?
On a lighter note... care to see what $100,000,000,000,000.00 dollars looks like?
http://cgi.ebay.com/Zimbabwe-10-20-100-TRILLION-CURRENCY-MONEY-2009_W0QQitemZ310131764576QQcmdZViewItemQQptZPaper_Money?hash=item48354b2d60&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14
And you can get it all for the low, low price of $17.99!
I'll pay you in Zimbab dollars O.K.?
Companies pay out a lot less these days in dividends (on a yield basis) then they did back then too, therefore starting from a lower base. Dividends are virtually non-existent in US stocks, the cash is paid to executives and "top talent", not shareholders.
The dividend will ensure that actual "investors" stay away from the market basically forever, until it returns to its rightful place as a mechanism for companies to earn cash for and return cash to shareholders.
Bingo. No dividends no bull market. Until bonus for execs = large dividend payout that they benefit from because they have a large number of shares nothing good will come in(vesters) or out of the stock market.
whenever i see these comparative charts i'm reminded of paul tudor jones and his analog model prior to the '87 crash. if we experience another drop, these data points will likely force some conformity to the earlier pattern. the trader rocks
I think the Fed made it real clear today. The only way to have a strong recovery is with exports. First currency to the bottom wins.
my guess is that the chart will follow the 1929 timeline more or less. so that means, another drop, then a leveling off, then another drop etc. so this thing will go on for years. the way i figure it, all of these companies that have been dressing up their bottom lines to try and meet wall street expectations, are just about cut to the bone as far as expense reduction is concerned, unless they do more layoffs, etc. this year was so so but next year, yikes! we shall see how this flu episode unfolds and of course the wild card, the attack by the israeli lunatics on iran.......
At 666 you had the bottom here.
At 999 it was the retest of the low in this upside down world.
And now at 9/9/09 we have anothe rpost for those who believe that news is actionable in this market when it isn't!
http://aaronandmoses.blogspot.com/2009/09/999.html
At S&P just below 1000 or at 999, the trading recs. went out to either go short or prepare to go short.
The house knew this and has crushed many determined shorters or inverse etf buyers since last week.
They are not going to pull the plug until every last Mom & Pop retail account has invested 100% into a long bull market because they either give up the resistence or panic that they've missed the greatest buying opportunity in their life time.
That could happen soon.
The next serious decline will be mind blowing and earthquake like shattering. A 1000 point drop at open or similar will set the stage.
You and I will most likely not profit from the turn so be careful not to leave money on the table. When things unfold you will not be able to sell in time because there are no buyers, not even shorters to cushion the blow.
My prediction is for a complete crash of epic proportions in at least 2 yrs time.
This is a depression. There is no growth, there is no recovery. There is alot of misery and its getting more painful to watch every day. The dream is dead and it won't come back, not in most people's life time.
Check out this link and track the quotes made then to the comparable point in history we now find ourselves in!
Far from the most prescient, nor an exact match to the date 79 years ago, according to the White Album today is is 9/9/9/
"September 12, 1930
"We have hit bottom and are on the upswing."
- James J. Davis, Secretary of Labor."
For a good scare, check out the rest:
http://www.safehaven.com/article-7107.htm
Barrick Gold and their bullion bank partner J.P. Morgan were the target of lawsuits by the gold bulls, most recently Blanchard and Company, for price manipulation through the use of forward sales in their hedge book. The contention was that the selling was being used to manipulate the price of gold.
Barrick's initial defense was that if they were acting in conjunction with the central banks, they were therefore immune from prosecution since the central banks are immune from prosecution. Details of that story are here. The public document that Blanchard had put forward was shocking in its implications indeed, and can be seen here.
http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2009/09/barrick-capitulates.html
Well, one thing your author should stop talking about is "stimulus." Since when is corporatism "stimulus." Indeed, it has never been--it has been utterly deflationary and has degraded the supply chain. So yes, there is something he doesn't know:
DEMAND IS COLLAPSING.
At the end of the day, unless you can buy a controlling interest in a company and force liquidation, dividends are the only reason to own a stock. I think it was some fool like Benjamin Graham who said that. Anyway, as a "bond guy", I totally do not understand most stocks. they seem to exist only to enrich management and shareholders.
I should know, my wife works for a tech company and gets many times her base pay in options and RSOs, and got a shitload of options in Feb, near the low. Criminal. We'll take the money, though.
Errr , other than shareholders and employees , who else is meant to be enriched from equities? Sounds like win-win. Unfortunately it has been higher level employees getting rich at the expense of shareholders.
