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The GOP Reviews The Obamacare Rollout - Live Webcast
We can only imagine the overwhelmingly positive perspective that Boehner and the GOP leadership will have as they discuss Obamacare's early days... What's worse than a "train wreck?" ...grab your popcorn...
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OMG! OBAMA IS TURNING ALL WHITE!!!
Is there a doctor in the room?!!
The repubs are morons and get sucked right into the traps that O's masters set.
There was nothing wrong with the websites. The FSA hit the websites, signed up, and then realized that there isn't anything free about it, so they chose not to buy it.
In order to cover up the fact that the FSA is not buying OCare, the gov threw some crap code in there, so that everyone can blame the web sites for the horrific numbers and not the fact that the FSA is onboard with everything as long as it is free for them.
This is the most retarded thing I have seen in a long time.
Kudos.
It is just too easy for you high minded people to believe that the GOV could hire programmers that can't actually create an e-commerce site.
The reverse is true, it is almost impossible to create a site that doesn't work. The gov sabatoged their own site.
e-commerce site 101:
Register users
Present products
Manage shopping cart
Want to know what Obombercare costs?
Courtesy of infowars.com you can download an actual XLSX spreadsheet here http://static.infowars.com/images/health-plan-information-download.xlsx
I did and it was clean and about 7MB in size. Interesting to see what plans are offered by which companies. It lists plans by counties. States that have their own exchanges are excluded.
Pass this out to MSN and see if they talk about it.
Great stuff, thanks.
Spreadsheet tells me if I want actual insurance to where I won't go bankrupt for a day in the hospital I have to cough up ~$750-$900 per month for a single male.
The "Bro's" at the keg on a bronze will have to cough up ~$250/month, and I can tell you bro - they ain't gonna' do it.
Quite agree... Obombercare may be the next Black Swan.
The question is... was it planned all along to do so?
Dear Mr. Yang,
During a recent audit of our ACA database, a cross-check of your payment method (VISA card last-4 -0812) matched with a purchase of a firearm (semi-automatic .40 Sig Saur pistol) in 2006. As I'm sure you're aware after reading the privacy agreement (section 10,004 para. 862 line 90) this activity is considered a high-risk activity and thus negates your previously agreed-to premiums and co-pay levels. Again, as I'm sure you're aware after reading the final agreement clause (section 985 para. 556 line 44) HHS has the authority to assign a new premium and co-pay level based on participation in high-risk activities. Therefore your new premium rate goes from $250 monthly to $900 and your co-pay rate goes from $3500 to $9000 (annual catastrophic cap only rises from $12,500 to $15,500). Additionally the new coverage excludes any insurance coverage of any healthcare costs associated with said high-risk activity (firearm use). These new rates are retroactive to your sign-up date and therefore you owe $2500 for previous monthly premiums. We look forward to continuing to serve your needs here at HHS!
Sincerely,
Dick Wigglesworth, Esq.
HHS ACA Division, Analytic Department
Washington D.C.
I can tell you are trolling for a government job by demonstrating your skills on ZH. We know after all, they are watching, right?
Now I'm confused. I thought those letters were supposed to come from the IRS?
As much as I love being down arrowed, I am shocked that there are ZH readers that actually believe that the same government that can capture, filter, and store all electronic communication on the planet; can't build an ecommerce website.
Awwww, they can capture, filter, and store all information, but can't actually catch one terror suspect with all of that information. Thus, .gov can create a gigantic web atrocity, but not even sign up 30 North Dakotans in the first 20 days...
http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/416090/
Great Post!
It wouldn't take too much effort to take this data and put it in a web app. Each of the providers listed that I checked out already had an online system for selling insurance outside the exchange. (I checked out the Dane County, Wisconsin entries). No reason to collect any data other than age, and zip code.
The subsidy information is also availabe in a table I've seen on healthcare.gov.
To buy insurance without subsidy, I would go the source anyway. Who the hell wants the NSA, IRS, Big Government in the loop.
To buy insurance with the subsidy being paid DIRECTLY to the insurance company from Big-Gov, I believe you need to use the exchange.
But I believe you can buy OUTSIDE the exchange and still get the subsudy via a tax credit when you file your tax return with the IRS.
For liberals, the effectiveness of any program is always secondary to the intent.
