Category Archives: Politics: National

Government Employees

Posted on October 1, 2013 | Leave a comment

One of the fallacies that the main stream leftist has of upper middle class America is that these upper middle class folks they simply have their world given to them.

You know, they’re white and male therefore don’t have to work or achieve.  They just walk in a room and get given the bounty of life.

The truth is far from this perception.

Consider this:

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development said it will close its offices at 1:30 p.m. Other agencies, such as the Labor Department, expect most employees to be gone by mid-day, but haven’t set a specific time.

Once they head home, furloughed employees are under strict orders not to do any work. That means no sneaking glances at Blackberries or smart phones to check emails, no turning on laptop computers, no checking office voicemail, and no use of any other government-issued equipment.

Every single vacation I’ve taken in the last 5-10 years has included my work laptop.  My wife and I got married on the beaches here in North Carolina; we spent 10 glorious days celebrating with friends and family.  We brought work laptops with us.

When I am NOT on vacation, I often times check my email before my feet hit the floor in the morning and one of the last things I  do before going to be is check my work condition.  I often interact with global teams located who knows where, and their needs may not fit a US based schedule.

My point?  Government is without a clue and these people are only making it more painful than they need to be.

Leave a comment

Posted in Government, Idiots on Parade, Politics: National

Tagged

Government Shutdown

Posted on October 1, 2013 | 13 comments

First, I would like to point out that I fully support a shutdown of the government.  The aspects of the State that I think are essential are not in jeopardy of being turned away; we only face the fat of the pig.

Second, this is the hammer I would wield if I were a republican lawmaker.  I would simply slip the paper to Reid and Obama, look them straight in the eye and say, “Manage your career as you see fit.”

There is support across the political spectrum for delaying the individual mandate one year and using the government funding bill to implement the delay. Additionally, the survey found that by a 5-point margin, respondents support using every opportunity to defund or delay the ACA rather than simply passing a “clean” bill to fund the government.

Fully 56 percent of respondents support the individual mandate delay in the context of a continuing resolution debate, including 55 percent of independents, and 52 percent overall in “swing districts.” The survey also found that strong majorities across the spectrum oppose the Affordable Care Act, including 60 percent of independents, and a majority in “swing districts.”

If brought before the people in districts that will swing, defunding the bill will win.

Game over.

13 Comments

Posted in Idiots on Parade, Politics: National

Tagged , ,

Obamacare – Law Of The Land

Posted on October 1, 2013 | 12 comments

So, as the country moves into a government shutdown, I’m reflecting on politics.

Consider North Carolina.  We here have elected a republican governor, a republican controlled house and a republican controlled senate.

All legitimate.

Together, these bodies have submitted, debated, passed and vetoed laws; only later to be over ridden.

One of the most controversial laws passed is the Voter ID law; of which the United States has sued to challenge.

Is there a democrat alive that would not support using any means legally necessary to overturn that law?  Shenanigans or not.

Now, consider the opposition.  That is how they feel concerning Obamacare.

And like it or not, it is the House of Representatives that are negotiating and compromising, not the Senate.

12 Comments

Posted in Government, Politics: National

Tagged , ,

State Of Occupy Wall Street – Raleigh Style

Posted on September 26, 2013 | 2 comments

Occupy RaleighThought I’d slum it tonight and wander through the Occu-camp.

Not surprising.  They Gone.

Policy or philosophy differences aside, the effectiveness of the Tea Party compared to the efforts of a bunch of vagrant criminals.  One group is shaping national legislation, the other is “taking too long to respond.”

2 Comments

Posted in Idiots on Parade, Lobby/PAC, Politics: National

Tagged ,

Thigs Reach Their Logical Conclusion

Posted on September 26, 2013 | Leave a comment

TwitterThe other day the fellas at Poison Your Mind posted on shenanigans Romney supporters partook of to influence a form of social media:

Of course some genius for Romney did this:

“A new academic paper digging into presidential betting in the final weeks of the 2012 election finds that a single trader lost between $4 million and $7 million placing a flurry of Intrade bets on Mitt Romney — perhaps to make the Republican nominee’s chance of victory appear brighter,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“The anonymous trader placed 1.2 million pro-Romney contracts, some of which were actually in the form of bets against a Barack Obama victory. The most plausible reason for the betting, the authors conclude, is that ‘this trader could have been attempting to manipulate beliefs about the odds of victory in an attempt to boost fundraising, campaign morale, and turnout.’”