Re public healthcare. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater! IMHO, and barring anyone more qualified to speak I offer the following;
Australia has public and private health care. Everyone pays 1% of taxable income - higher incomes pay 2%. Private health Insurance is optional(buyable) - has a 30% tax rebate and you don't pay the govt levy. All GP visits are rebated by the govt for a 'standard' consultation per clinical procedure. Many doctors require a co-pay and some charge a large co-pay, or you can pay full price with no rebate. (It coasts around $35 to $45 a short visit. Fall and break your leg? You can opt to go public or private. Can go private in a public hospital and have choice of doctor/surgeon. If you go public in a public hospital medical registrar sees you under the supervision of a specialist, unless complicated. May or may not get a private room - depends on medical priorities -the DOCTORS decide. Or you can go to a private hospital. Private health insurers will usually preclude treatment for pre-existing conditions, but there is the backstop of the public health system. It is MY UNDERSTANDING that health insurance companies cannot veto, preclude treatment or decide medical treatments - it is always a clinical decision. (I think this is the concern of many of you here) Obviously some rationing is done depending on equipment/surgery waiting list and availability of beds in hospitals. Problem with public health system is elective or non-urgent surgery - can wait for months or even years for cataracts or hip replacements and such. Something minor needing day surgery? If not wanting to be on a waiting list for public, can go to a private day hospital and pay the difference between the gov't rebate for the clinician fees for that item and what the specialist charges and, just pay the $1,000 or so for the hospital 'stay' (4 hours)- maybe around $2-3,000 total. Cancer? The public health system gives it priority. Medical decisions made by clinicians not bureaucrats. The hospitals are administered by state governments but funded by federal govt, so lots of buck-passing. The system is creaking due to overcentralisation of hospital bureacracies by multiple successive Labour (read- democrat) entrenched/spinmeister/lying/crony state governments. It needs to return administrative decision-making to local hospital boards with more input by local clinicians on the ground.
But mostly it works well, in spite of said bastard government health bureaucrats.
There is a problem with low GP (primary care) numbers, due to undue influence on government funded university places for doctors by the AMA.( Most universities here are public. It would be nice to break the power of the AMA, but they do a good job keeping the government honest in other ways. (Seems they didn't figure that the dramatic increase in women wanting to be doctors would translate into lots of part time doctors given woman's propensity to procreate and put family first) Thus a large number of young foreign hospital medical registrars at present.
There is also a problem with many sick old people taking up beds, for sometimes months, while they wait for a place in a nursing home. Beds are scarce in nursing homes, both private and non profits, because of the huge compliance costs and low ability to pay by most old people. These are allocated on need, by clinicians, and there is a thorough network prioritising constantly with all the hospitals and nursing homes. But,something has to give here.
The pharmaceutical benefits scheme allocates certain drugs for government subsidy - it's never comprehensive enough, but its OK and, there is the option of paying privately.
The system could use some tweaking, but it works.
Seems Obama's health proposal has lots of holes and opportunities for gouging by self-interested parties but, public health systems CAN work if designed carefully. Obama's isn't one of them.
I can't believe some of the things Americans write about health care. Dressing up the initiave as some kind of government plot against the people. Seems to me many of you just could not give a sh*t about anyone poorer than yourself. You have a third world country inside a first world one. Wake up!
The United States does not have a third world country living inside of it. From the Heritage Foundation:
The following are facts about persons defined as "poor" by the Census Bureau, taken from various government reports:
* Forty-six percent of all poor households actually own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio.
* Seventy-six percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, 30 years ago, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.
* Only 6 percent of poor households are overcrowded. More than two-thirds have more than two rooms per person.
* The average poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities throughout Europe. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.)
* Nearly three-quarters of poor households own a car; 30 percent own two or more cars.
* Ninety-seven percent of poor households have a color television; over half own two or more color televisions.
* Seventy-eight percent have a VCR or DVD player; 62 percent have cable or satellite TV reception.
* Seventy-three percent own microwave ovens, more than half have a stereo, and a third have an automatic dishwasher.
Thank you. Our poor are among the richest people in the world. You can not have a sane conversation about poverty talking in terms relative only to the US -- have to talk about it in absolute terms. Does nearly everyone in the US have food, shelter and clothing? Yes. Free medical care at any emergency room. What else is suppose to be provided for them? If folks want help, programs and charities exist. Many, many do not really want to work (exert themselves) to help themselves. I gladly contribute (which is different than govt confiscation) to those in need, but Americans do not have a clue what poverty is.