Well now, if they have to get some very specific information about you: SS#, Driver's License#, Mother's maiden name - and cross reference it with NSA databases, the I.R.S., your frequent shopper purchases, and any computerized health data from any doctor you ever saw and send it to all the insurance companies so they can calculate how much to bleed you per month so they can build a fancy new building for overpaid executives and mid-level wonks to decide how much to increase deductibles and deny treatments - it is a little more complicated than Amazon, eh?
I hear you ebworthen...
Most hospitals, doctors and dentists have everyone's medical records in paper format. Now with ACA it is mandated they convert to electronic records.
TPTB already have most all of your information like banking, purchases, tax returns and with social websites like facebook, linked-in, twitter and ancestery they access relationships of family and friends. The ACA medical and pharma electronic records are the last piece of the pie.
One way or another they are profiling everyone with whatever data they can muster. TSA now is going to apply the police and civil court databases to their screening process. If you have parking tickets or outstanding warrants they will know as you pass security at airports. Perhaps coming to a shopping mall near you.
This is why Utah is up and running, plain and simply to collect data and develop new ways to control.
If you dare to visit DHS website, read up on Fusion Centers.......
http://www.dhs.gov/state-and-major-urban-area-fusion-centers
More than that YingYang. We will long for the good old days when that was all they had.
Anyone with your private data is your presumed master.
They (our presumed masters) own all account info, all passwords.
Your e-mail addresses and passwords.
Your cell phone numbers and passwords to voicemail.
They can package our stuff and sell it to Estonian or Albanian gangs (or Chinese or Taiwanese or Nigerian!) who will auth bank transfers and drink your milkshake from 3,000 miles away. Someone with knowledge of the system and a good American accent can fuck your shit beyond repair or even demonstrable proof of wrongdoing, in half an hour.
Try insuring against that; and collecting.
They just want to forestall a bank run at this point. That's why cap controls are coming and PM transactions will eventually be outlawed.
There is so much of this material out there, in the hands of so many, that collapse based on bank runs and general pandemonium is imvho not a question of if but when.
There is no way to avoid all the pain, but you can save most of what is yours by taking the next exit off of the electronic highway. Jim Sinclair among others has been pounding the desk in favor of complete withdrawal, or as near-complete as possible, for several years now.
I say this has to blow up like a wired shithouse in the space of a few years.
Someone tell me I am exaggerating or that "they won't let it happen"...!
Right on Honcha!
When the TPTB finally have what they want the underground will counter... it already is.
Cause and effect or Yin-Yang.
Will we as a civilization live in a Matrix type world? Will we evolve to evade Skynet?
It's funny that Sci-Fi books and movies are visions writers create but arrogant narcissistic elites implement.
Unplug and go local... huddle with the ones you love!
You who are on the road
Must have a code that you can live by
And so become yourself
Because the past is just a good bye.
Teach your children well,
Their father's hell did slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams
The one they picked, the one you'll know by.
Don't you ever ask them why, if they told you, you would cry,
So just look at them and sigh and know they love you.
And you, of tender years,
Can't know the fears that your elders grew by,
And so please help them with your youth,
They seek the truth before they can die.
Can you hear and do you care and
Cant you see we must be free to
Teach your children what you believe in.
Make a world that we can live in.
Teach your parents well,
Their children's hell will slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams
The one they picked, the one you'll know by.
Don't you ever ask them why, if they told you, you would cry,
So just look at them and sigh and know they love you.
Sounds like the "Mark of the Beast" in electronic form. Of course that makes sense since the human body is just one big organic battery.
Cell phones are the modern day "Mark of the Beast"
In a matter of time the cell phone will be an implant.
People are begining to accept RFID implants....
"It's cool... Apple came out with it." /sarc
is just too easy for you high minded people to believe that the GOV could hire programmers that can't actually create an e-commerce site.
The reverse is true, it is almost impossible to create a site that doesn't work. The gov sabatoged their own site.
What a moron you are. Like anything else, it's harder to make things that work well than it is to make something that's fatally flawed.
It takes good brains and a lot of hard work to make complex and robust software which is easy to use.
Badly conceived complex software is best thrown out and rewritten from scratch, because patching bad software only makes it worse.
