Obamacare

One of the unspoken complaints about Obamacare (in addition to it soaking up all and then some of the $380/year in low gas price "savings" as a result of the oil plunge) is that if it was so good for the general population, then why are most Congressional staffers exempt from its provisions? That is about to change after Senate Republican staffers will be required to obtain health insurance through ObamaCare's exchanges under a rule passed Wednesday by the GOP Conference. "Washington should have to live under ObamaCare just like everybody else until we repeal it. And we won't be complicit in Obama's illegal rule designed to protect Washington insiders."

Because you can always bet on the "stupidity of the American voter" and win.

Today at 9:30am Eastern, the two key people behind Obamacare will testify under oath before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. One of them is Marilyn Tavenner, the CMS Administrator and the person who was tasked with managing the implementation of Obamacare: a process that was a complete disaster as those who tried to sign up on the healthcare.gov website in late 2013 will recall (and whose overhaul cost over $2 billion).  On the other hand, Jonathan Gruber has recently gained notoriety after a series of videos with him were leaked, in which he bragged that deception and “the stupidity of the American voter” allowed Obama to ram his pet healthcare program into law.

A year ago, following the whole Supreme Court farce, a bevy of states proved there are more than just "idiot voters" left in the US, when they decided to sue Obamacare outright over one or more of its provisions. They were promptly shut down by a judicial system that is as corrupt as the government itself (needless to say, both working at the behest of their true financial puppetmaster: Wall Street). And yet, in the aftermath of the now epic fiasco that is Obamacare, and not to mention the violent reaction to the administration as demonstrated in the midterm elections, the president may have a tougher time to brush away the next round of adverse reactions against his latest hugely unpopular executive order, one involving the amnesty of over 5 million illegal immigrants. According to AP, Texas is leading a 17-state coalition in suing over the Obama administration's recently announced executive actions on immigration.

With uncertainty lingering and patience wearing thin after five-plus years of still lackluster wage growth, consumers are increasing saving for the future, hedging against a continuation of “more of the same.” Thus, for many, extra savings at the pump as a result of lower gas prices are simply being stored away to help supplement spending needs in the future, ramping up savings, not spending.

"These idiots cannot grasp that this is reversing the US economy into isolationism and is paving the road for China to take the lead. It is time to turn off the lights."

With friends like this, who needs Republicans. President Obama may be turning over in his golf cart this Thanksgiving weekend as no lessor Democrat than Chuck "get back to work, Mr. Chairman" Schumer said Tuesday night that Democrats acted wrongly in using their new mandate after the 2008 election to focus on the issue rather than the economy at the height of a terrible recession. As National Journal reports, Schumer exclaimed, we "blew the opportunity the American people gave [us]." Little late to distance yourself from this cluster-tax chucky boy...

• National Guard, police curb Ferguson unrest as protests swell across U.S. (Reuters)
• Ferguson Reaction Across U.S. Shows Complex Racial Split (BBG)
• Democratic senator Schumer: Democrats Screwed Up By Passing Obamacare In 2010 (TPM)
• Veto threat derails Reid tax deal (Hill)
• Justice Department Investigating Possible HSBC Leak to Hedge Fund (WSJ)
• Merkel hits diplomatic dead-end with Putin (Reuters), and yet...
• Merkel Said to Reject Ukraine NATO Bid as Rousing Tension (BBG)
• HSBC, Goldman Rigged Metals’ Prices for Years, Suit Says (BBG)

• Ferguson in Flames (Reuters)
• Ferguson Cop Told Grand Jury He Feared for His Life (BBG)
• Sharpton: Grand Jury Announcement ‘An Absolute Blow’ (Daily Caller)
• Gunshots echo as violence returns to Ferguson, protests across U.S. (Reuters)
• BoJ members warned on costs of more easing (FT)
• Hagel Exit Shows Obama Has Taken Power Away From Pentagon (BBG)
• Ukraine leader, under pressure from West, pledges new government soon (Reuters)
• Eurozone Stagnation Poses Major Risk to Global Growth, OECD Warns (WSJ)
• ECB’s Coeure Says Officials Won’t Rush as They Debate All Assets (BBG)

On one hand, the US middle class has rarely if ever had it worse. At least, if one actually dares to venture into this thing called the real world, and/or believes the NYT's report: "Falling Wages at Factories Squeeze the Middle Class." In short, it says that America's manufacturing sector, and thus middle class, is being obliterated: "A new study by the National Employment Law Project, to be released on Friday, reveals that many factory jobs nowadays pay far less than what workers in almost identical positions earned in the past. And then, paradoxically, at almost the same time, there's this from Bloomberg: "Lower-wage workers saw bigger pay gains over the past year than the highest earners, reversing the trend from earlier stages of the recovery." In short: the state of the US middle class is truly in the eyes of the beholder.

It is unclear whether the person in charge of the Lois Lerner "disappeared IRS emails" strategy was also Dr. Gruber, but whoever conceived of the idiotic idea that the fatal failure of a local hard disk means that emails which are stored on at least one server miles away, and subsequently downloaded via POP3, IMAP or some other protocol, have vaporized, clearly also relied on the stupidity (and laziness) of the American people. And like in the case of Obamacare, the lies worked, if only for a short period of time. And because when it comes to lies coming from the very top, there is never just one cockroach, and they always inevitably scatter, the latest headache for a scandal-ridden president is that Lois Lerner's email, supposedly gone in perpetuity, have mysteriously reappeared, and as the Washington Examiner reports, "up to 30,000 missing emails sent by former Internal Revenue Service official Lois Lerner have been recovered by the IRS inspector general, five months after they were deemed lost forever."

While the biggest news of the day will certainly be China's rate cut (and the Dutch secret gold repatriation but more on the shortly), here is a list of all the other central-banking/planning events which have moved markets overnight, because in the new normal it no longer is about any news or fundamentals, it is all about the destruction of the value of money and the matched increase in nominal asset values.

Joint statement by NYC Health Department and NYC Health and Hospitals Corporation

An individual who came to the United States from Mali, a country with limited Ebola transmission, was taken to HHC Bellevue Hospital Center today. Due to the individual's travel history and symptoms, the patient has been isolated, and an Ebola test will be performed. Results are expected later today.

Two months ago, to much fanfare by the progressive community, HHS, if not Dr. Jonathan Gruber, were delighted to report that as of August 15, Obamacare enrollment had hit 7.3 million sign ups, well above the 7.0 million goal. Then a week ago we learned that "projection mistakes were made" after the "Obama administration revised its estimate for Obamacare enrollment, now saying - with the bruising midterms safely in the rearview mirror - that it expects some 9.9 million people to have coverage through the Affordable Care Act’s insurance exchanges in 2015, millions fewer than outside experts predicted." Fast forward to today when moments ago Bloomberg reported, that "the Obama administration included as many as 400,000 dental plans in a number it reported for enrollments under the Affordable Care Act, an unpublicized detail that helped surpass a goal for 7 million sign-ups."

As Hilary Clinton starts to ponder the curtains she wants to hang in the Oval Office, there is only one person who can realistically stand in her way: Rand Paul.