WOW
So--we should believe whatever the Heritage Foundation states?
I could counter with Karl Marx. Would that be as reliable a source?
“Death panels?” Ha, ha, giggle, giggle! “Pulling the plug on Grandma?” Pleeeeze, snicker, giggle, keep the nut jobs off the stage; who’d be fiendish enough to set something like that in motion?
Well…Zeke might just be the guy, and his powerful influence on health care legislation is not so funny.
Obama’s healthcare advisor, Dr. Ezekial Emanuel, is not a difficult man to understand. He clearly doesn’t believe the State should pay expensive medical costs for individuals with terminal illnesses, aging people, infants…
The problem develops, however, with the fact that he clearly believes that the State should be given permission to make these decisions; not insurance companies and certainly not the individuals themselves. His advice and support for a single-payer system and the rush to get Obamacare established identifies his purpose. With all Dr. Emanuel has stated, he goes even further. His brand of bioethics would begin the selection of withholding medical treatment from individuals, not only on age or status of illness, but on their worth as citizens. Or to put it more simply, on who deserves to live. Dr. Emanuel makes it crystal clear, just read the words he’s written. In the final analysis who would make these end-of-life decisions ? Well, if no one else is willing, I guess he, White House hammer brother Rahm, and Hollywood CEO hammer Ari, would have to do it.
Here are Dr. Emanuel words, taken from the WSJ's “Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel Wants Health-Care Rationing":
“Dr. Emanuel argues that to make such decisions [whose life is worth saving], the focus cannot be only on the worth of the individual. He proposes adding the communitarian perspective to ensure that medical resources will be allocated in a way that keeps society going: ‘Substantively, it suggests services that promote the continuation of the polity—those that ensure healthy future generations, ensure development of practical reasoning skills, and ensure full and active participation by citizens in public deliberations—are to be socially guaranteed as basic. Covering services provided to individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens are not basic, and should not be guaranteed. An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia.’" (Hastings Center Report, November-December, 1996)
The bioethicist also puts the youngest at the back of the line: "Adolescents have received substantial education and parental care, investments that will be wasted without a complete life. Infants, by contrast, have not yet received these investments…As the legal philosopher Ronald Dworkin argues, “It is terrible when an infant dies, but worse, most people think, when a three-year-old dies and worse still when an adolescent does,’ this argument is supported by empirical survey.” (thelancet.com, Jan. 31, 2009).
The WSJ link includes among other things, a graph of Dr. Emanuel’s Reaper Curve--Principles for Allocation of Scarce Medical Interventions" The Lancet, January 31, 2009. Dr. Emanuel used The Reaper Curve chart in a Lancet article to illustrate the ages on which health spending should be focused.
In The Reaper Curve, the “Probabililty of receiving an intervention” ranges from “Minimum” to “Maximum,” Ages 0 to +70, with practically zero care below age 1 year rising to “Maximum” care at about age 23, with chances of “intervention” falling constantly until age 53 where it takes a sharp swing downward to nearly “Minimum” care for those in their late fifties and beyond.
A Radical Solution for America's Insolvent Financial System
The core problem of the United States' banking system (and maybe the world's banking system) is not liquidity but insolvency. The liabilities of the United States' banking system exceed the value of its assets. The issue is not only the toxic assets (toxic mortgage backed securities, toxic commercial real estate loans, sub-prime mortgages, alt-A loans, adjustable loans likely to go bust, increase in prime mortgage default rates, etc) but also off-balance sheet liabilities (such as expected huge unaccounted for future derivatives losses).
This means that bailouts are just beginning and will require bigger and bigger sums of taxpayer money as time goes on. The government will resort to borrowing more and more and eventually to printing money when treasury debt auctions start failing. The end result of this path is a currency collapse and probably total chaos as expected by gold bugs.
One other way to deal with this issue is to stop the bailouts and let the dominoes fall. Defaults and cross-defaults will cause many, many depository institutions (even very large ones) to collapse leading to extreme decrease in money supply as bank deposits are destroyed. Deposits of failed banks cannot be used to pay bills, make purchases and/or service debts.
Which will probably lead to even more defaults as unemployment increases and debtor's are unable to service their debts. This process will probably cause extreme deflation as businesses lower prices in a bid to survive. This will also lead to wage cuts, increased unemployment and a deflation spiral and much chaos. But probably less chaos than a currency collapse.