Why is it that the "morons" are always running things? Every employee seems to believe their boss, who drives the nice car and lives in the big house and is constantly on vacation is a moron. Really? Maybe we be the "morons" after all?
Don't panic. It's called Michael Jackson Syndrome now.
What's a GOP?
GOP = Gangrenous Obsolete ProgLuddite
"Got Our Piece"
"Getting Our Place" at the federal feed lot but saying we are conservatives.
Guns Oil Prostitutes
Great On Procrastinating
Generally Old People
Get Out POTUS!
luckily for all americans, boehner will whine like the little bitch he is. and then go take it in the ass by any democrat that wants to go there. anyone that still admits to being a republican, might as well put a sign on their back with an arrow down that says: "i will bend over for anyone".
I guess since they folded, we can expect them to praise Obamacare? If they just sit their and complain, it would highlight their hypocrisy, right?
Ha! These guys are a fucking joke. STFU you spineless weasels.
I'm still waiting for the GOP alternative to the ACA, oh thats right just go back to the old system.
Uhhmmmm Zerocare was the GOP's plan.
Yep. More or less. Thanks, Mittens.
They all think they are the best chef in the kitchen, so whats the problem if they have to break a few eggs while making an omelet. They never eat what they are serving anyway! They are intent on giving us what we NEED.
I see there are some people who disagree. I'll post a couple of links for you challenged people incapable of critical thinking.
First a 1989 piece from the Heritage Foundation
http://www.heritage.org/research/lecture/assuring-affordable-health-care-for-all-americans
A Faux news piece for you red teamers:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/06/28/individual-health-care-insurance-mandate-has-long-checkered-past/
And a PolitiFact piece for you blue teamers:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/apr/01/barack-obama/obama-says-heritage-foundation-source-health-excha/
I'll leave it to you doubters to research more on your own.
Its allways the same argument that even conservatives fall for. Given a situation of escalating cost for a portion of the population, the answer is to socialize those costs. Hillary argued for the same thing. A federal mandate to force everyone to buy insurance to help defray the costs to the sick. On the surface it always makes sense until you dig deeper and see how mandating a market distorts it in huge ways over a period of time. That is what the whole taxing system is based upon, taking from relative prosperous producers to give to the "less fortunate". Taxation initially was done for public works..."the public welfare", meaning roads schoools bridges etc that potentially everyone would use and benefit from. Today it much more about redistribution from those who don't need it to those who do (all determined by un-named un-elected government employees). The quest for solutions typically wants the shortest path with the greatest short term rewards. Hunger resolved by raiding the seed corn. A increasing public dependency on government cannot end well, and all the bleeding hearts of the world will not change that, only hasten it.
cash based system is the only thing that will force competition. Get rid of the government/private Insurance paper pushers.
Exactly!
As fewer billionaires buy up and gain control of the means of production, courtesy clandestine “loans” of money printed from thin air by the Fed and channeled through their “banks,” prices escalate via monopoly, be they food, utilities, insurance, gasoline or whatever, to the maximum. As those on the lower rungs of the income ladder are maxed out of the market, the government steps in and subsidizes their “purchasing power.”
Those on the medium rungs of the income ladder are then forced to buy at even higher prices until they find them “unaffordable,” and once again the government steps in to subsidize … and prices continue to rise. Et cetera.
Thus, the “financial elite,” courtesy of the Fed and its government-sanctioned manipulations, is systemically robbing and obliterating America’s “middle and upper classes” – as it pushes one and all down the road to Serfdom under banker-controlled world governance .
Wow.. are you, like, saying that both of our major parties want a spot at the Federal hog trough?
Mind Blown dude...
I know! Can you believe it? Apparently a huge swath of the population can not.
The real aim from the 'right' side for this setup was the same reason they advocated 401k plans. It was shift costs associated with employees and risk off their books when the employees came off the books along with capping or limiting the growth of said costs.
It is called self insurance run by private healthcare exchanges.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-insurance
This what the big companies like IBM just did to cap costs using Obamacare as cover. They don't offer them insurance so it goes from be a service expense to a labor expense since they just give each employee $5000 or so and tell them to go buy their own insurance on a private exchange that they belong to. You get to pick and choose from which options the company picks from what the exchange offers and buy accordingly based on what you can afford for said $5000. By forcing up the medical insurance costs for everyone else they make it cost effective for smaller to medium size businesses to do the same now. Also since the public exchanges were supposed to be clusterfucks in the first place it makes it easier to sell the private exchanges. It is the exact same thing in principle as a 401k shifting expenses and risk aka pensions from the employer to employee.
