Obamacare

The 1,582-page (apparently bipartisan) omnibus spending bill announced last night adds up to a cool $1.1 trillion. As Bloomberg reports, lawmakers notes "not everyone will like everything in this bill," and we can see why. There is no IMF funding, nothing that "blocks Obamacare," the IRS gets a reprimand - barring them from targetng groups based on their ideological beliefs, preserves language that blocks Federal funding for abortions and spending any money to legalize marijuana. But, perhaps the most critical aspect of the bill is the NSA is required to give Congress number of phone records collected, reviewed during last 5 yrs, including estimate for records of U.S. citizens (among other things). Will that be one step too far for the administration?

By now the distinction that "enrollment" in Obamacare does not actually mean coverage should be painfully clear: one still has to pay, and according to a recent analysis up to 50% of "enrollees" in any given state have not paid, which means the White House's number of 2.1 million sign ups through December 28 is vastly overstating the reality (especially if one ignores the 5+ million of torn up, lost insurance policies as a result of Obamacare). But even if one clearly delineates what is meant by "enrollment" in the most epic failure of a ponzi scheme to ever emerge from a developed nation (with a recently disclosed penchant for Big Brother-yness), what conclusions can one draw about the current participants in obligatory, socialized insurance as most recently disclosed by the administration? Here is the summary: only 24% of all new insured are in the targeted 28-34 age group; only 21% of participants will get no subsidy (which means 79% will be subsidized), and finally more women (54%) than men have signed up.

For the current administration, now with a fresh developer to fix all the problems (with the website), the reality of public perception over Obamacare has gone from worst to worster-er this week. As Gallup polls show, nearly half of Americans say the Affordable Care Act will make the healthcare situation in the U.S. worse in the long run. When asked more broadly if they approve or disapprove of Obamacare, Americans come down on the disapprove side by 54% to 38% - a new record low for 'approval'.

Thought the incredibly unpopular Obamacare health plan (the most epic disaster story was the woman who was touted as a success and then later kicked off her plan) had put most of its problems behind it? Think again. Yesterday, after the stock market close, health insurer Humana warned that the “risk mix” of those who have signed up for the program will be “more adverse than previously expected.” In plain english what this means is that only old and sick people are signing up, while younger generations with piles of student debt, a couch in their parents’ basements and no jobs decide to ride things out uninsured.

Have you seen the economic recovery? We haven’t either. But it is bound to be around here somewhere, because the National Bureau of Economic Research spotted it in June 2009, four and one-half years ago. It is a shy and reclusive recovery, like the “New Economy” and all those promised new economy jobs. I haven’t seen them either, but we know they are here, somewhere, because the economists said so. At a time when most Americans are running out of coping mechanisms, the US faces a possible financial collapse and a high rate of inflation from dollar depreciation as the Fed pours out newly created money in an effort to support the rigged financial markets. It remains to be seen whether the chickens can be kept from coming home to roost for another year.

Proving once again that if you want something done wrong, and preferably at massive cost overruns, then just leave it to the government, moments ago news broke that the main IT contractor behind the embarrassment that is healthcare.gov - CGI Federal - has been fired. Who could possibly foresee this? Well, anyone who had actually done some diligence on the clusterfuck that is CGI Federal, and which as WaPo profiled some time ago, "is filled with executives from a company that mishandled at least 20 other government IT projects, including a flawed effort to automate retirement benefits for millions of federal workers, documents and interviews show." Make that 21. "A year before CGI Group acquired AMS in 2004, AMS settled a lawsuit brought by the head of the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, which had hired the company to upgrade the agency’s computer system. AMS had gone $60 million over budget and virtually all of the computer code it wrote turned out to be useless, according to a report by a U.S. Senate committee." Sounds like the perfect people to hire in order to make a complete disaster out of the Obamacare portal - almost as if by design. But the best news? Obama's little tryst with CGI Federal cost US taxpayers only $292 million. As Vanity Fair revealed recently, "According to congressional testimony, CGI stands to be paid $292 million for its work on healthcare.gov."

The Empire will protect itself from itself, from its own greed, corruption, malfeasance, incompetence and especially from its oppressed and enslaved citizens.