Is there a better way?
Here is my idea:
1) We essentially need an orderly bankruptcy and liquidation of the United States' financial system.
2) I suggest we create a government owned bank and transfer all deposits of the private commercial banking system to the new government owned bank. This "transfer" is really just new money creation. This new money will be digital cash (electronic version of physical paper cash). Very much like reserves at the FED.
3) Note that the plan will not create net new money since we will be destroying all deposits of the commercial banking system in the process.
4) All assets of the commercial banking system will be transferred to the government and auctioned off in an orderly manner over the next 10 years. The proceeds from the sale would go the United States treasury and not the commercial banks. The assumption here is that commercial banks deserve nothing since the entire industry would have been most likely destroyed any way. Even good banks would have been destroyed due to bank runs and defaults if the government had allowed the dominoes to fall. Of course bank shareholders, bank bond holders and counter parties of bank derivatives would not receive anything.
5) After the transfer FDIC protection will be removed for any private bank which wishes to remain in business or any new private depository institution or bank. From that point on the government should make it absolutely clear that there will be no more bailouts and no more conversions. This will discourage (but not completely eliminate) fractional reserve deposit banking and private money creation that results from pyramiding of government created money. This will also limit debasement of the currency that results from fractional reserve deposit banking. In fact, we can have "free banking" from that point on and not even have reserve requirements or capital requirements. All depositors who use private banks will be fully at-risk. The industry will have to set the interest rate high enough to attract depositors.
6) The new government bank will act as an electronic "piggy bank" only. All deposits will be 100% reserve and it will not make any loans. Loan making will be left to the private banking system (with no deposit insurance or a possibility of a future bailout). The new government owned bank exists only as a "safe" money storage and a payment clearing system so the public does not have to carry around physical paper cash to make purchases and pay bills.
7) Of course this plan is not without pain or cost. Cost of funds for banks and borrowers will probably rise as bank deposits are a source of very low cost money for the banks. Nothing is free. We are just exchanging higher cost of funds for removal of systemic failure risk. Economically we are recognizing that when money is loaned there is always credit risk.
8) We are just separating the payment and clearing transaction system which is absolutely necessary for day-to-day commerce (no credit risk) from the loan banking and investment system (has credit risk).
The entire acounting of our financial system is a SCAM. When it was gold based it was a scam purely fiat it's still a scam. Just because you FEEL like charging interest to loan gold it doesn't mean gold feels like adding more atoms and getting bigger to accomodate your growth of wealth. Just because you feel like turning a 100,000 house into a 200,000 thousand dollar house through interest and 30 year amortization of loans doesn't mean a house FEELS like becoming worth $200,000. In fact the house feels like it needs a new roof, paint, new sinks and definitely new carpet. Money is the liquid representation of solid assets. You can't inflate solid assets just because someone feels like it's owed to them. It becomes distorted and is forced to correct. It's not just a morally corrupt system. It's mathematical madness. A lie of abstraction at best, a plan of deception and diminishment for all who participate in it fairly.
Forge your calculators into knives, beat you computers into hammers. Let the runners of the scam know that they fight thinking men and women who will not allow paradoxes to control them. We'll have no more madness.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16gSKtVtrsc&feature=related
To post #64498
Health care Reform is currently not just a distraction from Big INSOLVENT Banks, but also from HR2454 ( Climate Change - Man is God Bill ) which is creeping its way through Senate committee as we speak . Hell who cares about health care if you are TAXED on the air you breath . Never thought I would see this happen . Then there is the Internet Security Bill , which will block each and every one of us from freely stating our opposition to this corrupt administration and its equally corrupt cronies in business ( AKA BANKING )
4 horsemen
This is nothing like the great depression. Back then, I never felt comfortable going to sleep, because I had brothers and sisters disappear at night, and I never saw them again. It got so bad my father would have to beat me to sleep with a half-empty bottle of gin.
He wasn't my real father, of course. Nobody had those back then. It was some guy who always wanted to play that game Don't Tell Mommy when mother was out selling Lays potato chips on the street corner.
We used to go down to the boarded up bakery just to stick our noses through the knot holes of the plywood and smell the fading aroma of bread. After a week of eating nothing but hay, it was like heaven. Sometimes the plywood would give me a sliver, and I'd take it out with my teeth... and not want to stop.
Back then, we also had 7-digit CAPCHA questions, and the box would move when you tried to click on it.
+100 LMFAO!