Follow the fucking money as far as who owns the private exchanges who they gave it to and when concerning Obamacare.
Fascism for the right, Socialism for the left, Marxism for all.
How about freedom and a personal responsibility of your own healthcare, housing and food?
Ahhh like in Costa Rica?
I just don't understand why people would want to have to depend on their employer OR their government for personal health and happiness. Its bad enough they must depend on them to the extent they do already, without pushing for MOAR. If you don't want to be treated a sheep, don't act like one.
Nobody wants to depend on their employer or government for health care. The problem is that the alternative is no health care as nobody can afford it. Maybe the issue to address isn't so much the cost of insurance, rather the cost of the care the insurance is covering.
Great evidence for the two-headed beast we have created.
Thanks for the links.
Basically, this is true. However, 20 years of cost increases fundamentally changed the problem. Also, 20 years ago I would have had more faith in people stepping up and paying off their copays and deductibles. Even with 60-90+% of their medical bills covered, those who don't pay now still won't pay.
But funny how none of them voted for it! Reconsider your hypothesis in light of the historical facts.
The conservative plan was to eliminate all of the bulshit monopoly crap supported by the AMA and crony corporatists and allow competition to work. But as we can see, competition is too rough for some folks so we need to throw in some corrupt centrally controlled oversight to be sure it fucks everyone, equally. Competition is the only thing that will ensure the best care for the least price, but no one wants fair trade if it takes money out of their pocket and nobody makes more off of corruption than government. Monopolies can only remain with the help of government. There are laws to prevent monopoly so inorder for it to exist, the laws must be ignored. Any person who thinks government can fix anything through MOAR control, rather than less is simply an ideologue that hasn't been paying any attention to what has actually been happening for the last 100 years.
"Please stand by.
We are experiencing technical difficulties"
You just can't make this shit up. Government at "work". Either that or sabatogue by Obama.
Politicians are constantly trying to make lemonaid from rotting lemons and sell it a "Fruity" champaign. It just rotten. Everything they have to sell...rotten.
Well they're 2nd....the other side that's making us pay thousands more for healthcare that we can't even sign up for and don't want.....are worse.
You think Romney would be any different?
I think there would be a difference with Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, and Mike Lee.....but you probably didn't want to ask me that question.
I'm thinking the GOP needs to stop supporting progressives.
wouldn't trust anyone from washington to develop an insurance program based on force.
I wouldn't trust anyone from Washington to develop anything based on anything ever. They should be doing military, foreign policy and courts, plus about 1% of the "interstate" stuff they currently do under that heading. That's it. Full stop. We could balance the budget AND cut taxes and institute a debt paydown program (or better yet repudiation) overnight simply by nullifying everything that is not called for in the Constitution. ACTUAL "austerity".
Impeach Obama. Stop him from rolling out any more weapons against the United States of America. Stop the Washington D.C. globalists.
But he's just trying to fix things like a surgeon with a spade.
CAT.
All you need to know about Obamacare is they spent $400+ Million on a website that doesn't even work. Right out of the gate they lit $400million on fire.
Stimulative? Remember how Obama trashed Bush for his reckless spending (Bush's version of stimulas) and after being elected he went nuts on spending, yet when asked about how so much of it was potentially wastefull he commented that ALL spending was stimulative? In their mind it is pointless to cut waste because is disrupts a portion of the economy and makes no difference in their mind because "it's all stimulative!"
http://www.businessinsider.com/2009/2/obama-all-spending-is-inherently-s...
Dear Dems,
Limp Dick Disease is not covered in your Obamacare.Republicans want to add it to the list of medical procedures covered by Obamacare. There is only one problem it is permanent and non reversable.
2 tap
It's says starting at 10am Eastern. It's now almost 10am Central. Does the GOP now get in a quick 9 before work too?
I thought GOP were members of the DNC also?
