Obamacare

Good thing the Federal Reserve isn`t worried about inflation, another 2% rise is just noise.  But  when the Fed does start worrying about inflation, not only is it too late, it is 1970s too late!

This morning it was take two for the Canada jobs print, which was as follows: In July, Canada employment increased 41.7K in July according to Statistics Canada, from -9.4K in prior month. This was about 41K higher than the previous "erroneous" print, and double the original estimate: high enough to make everyone happy. In fact, it was so high, it surpassed the highest range of the forecast, which topped out at 41.4K based on 20 economists.

Remember this chart from November, when everyone was predicting a surge in global GDP and "escape velocity" growth for the US economy on the latest burst of irrational hopium that central-planning works (it doesn't)? It just got worse....

From Ukraine to Gaza, geopolitical risks are weighing heavily on investors’ minds. But there are plenty more out there that may not be getting headlines.

Tragically, the inability of our institutions to impart the skills required by the emerging economy hobble not just the unemployed but employers.

On the bright side, Marilyn Tavenner - appointed by President Obama to take over CMS within the Department of Health and human Services in 2013 - did not suffer a hard-drive crash. However, as MSNBC reports, she may be unable to cooperate with House Oversight and Government Reform Committee subpoenas because she deleted emails.

In recent weeks, Bloomberg Businessweek reports, President Obama and congressional Republicans have begun to offer the same simple-sounding solution for dealing with the flood of children crossing the U.S. border alone: Send the kids home. But with tens of thousands of them churning through the system, some just toddlers, the logistics are overwhelming. Since October, more than 57,000 children have arrived by themselves, most from Central America (as we show below), and 22,000 more have been detained with their parents (mostly children under 12). The American people appears considerably more concerned than the politicians - a Reuters/Ipsos poll shows 70% of Americans - including 86% of Republicans - believe undocumented immigrants threaten traditional U.S. beliefs and customs.

No insurance, no penalty appears to be Obamacare's new meme as The Wall Street Journal reports almost 90% of the nation's 30 million uninsured won't pay a penalty in 2016 because of a growing batch of exemptions to the health-coverage requirement. In the interests of socialism, the Obama administration has provided 14 ways people can avoid the fine (on top of exemptions carved out under the 2010 law for groups including illegal immigrants, members of Native American tribes and certain religious sects). The exemptions are worrying insurers, as they could make it easier for younger, healthier people to forgo coverage, leaving the pools overly filled with old people or those with health problems. That, in turn, could cause premiums to rise.

Argentina defaults; Russia, Ukraine, Libya, Israel, Gaza, Iraq all in a state of (hot or otherwise) war, the worst Ebola epidemic in the history of Africa, and now Obama is getting sued.

If you like your disposable income... forget it. Health-care insurance premiums for individuals in California rose between 22% and 88% in 2014 from last year, even after the federal health-care overhaul. This has led, as Bloomberg reports, to Proposition 45 - a bill that would grant regulatory say on proposed premium increases. "Unless Proposition 45 is passed we are going to continue to see dramatic year-over-year increases," warned Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones.

Two weeks ago the head of the "most transparent administration ever" (perhaps to the NSA?), president Obama, told the common American to "not be cynical" and have hope. Today, speaking appropriately in an ornate theater in Kansas City, he had a message for republicans: "Stop being mad all the time. Stop. Stop. Stop just hatin’ all the time."

This week's US data onslaught begins today, with the ADP private payroll report first on deck (Exp. 230K, down from 281K), followed by the number of the day, Q2 GDP, which after Q1's abysmal -2.9%, is expected to increase 3%. Anything less and in the first half the US economy will have contracted, something the purists could claim is equivalent to a recession. The whisper numbers are to the downside since consumption and trade never caught up and the only variable is inventory as well as Obamacare, whose impact was $40 billion "contribution" in Q1 was entirely eliminated and instead led to a deduction, something we expect will be reversed into Q2. Following the backward looking GDP (which will be ignored by the sellside penguins if it is bad and praised if good) at 2:00 pm Yellen Capital LLC comes out with a correction on her call to short social networking stocks, as well as admit once again that the "data-driven" Fed really has no idea what it is doing and how it will tighten, but that tightening is imminent and another $10 billion taper to QE will take place ahead of a full phase out in October. Joking aside, the Fed is expected not to do much if anything, which may be just the right time for Yellen to inject an aggressively hawkish note considering her inflation "noise" refuses to go away.

Well the hits just keep on coming. The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), recently conducted a study in which investigators attempted to use fake identities to sign up for subsidized healthcare under ObamaCare. The results are frightening. All but one phony applicant was successful. Moreover, the GAO more broadly notes that “about 2.6 million ‘inconsistencies’ existed among applicants who had chosen a health plan.”...  The GAO’s account of fictitious applicants obtaining subsidized coverage goes beyond a related problem that surfaced this spring and that the investigators also cited: The government may be paying incorrect insurance subsidies to a significant share of the 5.4 million Americans who signed up for health plans for this year through the federal marketplace.