The '47 Million' Lie [Mister R.]

This is in conjunction of previous post.

Mister R.'s latest dispatch on health care:

One of the most disingenuous uses of statistics has come with the use of the figure "47 million" when referring to the number of people without health insurance.

By continuing to pound the number "47 million", advocates of a single-payer system are implementing Alinsky's rules in order to affect change. But their number is specious.

Let's break down the 47 million:

During her campaign for President, Hillary Clinton admitted in questioning that, of the 47 million, at least 25 percent could afford health insurance but choose not to purchase it (those with a household income of more than $75,000 a year). I believe the number to be slightly higher, closer to 30 percent, but let's use Clinton's number. That's 12 million.

Let's count illegal aliens. Believe it or not, illlegals are counted in this number, however, statistical models vary and have ranged from 5 to 12 million. Let's take the middle. 8 million.

Then there are those who are already eligible for government programs but not participating. That number is estimated at 12 to 16 million. Let's take 12 million.

Another group of people are those who self-fund. These are people with the financial resources to handle high medical claims. That number is estimated at 1 to 2 million. We'll take one for arguments sake.

Then there are those who are between jobs. When people are fired or leave a job, they can opt for COBRA (an extension of their health benefits under the Consolidated Omnibus Reconciliation Act, I believe 1996). When electing COBRA coverage, the premium is covered by the member. When someone is between jobs, or have obtained a job and have to wait 90 days for coverage, the government counts you as not having health insurance. That number is estimated at 5 million.

These are not exact figures, and may vary, but they are pretty widely accepted.

Add the numbers up and you get 38 million. That leaves 9 million without coverage (although they really do have coverage since the federal government, along with the states, administer medicaid and charity care).

So the real number of uninsured is 8-10 million. There are 300 million Americans.

So we want to break the system because 1 out of 30 people cannot afford coverage. That's absurd.

One last point: When politicians control your health care, they will politicize it, and use it to get elected. More on that later.

However, Obama has shown all Americans that he has already politicized the process. When he called all the health care providers and carriers together to promise savings in the system, he exempted lawyers. They were never called to the table. Tort reform is directly tied to the reduction of costs in the system (consider, for example, how Texas instituted Tort Reform).

Obama railed against "special interests" in his campaign, but has shown he will protect entire special interest classes. Like the UAW and ACORN. In this case, trial lawyers also happen to be among the largest donors to Democrats.

More to come.

Welcome to Tyranny

Read this and ask yourself: Is this free press?

ABC TURNS PROGRAMMING OVER TO OBAMA; NEWS TO BE ANCHORED FROM INSIDE WHITE HOUSE
Tue Jun 16 2009 08:45:10 ET

On the night of June 24, the media and government become one, when ABC turns its programming over to President Obama and White House officials to push government run health care -- a move that has ignited an ethical firestorm!

Highlights on the agenda:

ABCNEWS anchor Charlie Gibson will deliver WORLD NEWS from the Blue Room of the White House.

The network plans a primetime special -- 'Prescription for America' -- originating from the East Room, exclude opposing voices on the debate.

MORE

Late Monday night, Republican National Committee Chief of Staff Ken McKay fired off a complaint to the head of ABCNEWS:

Dear Mr. Westin:

As the national debate on health care reform intensifies, I am deeply concerned and disappointed with ABC's astonishing decision to exclude opposing voices on this critical issue on June 24, 2009. Next Wednesday, ABC News will air a primetime health care reform “town hall” at the White House with President Barack Obama. In addition, according to an ABC News report, GOOD MORNING AMERICA, WORLD NEWS, NIGHTLINE and ABC’s web news “will all feature special programming on the president’s health care agenda.” This does not include the promotion, over the next 9 days, the president’s health care agenda will receive on ABC News programming.

Today, the Republican National Committee requested an opportunity to add our Party's views to those of the President's to ensure that all sides of the health care reform debate are presented. Our request was rejected. I believe that the President should have the ability to speak directly to the America people. However, I find it outrageous that ABC would prohibit our Party's opposing thoughts and ideas from this national debate, which affects millions of ABC viewers.

In the absence of opposition, I am concerned this event will become a glorified infomercial to promote the Democrat agenda. If that is the case, this primetime infomercial should be paid for out of the DNC coffers. President Obama does not hold a monopoly on health care reform ideas or on free airtime. The President has stated time and time again that he wants a bipartisan debate. Therefore, the Republican Party should be included in this primetime event, or the DNC should pay for your airtime.

Respectfully,
Ken McKay
Republican National Committee
Chief of Staff

MyBrute and C.A.T.S.

Okay, everyone go here: Click ME DAMNIT
Have fun!

Remember to go here afterwords!

Random Walk Down Madison Avenue's Golden Mile

those aren't empty stores; that is a new national chain called "Store For Rent". We have a couple of their franchises out here in the Midwest, and it is the hottest thing. Their direct competitors are called "Going Out of Business" and "Store For Lease"; I am sure you have some of those franchises in your parts too.