Schumpeter (1934): "... [D]epression are not simply evils, which we might attempt to suppress, but – perhaps undesirable – forms of something which has to be done, namely, adjustment to previous economic change. Most of what would be effective in remedying a depression would be equally effective in preventing this adjustment. This is especially true of inflation, which would, if pushed far enough, uindoubtedly turn depression in the sham prosperity so familiar from post-war European experience, but which, if it be carried to that point, would, in the end, lead to a collapse worse than the one it was called to remedy."
Re: Public Health Care.
This is simply unconstitutional in the U.S.A. The Supreme Court has essentially declared that the "general welfare" clause gives congress nearly unlimited power and the Executive and Legislative branches have used that decision to expand the scope and power of the federal government beyond anything that could be imagined even 75 years ago. This interpretation of the general welfare clause makes no sense based on the wording of the U.S. Constitution, which only grants specific and limited powers to the federal government.
Read up on the history of the supreme court decisions on this issue and you will discover that this is a relatively recent decision, apparently resulting from pressure from the White House.
Section 8, U.S. Constitution.
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
general welfare != individual welfare
Government health care looks like this. And no matter what the Veterans Administration says, the V.A.’s so called “Death Book” is still on its website. (http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/The-Death-Book-and-Obamas-defense-54547917.html)
The V.A. booklet, "Your Life, Your Choices," was pulled earlier by the Bush Administration but re-instated recently by Obama healthcare and is "currently undergoing revision for release in VA."
It’s a 54-page guide to help the wounded/depressed/ill or elderly under V.A. care to choose death over life, if in their opinion, a lessened quality of life warrants it. It’s to help them decide if they or a loved one is a "vegetable," or burdensome to the family, or say, "if walking or getting around gets too difficult," life is worth living.
In short, the booklet encourages death. This is government health care.
The point is that some people don’t want to be coaxed into dying, particularly someone who’s been in a war, maimed and/or depressed. When servicemen are low, no one has the right to do this to them, to encourage them to die. That’s why this little book’s being called a "death book," because of its similarity to the Obamacare death panels.
If the government will encourage servicemen to die, it will encourage anyone to die. And, eventually, there will be no choice.
Some people say they don’t mind assisted suicide. But surely the rest of us should have a right not to agree and to reject it. What many people don’t understand is that "assisted suicide" never ends there. It leads to euthanasia. The real reason behind the people who push for death panels is their interest in thinning the population of people who are undesirable to them. Now it’s the people who cost too much, i.e., the old or wounded veterans who are getting too expensive. In a few years, it will be the people who are not of the right religion, or the right race, or the right political party, or who live in the wrong part of the country. Next, it will be the people who talk back, or who are causing trouble, or who are against the state.
In Holland, the old people there suffer their ills in silence at home. They are afraid to go into the hospitals—where euthanasia is openly practiced. They fear they will never come out again.
The breaking story of the V.A.’s death book is still a hot item—it’s a lead in to Obama healthcare. Of interest is a transcript of the "Death Book" Debate on "FOX News Sunday" (August 23, 2009) With Chris Wallace."
In the debate, JIM TOWEY, FORMER DIRECTOR OF FAITH-BASED INITIATIVES IN THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION, said: "My problem with the document, Chris, is that the author of it is a proponent of assisted suicide. He's way out there on that issue. And the V.A. has been using this. A new directive just came out in July, urging providers to refer patients to it. So in my view, there should be a balanced treatment. And this is a slippery slope that kind of makes people — when you look at the document, it makes people feel like they're a burden and that they should do the decent thing and die.”
Wallace then questions TAMMY DUCKWORTH, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF VETERANS AFFAIRS, who refused to debate with Towey: "I want to ask you about the worksheet, page 21 in the V.A. booklet. You're a hero who, despite severe injuries, lives a full life, but you have to get around some of the time in a wheelchair yourself. Do you have any problem with the V.A. asking elderly veterans whether life is worth living if they have a disability, if they live in a nursing home, if they're unable to shake the blues?"
When Wallace got no definitive answer he tried again: "... why would a question — I can understand questions about if you're in an irreversible coma, do you want us to pull the plug. But why — as I asked Mr. Towey, why would you even have a question in a — in an end-of-life counseling book about if you're in a wheelchair, if you're living in a nursing home, does that make life worth living?"