Masses boycott ACA = FAIL
With a little help, the TEA Party can purge the republican party of the liberal oBUMMER suckers. We are coming after you, mccain and the rest of the rino list. You know who you are.
With a little help from establishment republicans co-opting the movement and putting their guy in the ring with a Tea Party sticker on his head.
Beware websites that say nothing but "Tea Party, Conservative, Constitution, Reagan". Where a real Tea Party person would be quoting Jefferson, Hayek, or Lord Acton.
http://www.infowars.com/ted-cruzs-wife-is-a-goldman-sachs-vp/
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2013/10/tea-partier-ted-cruz-for...
Yeah, and Rand Paul's father was a congressman for 34 years. Your point?
Yes yes yes. This. People who have the tea party frame of mind (of which I mostly consider myself one) don't have time or patience for Armey and his ilk. We don't want cheap slogans and yet ANOTHER astroturfed disaster brought to us by career professional politicians. We simply want to consider what is the best course to take, preferably with lots less government interference than has been present up until now, and then advocate for that course. And we look at people like Jefferson, Hayek or Acton or, yes, Rand and others for a lot of our cues.
In my mind, "tea party patriots" is such a hackneyed phrase now that I immediately distrust anyone who utters it. I get junk mail from four separate groups that use that as either their name or their motto or whatever...most likely all fronting for current or former establishment GOP types trying to coopt the movement.
You know the fix is in for 2016 when Drudge is running head lines on McCain's potential run for the chief puppet. Hitlery it is.
Two people will keep me from coming out of voter retirement to vote against Hillary. McCain is one, Chris Christie is the other.
Where are the folding lawn chairs?
Stacked up in the Rayburn Building
If this premiums spreadsheet is real deal, obamacare is toast
http://www.infowars.com/obamacare-hidden-spreadsheet-shows-premium-rates...
I haven't checked yet but do they show deductable information also or at least formulas to determine them based on specific criteria? I don't have a scribd account to download the document.
No, it only shows the tier, provider, HMO/PPO, plan name, and premium for representative ages and number of individuals covered. Had to log into various state sites (such as CA) to get an idea of what the deductibles were, percentages covered at each tier, and annual out of pocket maximum per person/family.
https://www.coveredca.com/shopandcompare/
And so Weepy is now setting up his next act in the never-ending kabuki where Republicans draw lines in the sand, do a lot of barking (yip! yip! yip!) and then offer complete surrender which gets rejected forcing them to negotiate additional concessions to get the Dems to accept that surrender. Brilliant!
How can we NOT vote for these guys?!?!?!
The nice thing about drawing lines in the sand is that after a few waves, no one can remember exactly where those lines were!
And most have not been voting for anyone it seems. Maybe th ebest bet for a politician would be to pursue all of the past nonvoters instead of trying to peel off 3% of the middle ground wishywashy people waiting to see who will offer the best bribe.
This sucks! Why can't people look at all the plans before spending an hour (or two) entering all sorts of personal info?
See the infowars links by a couple of commentors above.
Excel spreadsheet, let's you go to your State/County and see costs.
Astronomical - this is not going to work, WAY too expensive - nothing affordable about it.
http://static.infowars.com/images/health-plan-information-download.xlsx
(direct download link, OpenOffice choked on it, but Excel opened it right up)
check my link at the first of this thread
ZH'ers actually expect 'red/blue team' plans, and 1 should be better than the other? Govt would fuck up a lemonade stand in only a few hours, and leave it $5 trillion in debt. Fools.
You are correct. Support the TEA Party. Shrink the government. Keep them completely out of healthcare. That is our goal.
FYI - Go to 30:00 minutes on the video - that is where it starts.
So Heritage Foundation (now part of the Koch financed thinking right empire) plan NOT give US a single payer system worked and people are angry? Some of the people are playing chess master while others are drawing with feces...
Since the Kipper HF has moved American political spectrum to the right and people didnt even notice it was brilliant. Then Kochs funded the teaparty to get people vote against their own interest?
About ACA, god damn joke of a product launch, but if people would actually go and try it out to see what happens to their premiums would be more helpful than hating the blackie in chief. One thing I dont get if reps think ACA is such a big arse fail compared to the existing thing why dont you just let it happen and watch it burn down in couple of years then go "I told you so" and win every election with baby Jesus support numbers?