While excess risk-taking and broken markets likely dominate their thinking, the 'real economic recovery' meme the Fed is using to enable them to 'taper' their excesses. However, investors remain assured that if things get worse once again then the Fed will crank the presses and save the assets. It seems they have found their new excuse - no matter what...

*LACKER EXPECTS 'A LOT OF TURMOIL' IN HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY
*LACKER SAYS FED WILL BE WATCHING HEALTHCARE CLOSELY IN NEXT FEW YEARS

So, despite admitting asset-bubbles, fears over stock-multiples and excessively easy lending; the Fed will launch QE5 when Obamacare drags the US economy into trouble...

So much for the recovery. Moments ago December nonfarms were revealed at just 74,000 a huge miss to expectations of 197,000 - the biggest miss Since December 2009. The drop from last month's revised 226K was the largest since December 2010. Other notables: the change in private payrolls was a tiny 87K vs expectations of 200K. Mfg payrolls added just 9K vs 15K expected and down from 31K. Average hourly earnings for all employees rose 0.1% vs. Expected 0.2%. The good news: the unemployment rate plunged to 6.7% from 7.0%... For all the wrong reasons - the number of people not in the labor force rose to a record 91,808,000. As a reason for the plunge the BLS says there was a major weather effect seen on the forced part-time series, and notes the decline in healthcare which is rare and part of the sector slowing. Thank you Obamacare. And now bring on the Untaper.

Risks surrounding the looming release of the latest jobs report by the BLS later on in the session failed to weigh on sentiment and heading into the North American open, stocks in Europe are seen higher across the board. The SMI index in Switzerland outperformed its peers since the get-go, with Swatch Group trading up over 3% after the company said that it expects good results for 2013 at operating profit and net income level. At the same time, in spite of stocks trading in the green, Bunds remained better bid, with peripheral bond yield spreads wider as market participants booked profits following the aggressive tightening observed earlier in the week amid solid Spanish bond auctions, as well as syndications by Ireland and Portugal. Fake Chinese trade data failed to boost Chinese stocks, which dropped anoter 0.7% and is just 13 points above 2000 as Shanghai remains one of the world's worst performing markets since the financial crisis. The yoyoing Nikkei was largely unchanged. All eyes today will be fixed on the headline streamer at 8:30 when the latest nonfarm payrolls report is released.

Just a few short weeks away, the opening ceremony of the Sochi Winter Olympic may go off with a bang, literally, judging by the amount of "terrorist" chatter surrounding the games. Today however, it is more than just chatter: earlier the Russian media reported that Russian security forces had come across multiple unexplained deaths and explosive devices in a region near Sochi, resulting in an aggressive "anti-terrorism sweep."

The following poll results from Gallup may represent the most significant domestic news story in 2014 to-date. Gallup polling in 2013 showed that the highest number of Americans now identify as Independents since it starting asking the question 25 years ago. Specifically, 42% identify as Independents, versus 31% as Democrats and 25% as Republicans. Even more interesting, the trend accelerated as the year progressed.

With "keg-standing bros" and "easy women" having been tempted already (unsuccessfully from what we know) to participate in the government's 'affordable' care act, Politico reports the Obama administration today unveiled its plans for an Olympic-size ad blitz during the winter games next month. No comments yet on which images will be used (it's too soon for any Schumacher references) but we suggest 'skeleton' will provide the right 'stimulation' to get insured.

I tried to create a “Kudos List” as well but really couldn’t. 

Of all the case studies in our "it is easier to get into Harvard than to get a job at X" series (flight attendants, Goldman summer interns, McDonalds, etc), this one may be our favorite because it captures at its core, just how "strong" the US economic "recovery" truly is for all those who don't have a spare million or two in financial assets to throw at the levitating, centrally-planned markets. As the WaPo reports, when a Maryland ice cream plant, shut down in 2011 and subsequnetly was brought back to life when a Co-op of dairy farmers purchased it in the summer of 2013 to process milk and icream, sent out "jobs wanted" notices to fill some three dozen open job positions, it got a surprise: 1,600 applicants (and counting) "a deluge" - 44 applicants for every position - or nearly three times more difficult than getting into Harvard to get a simple job... To make ice cream!