Lets have a huge party because we are all going to die!

Straight of the ATSnews presses is:

Lets have a huge party because we are all going to die!


As I read through the news these days I have come to the conclusion that we are all going to die sometime in the next 50-100 years. SO LETS HAVE A PARTY!

We are either going to be broke, enslaved by the PTB, taken over by aliens, die from the flouride in our water, keel over from the swine flu, or the devil is coming in a few weeks. Therefore, I figure we might as well go out with a bang. We could get all the biggest bands together, and invite our friends from Columbia and Mexico so they can bring the party favors. We can even use it as a charity event to raise money. Money which we will promptly put into a giant pile and burn because in a few months it wont be worth anything anyway.

So lets not get depressed. Lets turn the world on its head and throw the biggest bash known to man. We can even invite the Naked Wizard just to add to the fun. This would be the best form of protest we can choose, because even if it fails at least we had a little fun and relieved some stress.

A deep thought

Got this from the ATS forums during a discussion on how despicable some people are. Well most people are.


It is hard to fathom that a single species can evolve their technology and social structure enough to launch themselves into space and that same species is elsewhere still throwing flint tipped spears at small animals.

Zero Hedge Exclusive: Is State Street Trading For Federal Accounts?

I do so hope with all my heart this is true and they get the evidence. Then we can finally get rid of the lying sack of crap that is the Federal Reserve.


Zero Hedge has always been fascinated by the behemoths of securities lending (or not so much lately) State Street and Bank Of New York: these firms, which allegedly had just marginal toxic exposure, were in the front lines for the TARP bailout and have traditionally been handled with velvet gloves by the administration. In fact, many would say the custodian firms are in a league of importance much higher than even Goldman or JP Morgan as with their repo activity, security lending and cash collateral reinvestment, they are the de facto center of the shadow banking system.

A Cliff notes version of the stock lenders' Modus Operandi, sent in compliments of a reader:

• In the securities lending arb, stocks and bonds are lent out by custodians and investment managers. The loan is collateralized by the borrower with cash, the lender promises the borrower a return on that cash and then invests the cash in repo and short-term debt at a spread to that promised rate of return. The sec lending market is in the trillions. This market is basically rolling overnight repo right now as it tries to dig itself out of the MTM/liquidity hole.

• Many of the Fed/Treasury balance sheet efforts have been basically attempts to supplant securities lenders. Sec lending funds were the biggest buyers of 1-3yr FRNs (hence, TLGP). Lenders were also the biggest buyers of AAA cards and autos (read TALF 1.0). They were the second-biggest buyers of ABCP after 2a7 funds (ergo AMLF). Indirectly they were the largest funder of LT2 bank debt (via SIVs MTNs). They're large repo counerparties, and did everything from short-dated CDS to liquidity put options on Canadian levered super-senior CDOs.

• Many stock lending funds, which have similar accrual accounting regimes to '40 Act money-market funds, have broken the buck but are still trading at $1. for example see the section beginning "We may be exposed to customer claims" on p.11. What does this mean? Not only are certain securities lending providers opening themselves up to significant litigation risk but, importantly, clients in stocks can't reallocate to bonds (or vice-versa), since the sec lending funds aren't letting them out (except in-kind). Finally, of course, as long as sec lenders remain hurt but unsupplanted, they stay short duration, which extracts hundreds of billions of $$ in term financing capacity out of the market. Fed won't act as a lender of last resort since they're still smarting from the AIG sec lending bail-out they didn't see coming.

It is no surprise that in order to incite a return to pre-Lehman economic levels (the administration's #1 goal bar none), not only the stock market would have to much higher from its March lows (a task largely accomplished through market increases on disappearing breadth, liquidity extraction by the likes of Goldman Sachs, and assorted last minute inexplicalbe ramp ups in the various futures and ETF markets), but also the shadow system would have to be back with a vengeance. And while new mechanisms to achieve this such as securitization replacement alphabet soups have yet to prove their efficacy, the real heart of the shadow banking system Frankenstein is and has always been the repo market.

Which is why we were greatly troubled when we learned recently on good authority that Federal representatives may have opened multiple undisclosed-type accounts with none other than State Street Global Advisors over the past few months. All of these accounts are allegedly handled by one single trader, who is cocooned and isolated from interaction with other partners.

Zero Hedge can, as of yet, not vouch for this being 100% factual and is asking readers who may have additional knowledge of the situtation to please come forward and share their views (tips@zerohedge.com). If, indeed, the Federal Reserve or other derivatives of the administration, are now directly involved in trading, managing repo terms, stock lending, collateral distribution and other liquidity-crucial aspects of what was once an efficient market, then indeed this rally could be written off not merely as the biggest short covering rally of all time, but one that has been explicitly orchestrated by those who should be most impartial to an efficiently working market.