You and "blackie in chief" can keep on believing that ACA is so fine. Watch it burn we will. What is it about the kochs that you guys love so much? That is all you ever talk about. No one in the TEA Party gives a happy fat baby rats ass about them.
"What is it about the kochs that you guys love so much? That is all you ever talk about. No one in the TEA Party gives a happy fat baby rats ass about them."
A true grass roots organization is composed of the little people. A billionaire is not grass roots and has his own agenda and has the money to move the organization in the direction he wants it to go, to benefit him, rather than the grass roots.
Karl Denninger, who considers himself a Tea Party founder, noted that several Tea Party members, who ran as republicans, climbed into the pocket of the bankers, after they were elected. That is not what he supported the Tea Party for.
Sounds like the "little people" got rid of Denninger - another "not grass roots" billionaire.
The very fact that you use the statement "blackie in chief" is a true testament to your underlying racism and speaks to the vacuity of your argument. Just because a person disagrees with a policy it does not make one racist. Now begon with your straw man argument and address the facts.
The fact is that I had good affordable care before Zerocare, what I have now is a more expensive lower quality policy. And if you read my links below you would see that Zerocare was and is the repuke plan. Like all politicians they like to deny the fact that they got exactly the unpopular policy that they wanted.
No it doesn't, you dumbass. He's mocking the mentality here...and you know it, dickwad.
And who cares what good affordable care just YOU had, the problem being addressed is the no care about 130,000,000 had. Your me, me, me, me, me, all about me attitude is what the essential problem is.
"Then Kochs funded the teaparty to get people vote against their own interest?"
It's funny how democrats get people to vote against their own interest, too.
In a recent month, 240,000 full time jobs were eliminated, largely as a result of Obamacare. four out of five jobs created this year have been part time. Employers dropping plans because they don't comply with the mandate- so much for you can keep your policy if you like it.
I think a task force of Liz Cheney, Chris Cox, Richard Armitage, Scooter Libby, Donald Rumsfeld and Dan Senor should be given control of the situation.
What are the republicans proposing as an alternative to Obamacare?
Are they calling for an end to the Anti trust exemptions that the medical industrial complex enjoys?
I clicked on "Individuals & Families" https://www.healthcare.gov/marketplace/individual/ a few hundred times....got nothing.
Everyone is focused on the premium... what about the deductible, what is covered (name vs generic Rx). What is the max annual out of pocket? Isuspect tha tis where the insurance companies will be naking out.
Chaos Theory, right on.
That is the reservoir tip of the iceberg, friends. And that is just the legal aspect; not to mention a Bible-thumper in a windowless room in Utah who takes exception to your request for birth control.
Get off the grid. To the fullest possible extent, no electronic transactions and do not leave money in the banks.
This is set to blow.
WHILE ALL YOU ZH'ERS WHOOP IT UP OVER HOW YOU CAN MAKE PROBLEMS WORSE maybe you should spend some time reading about how the tea baggers are fucking us....
* * *
SPIEGEL ONLINE
10/22/2013 05:53 PM
Shutdown Specter
US Fumbling Puts China at Risk
By Marc Hujer and Daniel Sander
The whole world looked on as the United States embarrassed itself for three weeks with its government shutdown. China, the only other superpower, profited from the domestic dispute -- but as Washington's largest creditor, it also has cause for concern.
A little before 11 a.m. last Wednesday, a newly crowned Miss America announced her presence at the White House via Twitter. At the time, most US politicians had nothing on their minds except their country's budget conflict, with Democrats and Republicans in Congress unable to agree on a new national debt limit for nearly three weeks.
Then, on Wednesday, Congress was set to begin a decisive round of voting to save the country and the global economy. Even as television commentators feverishly awaited the results of the Congressional vote, this year's Miss America, 24-year-old Nina Davuluri, tweeted: "Had the pleasure of having a conversation with President @BarackObama in the Oval Office today!"
"President Barack Obama appears to be multitasking," news channel CNN scoffed about the president simultaneously steering the nation through a budget crisis and finding time to talk to the beautiful Indian-American Davuluri.