After several more attempts by Wallace, Duckworth still did not give an answer.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,541820,00.html
Here are some excerpts taken earlier from "Your Life, Your Choices: Planning for Future Medical Decisions" which I found at:
http://www.ethics.va.gov/YLYC/YLYC_First_edition_20001001.pdf
EXCERPTS:
People have very different notions of what it means to be a "vegetable." Here are some more examples:
· ‘You sit in a chair and don’t do anything all day.’
· ‘You can’t read anymore.”
· ‘You’re just a body with some life in it.’
Questions to consider:
Do you think Tom’s parents kept him alive long enough? Too long? Why do you feel this way?
What if Tom were 69 instead of 29? Would it make a difference? Why?
Do you share Mrs. Park’s views about when she wouldn’t want treatment to prolong her life?
For you, is there such a thing as unacceptable quality of life? Where would you draw the line?
Do you agree with Mrs. Ruiz’s decision to send her husband to the hospital? Do you think she followed his wishes?
Here’s a sample of the kinds of questions that are answered in the Resources section:
· What makes life worth living?
· What if someone you love needs a feeding tube? What are the pros and cons?
· What can you do to keep the courts out of these advance care planning decisions ?
What makes your life worth living? Check one: Life like this would be 1) difficult, but acceptable 2) worth living, but just barely 3) not worth living 4) can’t answer now:
a. I can no longer walk but get around in a wheelchair
b. I can no longer get outside—I spend all day at home.
c. I can no longer contribute to my family’s well being.
d. I am in severe pain most of the time
e. I have severe discomfort most of the time (such as nausea, diarrhea, or shortness of breath).
f. I rely on a feeding tube to keep me alive.
g. I rely on a kidney dialysis to keep me alive
h. I rely on a breathing machine to keep me alive.
i. I need someone to help take care of me all of the time.
j. I can no longer control my bladder.
k. I can no longer control my bowels.
l. I live in a nursing home.
m. I can no longer think clearly—I am confused all the time.
n. I can no longer recognize family/friends.
o. I can no longer talk and be understood by others.
p. My sitution causes severe emotional burden for my family (such as feeling worried or stressed all the time).
q. I am a severe financial burden on my family.
r. I cannot seem to "shake the blues."
s. Other (write in):
Instructions : To help others make sense out of your answers, think about the following questions and be sure to explain your answers to your loved ones and health care providers.
If you check "worth living, but just barely" for more than one factor, would a combination of these factors make your life "not worth living?" If so, which factors?
If you checked "can’t answer now," what information or people do you need to help you decide?
Personal and spirtual beliefs:
I believe that it is acceptable to consider the financial burden of treatment on my loved ones when making health care decisions on my behalf.
In Weighing pros and cons of treatment for different chances of recovery:
Imagine that you are seriously ill. The doctors are recommending treatment for your illness, but the treatments have very severe side effects, such as severe pain, nausea, vomiting, or weakness that could least for 2-3 months. I would be willing to endure severe side effects if the chance that I would regain my current health was: high (over 80%), moderate (50%), low (20%) very low (less than 2%). Yes. Not sure. No.
Feelings about quality of life: My life right now is just fine; My life right now is difficult, but acceptable; My life right now is worth living, but just barely; My life right now is NOT worth living.
Communicating Your Wishes:
Your Vision of a Good Death
Organ Donation
Funeral Arrangements.
J.R.,
I have seen many, many deaths... some 'good' and some 'really bad'... your 'death book' is simply a 'health care directive'so people can express what they wish to happen in certain circumstances as they age. But since you are fervently opposed to a 'health care directive' here is what can happen to you if the stars do not perfectly align so you can die peacefully in your sleep...
I have seen this before... many times... and that could be you JR... and with the small step of completing a 'health care directive' you could have specified what you would want to happen ahead of time... and if you did not want them to not treat the pneumonia when you had the mind of an infant you could have specified that... or if you wanted the 'I want everything done approach' then you could have specified that... your choice.
I have seen other wonderful deaths with people who have preplanned what their wishes are... the family feels supported and they don't find themselves in the position of trying to guess what their 'loved one would want' because their loved one has already expressed their wishes.
So, JR if you continue on this bandwagon with your 'way-farther-than-right-wing' friends then you can guess the kind of end-of-life experience I wish for you all... enjoy yourselves.
What happens to the reserves of the health insurance companies? Are they tied to the lines of health insurance, or are they pooled with the other lines of insurance?
If the government option assumes all risks, might the government also demand any insurance company funds already reserved against such risks?
I'm pretty ignorant of the details of the insurance industry, but it does seem like there's a large pool of money in the reserve funds, just waiting for the right thief.