Obamacare

Getting 'shellacked' in the Midterms, coming 2nd to Putin as the world's most powerful person, and now, as AP reports, The Supreme Court agrees to rule on insurance subsidies in a new challenge to ObamaCare. Simply put they will judge whether subsidies for middle- and lower-income people are legal... As Think Progress warns, "if it succeeds, the likely result will be a “death spiral” where higher premiums cause healthy consumers to drop out of the insurance market, which will cause higher premiums, which will cause more consumers to drop their insurance."

• The $9 Billion Witness: Meet JPMorgan Chase's Worst Nightmare (Matt Taibbi)
• Explains the midterm results: Optimism precedes job data (Reuters)
• EU Dream Ebbs Amid Weak Growth, Putin's Jets, 25 Years After Wall Came Down (BBG)
• SEC Probing Trading Activity at Apple Supplier GT Advanced (WSJ)
• Boehner touts bills to repeal Obamacare, build Keystone (Reuters)
• China Gold Buying Means Price Floor to Standard Chartered (BBG)
• High-Speed Ad Traders Profit by Arbitraging Your Eyeballs (BBG)
• Central Banks Can’t Be ‘Only Game in Town’ Boosting Economies (BBG) - less talking, more getting to work

Please don't claim anything changes if one party or the other is in the majority. Anyone clinging to that fantasy is delusional.

It would appear the blood-red pen of veto will be running dry by the time the President's term is up based on Mitch McConnell and John Boehner's WSJ op-ed explaining "now we can get Congress going." As they begin, "Americans have entrusted Republicans with control of both the House and Senate. We are humbled by this opportunity to help struggling middle-class Americans who are clearly frustrated..."

*MCCONNELL SAYS ONLY ONE DEMOCRAT COUNTS: OBAMA

Front-running President Obama's press conference by an hour, new Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell (having received a congratulatory phone message from the President on his party's victory) will, we are sure, encourage bipartisanship and utter conciliatory tones as he holds his first press conference post-election. However, judging from some comments, the gloves are off. "We want to get things in front of the president that define him and his party," one Republican Senate aide said, "Harry Reid has protected him. We want to force him to make a choice."

There has always been a substantial level of incompetence at federal agencies, but under the Obama administration incompetence has risen to unprecedented levels.

When it comes to Ebola, the story that the government is telling us just keeps on changing. At first, government officials were claiming that it was very difficult to spread the Ebola virus. Some of them were even comparing it to HIV. We were given the impression that we had to have “direct contact” with someone else’s body fluids in order to have any chance of catching the virus. But of course that is not true at all. Now authorities are admitting that Ebola is “aerostable”, that it can be “spread through droplets”, and that it can remain on surfaces for up to 50 days. That is far different information than we have been getting up until this point.

In a sad reflection of the hope-and-change expectations, a new national poll shows likely voters in the so-called millennial generation prefer a Republican-led Congress after next week's elections, and young Hispanics are turning sharply against President Obama. As National Journal reports, the poll of 18-to-29-year-olds by Harvard's Institute of Politics (IOP) shows that young Americans are leaving the new Democratic coalition that twice elected Obama as the president's approval rating among Millennial tumbles from 47% in April to just 43% now (and nearly 60% of young Americans disapprove of Obamacare). However, the news is not all good as the future of the American electorate, generally hold Republicans in the lowest regard.

"Reporters on the ground aren’t necessarily ideological, Attkisson says, but the major network news decisions get made by a handful of New York execs who read the same papers and think the same thoughts. Often they dream up stories beforehand and turn the reporters into 'casting agents,' told 'we need to find someone who will say...' that a given policy is good or bad. “We’re asked to create a reality that fits their New York image of what they believe,"

Most defenders of the state assume that government services help the poor. And, sometimes, some poor people do benefit financially from government programs. But there’s a hidden cost: taxation and mandatory programs (Social Security, for instance) that hurt the needy by restricting their choices. Government taxes away income that low-income households could invest in improving their lives. At the same time, state-sponsored benefits create incentives that keep the poor trapped in poverty.

Yesterday, Obama made a rare campaign trail appearance in Maryland where he spoke in support of Democratic candidate for governor, Anthony Brown, proceeded with his usual bulletin of reading fabricated economic data off the teleprompter in which he highlighted improvements in US unemployment (if not the 46.5 million people on foodstamps or the 93 million Americans out of the labor force), a rebounding housing market (just as the bouncing dead cat is once again dead), the benefits of health insurance (if no mention of the disaster for small businesses that Obamacare now definitively is) a resurgent manufacturing sector (just don't look at this chart) even if he did point out the unfairness of families having "two folks working", and... a mass audience exodus followed.

And it all started off so promisingly, when after the biggest selloff in US stocks in two months, the BOJ and its preferred banks once again sold 6J (i.e., bought USDJPY) in the morning Japan session (while collecting CME liquidity rebates of course), sending the pair from below 108 to half the way to 109, and naturally taking global futures higher while pushing yields lower when as ITC says a "large TY seller knocked USTs to lows during the session" - hmmm, wonder who the large seller was. And then... the "rebound euphoria" fizzled a la Sodastream, sending the Nikkei sliding 1.2%, and US equity futures back to unchanged with the bond surge returning and sending German Bunds to new all time highs once again, while the Dax briefly broke below under 9000 before stabilizing at the key support level. It is unclear what caused the failure in central bank euphoria, although some suggest that the latest bevy of disappointing economic news wasn't quite bad enough.

Under the title (only-a-PR-person-could-make-up) "Providing Quality Benefits for Our Associates," Walmart - who employs 1.3 million people in America, has changed its eligibility standards for healthcare benefits. "Like every company," they explain "Walmart faces rising healthcare costs," and so are ending benefits for associates who work less than 30 hours a week. We suspect the refrain from the American taxpayer will go something like "thanks Obamacare, you're welcome Walmart."

This should be good... "economic fairness" is the defining challenge of our time.

The U.S. government is borrowing about 8 trillion dollars a year... The only way that this game can continue is if the U.S. government can continue to borrow gigantic piles of money at ridiculously low interest rates. And our current standard of living greatly depends on the continuation of this game. If something comes along and rattles this Ponzi scheme, life in America could change radically almost overnight.