In the preceding weeks, however, Obama seemed to find it difficult to multitask, cancelling meetings with a number of important, influential allies and investors and even calling off a trip to Asia during which he had planned to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Global Embarrassment
The United States had embarrassed itself on the global stage when Republican members of Congress blocked President Obama's healthcare reform, also known as "Obamacare," by refusing to approve an increase to the country's debt limit necessary to fund the reform. This forced the government to shut down its administration, making 800,000 government employees take unpaid mandatory leave, and amounted to the US voluntarily inflicting damage on itself. The political opponents didn't manage to reach an agreement -- and even then, only a temporary one -- until last Wednesday, under enormous pressure and at the last minute. Is this how a superpower behaves?
Those weeks during which the US feared for its financial solvency showed just how vulnerable the country is. Yet at the same time, the episode showed America's strength. No other country could afford to engage in such drama without being punished by financial markets, creditors and trade partners.
But can even the US really afford it? Credit rating agency Standard & Poor's calculates the shutdown inflicted $24 billion (€18 billion) in economic damage. But the true damage here is of a political nature, with China, the world's other superpower, now openly expressing its doubts about the US.
'Building a De-Americanized World'
In a commentary published last week by Xinhua, Beijing's state-owned news agency, commentator Liu Chang wrote: "As US politicians of both political parties are still shuffling back and forth between the White House and the Capitol Hill without striking a viable deal to bring normality to the body politic they brag about, it is perhaps a good time for the befuddled world to start considering building a de-Americanized world."
Creating such a world calls for "several corner stones," the commentary continued, among them all countries adhering to "the basic principles of international law" and recognizing the international authority of the United Nations. "That means no one has the right to wage any form of military action against others without a UN mandate," Xinhua wrote.
The global financial system would also require "some substantial reforms," the news agency said. "The developing and emerging market economies need to have more say in major international financial institutions including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund." Xinhua also suggested "the introduction of a new international reserve currency that is to be created to replace the dominant US dollar, so that the international community could permanently stay away from the spill-over of the intensifying domestic political turmoil in the United States."
There are many reasons for China's current self-assuredness, and one of them is embodied by a grand, granite-colored building at 32 Chengfang Street in Beijing. This is the headquarters of China's central bank, and every month its accounts receive around $3 billion from Washington, in interest on American treasury securities -- debt of the world's largest economy held by its second largest.
The Chinese government is sitting atop a mountain of cash unlike anything seen before. Its foreign currency reserves totalled $3.66 trillion at the end of September, $163 billion more than in June. Two more quarters of such inexorable growth would see that figure nearly reaching the $4 trillion mark.
China Attracting Money Faster Than Ever
And while Washington was arduously averting national bankruptcy last week, Beijing broke another financial record when China's currency, the yuan, reached its highest value against the dollar since 1993. Although investors are pulling back from most emerging markets, money is flowing into China faster than ever.
Around one third of China's foreign currency reserves -- even the People's Bank of China doesn't cite an exact figure -- are invested in US bonds. That makes China the US's largest foreign creditor, and that fact poses a problem for Beijing as well.
China has been issuing warnings to the US since the start of the recent shutdown crisis. Beijing is keeping "a close eye" on the conflict in Washington, said Premier Li Keqiang, who is also his country's top economic policy specialist. Deputy Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao added: "In the long term, America needs to solve its debt problem, to prevent the global economy from slumping."
Even so, China has been only too glad to make use of the vacuum the US budget crisis has created on its own doorstep. President Xi attended one of the two summits in Asia that his counterpart Obama skipped. Xi also traveled to Jakarta, where Obama spent part of his childhood, and to Malaysia. During this time, Xi signed trade agreements worth $30 billion. Premier Li, meanwhile, traveled to a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Brunei, then continued on to Thailand and Vietnam.
The World's Largest Creditor
But even as America's current weakness plays to China's political advantage, it also poses financial risks. Seldom has a single quotation summed up the state of global politics like one uttered by late US billionaire J. Paul Getty: "If you owe the bank $100 that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem."
As the world's largest debtor and creditor, the US and China are mutually dependent on one another. Chinese economists are advising their central bank to start selling off its US bonds before the next round of the American budget crisis hits. Time is of the essence, with the conflict in Washington likely to start up again by Jan. 15 at the latest, when the newly negotiated interim budget expires.