A fascinating story to be sure.  On one hand, $1.2 million is just some sum of money spent to convince people to vote one way or another.  It’s hard to distinguish between that and spending money on TV ads.  The other hand?  It’s chumpy.  There’s something about placing that bet that violates “man law”.

But whatever.  The mark of a desperate man only indicates a desperate man.

But is Romney alone in his “deception”?

Among influential U.S. political tweeters, President Barack Obama is the undisputed king of the fake followers. A MailOnline analysis ranks his sizable Twitter following as the most deceptive total among the 21 most influential accounts run by American politicians: More than 19.5 million of his 36.9 million Twitter followers are accounts that don’t correspond to real people.

The four phoniest accounts in the sample, which included Democratic and Republican Party leaders in Washington, D.C., were those belonging to President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, first lady Michelle Obama and the White House communications shop.

Of the president’s 36.9 million Twitter followers, an astonishing 53 per cent – or 19.5 million – are fake accounts, according to a search engine at the Internet research vendor StatusPeople.com. Just 20 per cent of Obama’s Twitter buddies are real people who are active users.

Read the whole article, politicians of all kinds, from both sides of the aisle, are shown to have significant Twitter followers.  Obama isn’t alone.  However, it just goes to show that when a metric matters, people will maximize that metric.

I hate people.

Leave a comment

Posted in Life, Politics: National

Tagged , , ,

ObamaCare: The Price Of A Policy

Posted on September 26, 2013 | 3 comments

There has been much joy and excitement over the recently released report declaring that policies are coming in lower than projected:

The report also gives an overview of pricing and the number of coverage options across the nation.  It finds that the average premium nationally for the second lowest cost silver plan will be $328 before tax credits, or 16 percent below projections based off of Congressional Budget Office estimates.

Now, to be sure, had the report come out and reported that the premiums were going to be 16 percent above, HHS would be hammered, so a 16 percent below expectation is positive news.  But in truth, this report is only comparing what the policies will cost compared to what people THOUGHT they would cost.  It mentions nothing without being able to compare costs to existing costs.

AEI makes the point very well:

In short, HHS is not saying that people will be paying lower premiums on the exchanges than they’re paying now. HHS is just saying that people will be paying less than HHS thought people would be paying. They’re trying to sell this as good news—people will not have to spend as much as HHS originally thought they would. However, when determining what’s affordable, what really matters is what people think they should be spending.

When we’re trying to figure out if the new premium estimates will be affordable for people, then, we can’t just set a federal standard—which is how the Affordable Care Act defines affordability. We should compare what people (to a large extent, in this case, the uninsured) think they should pay and what HHS says they’ll be paying.

I think that the administration knows that this roll out is going to go very poorly and this report is nothing but an attempt to spin some good news.

3 Comments

Posted in Health Care, Politics: National

Tagged , ,

Approval Rating – About Right

Posted on September 20, 2013 | 3 comments

I think that Boehner has done more work across the aisles than Reid has done.  The minority leaders are largely behind the scenes.  But it doesn’t surprise me that Reid has the worst approval while all four of them are negative:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) holds the lowest net approval rating among House and Senate leadership — but others are not far behind.

According to a Gallup poll released Friday, Reid’s approval rating is 33 percent with 53 percent disapproving of his job performance, leaving him with a net rating of negative 20 percent.

Speaker John Boehner (Ohio), who leads the Republican majority in the House, holds a net approval rating of negative 17 percent, with 37 percent of people approving while 54 percent disapprove.

Both minority leaders in the House and Senate hold a net approval rating of negative 12 percent.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has a 35 percent approval rating, while 37 percent disapprove of him. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has the approval of 39 percent of people, but 51 percent disapprove.

