Obamacare

President Barack Obama in 2014 said Mr. Gruber was “some adviser who never worked on our staff.” And then there's this:

“Thank you for being an integral part of getting us to this historic moment,” according to Sept. 9, 2009 email to Mr. Gruber from Jeanne Lambrew, a top Obama administration health adviser who worked at HHS and the White House. In a November 2009 email, she called Mr. Gruber “our hero.”

It would appear, whether by plan or unintended consequence, Obama's dream of a single-payer socialized healthcare is getting closer by the day, and as WSJ reports, drastically increasing the risk that ObamaCare is creating oligopolies, with the predictable results of higher costs, lower quality and less innovation. The five largest commercial health insurers in the U.S. have contracted merger fever, and if the logic of ObamaCare prevails, this exercise will conclude with all five fusing into one monster conglomerate.

Bring on those rate hikes and the economic "recovery."

With a small possibility that later today the Fed may hike rates for the first time in nearly a decade, and if not today then in 65 days (per the Bank of America countdown to the repeat of the "Ghost of 1937") at the September 17 meeting on which consensus has congregated as the historic rate hike day, there is one particular chart that if not readers, then certainly the Fed, should focus on: the near historic difference between the two primary inflation measures, core CPI and the Fed's preferred, core PCE which is now at the lowest level since the financial crisis.

U.S. President Barack Obama’s proposed ‘Trade’ deals are actually about whether the world is heading toward a dictatorial world government - a dictatorship by the hundred or so global super-rich who hold the controlling blocks of stock in the world’s largest international corporations - or else toward a democratic world government - which will be a global federation of free and independent states, much like the United States was at its founding, but global in extent. These are two opposite visions of world government; and Obama is clearly on the side of fascism, an international mega-corporate dictatorship... What’s at stake here is nothing less than whether the future of the United States, and perhaps even of the world, will be democracy, or else fascism.

If you still think that the establishment Republicans in Congress represent real opposition to President Obama’s policies, you’re either extremely brainwashed or extremely stupid. Honestly, we wonder what it will take for some people to wake up. How many times do you need to be used, abused and conned by slimy politicians before you can shake off your political Stockholm Syndrome? Today's example is from chief ObamaTrade proponent Paul Ryan who gaffed Pelosi-like when he admitted (with regard to the super-secret TPP) "It’s declassified and made public once it’s agreed to," in other words - “we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.”

When it came to the highly confidential TPP, it was unclear just which corporations were dominant in pulling the strings. Now thanks to more documents published by Wikileaks, and analyzed by the NYT, it appears that "big pharma" is the mastermind behind the Trans Pacific Partnership, which if passed will "empower big pharmaceutical firms to command higher reimbursement rates in the United States and abroad, at the expense of consumers" according to "public health professionals, generic-drug makers and activists opposed to the trade deal."

More costs...

Once again it's all about Greece, with the latest iteration of a "Greek deal is imminent" rumor making the rounds and, just like yesterday, sending futures in the green, just a little over an hour after the increasingly more illiquid E-mini future has slid 0.7%. The EUR, where the bulk of Virtu headline kneejerk reacting algos are to be found, has surged over 100 pips overnight on more hope and optimism.

The somewhat farcical journey home from Europe for Secretary of State John Kerry continues. As we noted previously, after breaking his leg on an arbidged Tour de France'-esque accident in which he hit a curb, he was flown to Geneva in a helicopter where he was "stable and never lost consciousness," which makes sense (unless as many have suggested his brain lies considerably lower in his body than most humans). But then the escapade got beyond unreal as The White House sent a massive "specially-equipped" C-17 airplane (used to carrying over 100 combat troops and equipment into battle) to fly him to Boston for surgery. We assume he is covered by Obamacare, since the cost of this rescue mission - assuming roughly 10 hours flight-time - is at least $250,000... and all to avoid an Iran deadline no one expects to meet...

"Until and unless we at least resolve all five of the following, and everyone involved wears an orange jumpsuit and has their corporate and institutional edifices closed down with the ill-gotten gains disbursed back to their victims we are, as a nation, DONE."

As it stands now, U.S. healthcare will bankrupt the nation and doom it to permanent stagnation and recession. It's our choice: live with a bankrupt system built almost entirely of perverse incentives, or begin an adult discussion about a system that delivers responsible care to the elderly in line with other advanced nations, but at a fraction of the current cost.

For the past three years, the biggest argument supporters of Obamacare would trot out every single time when faced with opposition to the mandatory tax, would be that despite widespread predictions of soaring prices, US medical care service costs had remained low and even, on occasion, declined.  All that changed moments ago when core US inflation finally spiked the most since 2013 driven by a 0.7% monthly surge in medical care service costs: the highest since 2007!

The market appears to have chosen the hotter-than-expected Core CPI print (as opposed to weakest headline CPI YoY print since Oct 2009 of -0.2%) as key. Core CPI rose 0.3% MoM in April - the most since March 2006; and 1.8% YoY - the most since Jan 2013. The biggest driver of the surge in consumer prices is medical care costs - which rose 0.7% - the biggest increase since January 2007 (thanks Obamacare).

It is a cornerstone of orthodox economics that recessions are not just emotion and pessimism but spring out of an exogenous “shock.” There is none to be found here in sharp contrast to 2008 which at least had a deep financial panic. However, the trajectory of the economy since 2012 has been seeded by a distinct lack of growth especially in wages and incomes – what economists have been taking as slow but steady growth was actually much more nefarious. We may find out that recession shock includes just generic and basic attrition; that “demand”, despite all the attention and “stimulus” given it, can only hold out for so long without any actual (as opposed to purely statistical) alleviation.