Obamacare

The only surefire way to dramatically reduce healthcare costs is to remove the middlemen and allow market forces to return to healthcare.

It ranks at the very top of potential tax nightmares, especially if you invest internationally.  This nightmare could become a reality if you happen to invest in what the IRS deems a Passive Foreign Investment Company (PFIC), which are taxed at exorbitant rates and have highly complex reporting rules. Most foreign mutual funds are PFICs, as are certain foreign stocks.  PFIC rules amount to unofficial restrictions on investing in certain foreign assets and are yet another indicator of the disturbing trend of creeping capital controls in the US.  Capital controls are used by many countries and come in all sorts of shapes, sizes, and labels. The purpose, however, is always the same: to restrict and control the free flow of money into and out of a country so that the politicians have more wealth at their disposal to plunder.

For the 4th month in a row, personal spending growth missed expectations. With a 0.1% gain in February (against expectations of a 0.2% rise), this growth rate remains below all of 2014's growth. Income rose slightly more than expected at 0.4% (against +0.3% exp) but this is the same growth as January's upwardly reviused +0.4%. That leaves the powers that be very disappointed as the savings rate jumps to the highest since 2012... not exactly the Keynesian pump-primed, low gas prices tax cut spendfest all the smartest people in the room promised...

At the end of the day there is a considerable irony. The Fed has now become the tool of liberal Keynesian do-gooders - exemplified by the school marm who heads it. But its policies are exclusively benefiting Wall Street and the top 1%. They are redistributing income and wealth to the top, not the bottom of society as liberals have always claimed. Needless to say, main street does not need that kind of “help”. And it would do far better on its own hind legs if the monetary politburo joined its Soviet colleagues in the afterlife of mistaken ideologies.

We have solved the mystery of why US households did not spend all those billions in "dropping gas price" windfalls - the answer is that they did spend all this money. On Obamacare.

Over the past 2 years the Obama administration has been desperate to boost minimum wages, usually over tedious bickering with republicans and corporations who have resisted such an increase, with neither party realizing that such a measure would not do much to actually boost aggregate spending. Instead, what Obama should have been focusing on was to limit the maximum number of hours worked per week, because as the following chart shows, the reason why weekly pay is rising and aggregate earnings is not due to an increase in hourly wages but because Americans are simply working longer hours every week: not quality but quantity.

Some folks were propagandizing... Life's #BetterWithObamacare... because what else would you do with your low gas price savings...

In other words, wages are declining even in fields where advanced degrees are supposed to inoculate the highly educated from declines in earnings. This is not entirely surprising to anyone who has first-hand knowledge of the tremendous glut in workers with advanced degrees, but it does drive a stake in the heart of the argument that the solution to income inequality is more education.

In the first part of this article series, we discussed the true state of global demand, along with the unstable situation within numerous indicators from exports to retail. Swiftly falling global demand for raw materials as well as consumer goods is an undeniable reality. This is a distinct problem in terms of the U.S., which has been, up until recently, the primary consumption driver for much of the world. As we will show, U.S. demand is about to fall even further into the abyss as real unemployment and personal debt take their toll.

It wasn't even a full 24 hours after Greece raided at least some of the funds of its pension and other public entities in order to make a €310 payment to the IMF, the first of four this month (the balance is 350 million on March 13, 580 million on March 16 and another 350 million on March 20), that the insolvent country resumed doing what it does best: dispensing hollow threats. This time it was its foreign minister and leader of the Independent Greeks party - Syriza's junion coalition partner - Nikos Kotzias, who showed how to bluff like the best of them, when he threatened that "there will be tens of millions of immigrants and thousands of jihadists, if you take out Greece" the minister said on before EU foreign ministers meeting in Riga.

"In light of the data we've received this week – January reports for real consumer spending, construction spending, and net exports that varied from disappointing to downright weak, as well as a softer February print for car sales –-- we are marking down our tracking for annualized real GDP growth in Q1 from 2.5% to 2.0%. Even after this revision risks are more skewed to the downside than upside. By way of comparison, the Atlanta Fed's tracking estimate of Q1 recently came down to 1.2%. It's still relatively early in the quarterly data flow, even so, it is feeling eerily like Q1 of last year. In both cases the quarter began with high expectations, estimates were brought down as the quarter progressed, weather was blamed, but most forecasts remained upbeat on the medium-term outlook."

- JPM

• China Lowers Growth Target to About 7% (WSJ)
• Obesity Is Hurting the U.S. Economy in Surprising Ways (BBG)
• Embattled Hillary Clinton urges State Department to release emails (Reuters)
• Washington Strips New York Fed’s Power (WSJ)
• U.S. Supreme Court split over Obamacare challenge (Reuters)
• Citigroup Loses $800 Million as It Exits Turkey’s Akbank (BBG)
• Justice Who Once Tried to Kill Obamacare Now Potential Savior (BBG)
• Buyers of Espírito Santo Debt Face Financial Uncertainty (WSJ)

Today, for the second time since 2012, the fate of Obamacare lies in the hands of the Supreme Court, and like last time, it will likely be all about Justice John Roberts ' decision. Later today, the US Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case of King v. Burwell, the latest challenge to Obamacare, and one that could potentially leave it gutted from an unexpected direction. As a result, nearly eight million Americans could lose their health insurance depending on how the Supreme Court interprets four words in the "Affordable" Care Act.

The BLS put out their monthly CPI lie last week. They issued the proclamation that inflation is dead. Did you know your costs are 0.1% lower than they were one year ago. They then used these deflation numbers to proclaim your real wages soared last month. It’s all good. The American consumer is so flush with cash, they decided to spend less money for the second month in a row. The Wall Street shysters are so happy with declining consumer spending, declining corporate profits, and a global recession, they pushed the NASDAQ up to 5,000 for the first time in 15 years.

• RBS to cut up to 14,000 jobs in investment banking unit (FT)
• Doctors, patients scramble ahead of high court Obamacare decision (Reuters)
• Rajan Cuts India Rates After Modi Agrees to Inflation Target (BBG)
• Russia’s Putin Makes First Public Comments on Killing of Boris Nemtsov (WSJ)
• House breaks impasse, passes security funding without provisions (Reuters)
• How a 25-Year-Old Investor Spurred Lumber Liquidators’ Plunge (BBG)
• Jeff Immelt’s Overhaul of GE Impeded by Falling Oil Prices (WSJ)
• Sahara India Defaults on Luxury Hotel Loans From Bank of China (BBG)