But by selling bonds, Beijing's central bank would be hurting itself as well. The value of the dollar would drop, meaning China's dollar wealth, too, would decline. The two economic giants are inseparably entwined.
At the moment, it looks like Washington will encounter problems in its next round of budget negotiations as well. The frontline between the Republicans and Obama's Democrats hasn't budged from where it has been ever since the two parties first dug in. And the radical minority of Tea Party Congressional representatives within the Republican Party isn't giving up in the face of its recent defeat. Quite the opposite, in fact. "The fight revved up the four-year-old Tea Party movement," the Washington Post wrote on Oct. 17.
Tea Party's Firm Hold
Republicans similarly paralyzed their country's government, then under President Bill Clinton, for 26 days in 1995-1996, but eventually backed down, fearing voters' anger. These days, representatives from the right-wing Tea Party have little need to fear their supporters turning away from them. Their electoral districts have been redrawn in such a way over recent years that losing to a Democratic challenger has become almost an impossibility. At most, Tea Party candidates could post a challenge to other Republican politicians.
Republican Senator Ted Cruz, spokesman and architect of the weeks-long blockade, is being hailed as a hero by his supporters. In a straw poll at a conservative "Values Voter Summit" last week, Cruz received a majority of the votes, leading to speculation that he would run for his party's nomination in the 2016 presidential election.
The pro-business Wall Street Journal has been smug in tone in recent weeks in its coverage of voices abroad that are critical of the US and of government ministers and central bank directors wringing their hands over the situation. The newspaper has written of"Shutdownfreude."
But the critics include the Chinese, as well. America's budget conflict has served as a "wake-up call" for China, says American economist Nicholas Lardy. Lardy advises Chinese decision-makers to "quit adding to their foreign reserves." Kenneth Rogoff, former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), describes this as "a kick in the pants" for China. The US budget situation has led to China signing currency swap agreements with the European Central Bank (ECB) sooner than expected. These agreements make the yuan internationally tradable, a step toward competing with the dollar as a reserve currency.
Pacific Power
A few years ago, Obama was still able to stave off China's growing power in the Pacific region by focusing his attention on Asia's emergent economic powers. He invested a great deal in this new approach, sending troops to Australia, signing new trade agreements and promising Malaysia and Indonesia he would regularly attend ASEAN summits -- something he has now called off.
With the departure of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State and Tom Donilon as National Security Advisor, the US government has lost further important advocates of a pro-Asia course. And Obama himself now seems more concerned with the Arab Spring, Syria and Iran than with the Pacific. In his most recent speech at the UN General Assembly, the US president mentioned Syria, Egypt, Iran and Israel a total of 68 times, according to Time magazine, but China only once.
Another country in the same region gets barely a mention these days: Japan. America's Pacific ally is deeply at odds with China, but does have one concern in common with its Asian rival. Its $1.1 trillion in US bonds make Tokyo the US's second biggest foreign creditor after Beijing.
In Japan, where the magazine Newsweek still appears in print, despite existing only in digital form in the US, last week's cover bore the image of a frayed American flag and above it the headline: "Ruined America -- a Superpower Destroys Itself."
Translated from the German by Ella Ornstein
Thrilled to hear of our successes. Try not to take it so badly. It is for your own good.
Worked for the government for about six years...not only can I believe that the government screwed the pooch and paid for a screwed up website I have seen it happen first hand. In the early 2000s there was a new agency that was created to assign physical and financial scores to all public housing and FHA insured properties. For the public housing properties a very well known consultancy was hired to create a website that added 4 scores together and came up with a total. Just to be sure the website was working correctly we recreated the functionality in Excel and tested our results against the website the day before the roll out. Of course the site was not working correctly. The government execs went nuts. I remember sitting in the meeting listening to the govt exec yell at the partner and senior manager for the consulting firm and say "I thought that you tested this thing why is it spewing out crap?" and their response was; "we did test it but that was a systems test. If you wanted user acceptance testing that would have cost another $3-5mm and taken another 8-12 months" I thought that the govt guys head was going to explode. So I could see that sort of thing happening here not to mention the fact that they probably had to hire multiple 8(a) contractors that wrote all of the code different ways and then tried to merge it all at the end.
What a 2 faced clown!
Most of the Politicians in that room voted for & Signed the ACA.