3 Comments

Posted in Politics: National

Tagged , , ,

Housing Crisis – Data Point

Posted on September 18, 2013 | 5 comments

Housing BubbleThere is no doubt that the housing crisis was caused by government policy.  Bad actors everywhere?  Sure.  But at the root of it all the was the government’s desire – by both parties – to increase home ownership in America.  And specifically for the poor and minorities.

With that in mind:

There is no doubt what really happened. Between 1997 and 2007, HUD’s affordable-housing policies under two administrations built an enormous mortgage bubble—nine times as large as any bubble in modern history—and when this bubble collapsed, it caused a 30%-40% decline in housing prices. This left homeowners who had limited financial resources and no equity in their houses unable to refinance or sell, causing an unprecedented number of mortgage defaults. Shocked by these numbers, investors fled mortgage-backed securities, making them useless for short-term financing by financial institutions like Lehman. The result was a panic and a financial crisis.

Indeed.

As I mentioned, there were guilty actors everywhere. Everyone from the appraiser who fudge the home value to the banker who pressured lending agents to companies that engaged in fraud – guilty all.

But it was the government, through the agencies Freddie and Fannie that drove the whole failure.

Consider:

HUD was still at it in 2004, stating that “Millions of Americans with less than perfect credit or who cannot meet some of the tougher underwriting requirements of the prime market . . . rely on subprime lenders for access to mortgage financing. If the GSEs reach deeper into the subprime market, more borrowers will benefit from the advantages that greater stability and standardization create.”

That statement is all you need to understand why, in 2008, 74% of the subprime mortgages outstanding in the U.S. financial system were on the books of government agencies, particularly Fannie and Freddie.

 

 

5 Comments

Posted in Economics, Government, Politics: National

Tagged , ,

Living On A Budget

Posted on September 16, 2013 | 9 comments

Not quite living on $31.50, but this is a neat article describing life on $50 a week:

College, unemployment, or an unexpected change in your life situation can mean that a major cut in spending is required as you plan how to survive from week to week. We found that it’s possible to take care of the essentials, with a dollop of comfort thrown in, for less than $50 a week by shopping at the local dollar store.

Sure, the dollar store is a pit stop for cheap snacks, cooking supplies, toys, and other small items, but it’s also a source for food at one very low price. And yes, there may be a stigma attached to dollar store shopping for all your needs, but can you afford to be snobby at a time like this?

…

Our suggested menus and shopping list below presume you have some staples on hand, such as mayonnaise and condiments like pickles. Remember, inventory will vary at every dollar store:

Suggest Grocery List:

1 box cereal — $1
1 6-ct pack oatmeal — $1
1 bag coffee — $1
1 loaf bread — $1
1 box pancake mix — $1
1 bottle imitation maple syrup — $1
1 jar jelly — $1
1 jar peanut butter — $1
1 12-ct. carton eggs — $1
1/2 gallon shelf-stable milk/1 gallon fresh milk — $1
1 32-oz. jar apple juice — $1
1 2-ct. pack pre-made pizza crusts — $1
1 jar pizza sauce — $1
1 container grated Parmesan cheese — $1
2 boxes Hamburger Helper — $2
1 bag pasta — $1
2 cans meat sauce — $2
5 5-oz. cans tuna — $5
1 box instant oatmeal — $1
3 1-lb. cans soup — $3
4 10-oz. cans vegetables — $4
1 box crackers — $1
1 pastry crust — $1
1 box New Orleans-style rice — $1
1 can beans — $1
1 box dehydrated mashed potatoes — $1
2 packages frozen chicken — $2
1 pack Country Time Iced Tea Mix — $1
1 bag potato chips — $1
1 6-ct box granola bars — $1
1 bottle barbecue sauce — $1
Total: $43

Not bad.  Combined with my list and I’ll bet it’s even less expensive.

9 Comments

Posted in Government, Liberty, Politics: National

Tagged , ,

The Value Of Employment’s First Rung

Posted on September 16, 2013 | Leave a comment

Minimum WageMuch has been discussed with jobs, minimum wage, poverty, the income gap and unemployment.  One of my central themes is that wages are not the full story when it comes to compensation.  Another is that minimum wage jobs are NOT meant to be careers and certainly are not meant to be a means by which we raise a family.

Rather, these jobs are meant to be the first rung in the employment ladder.  In addition to modest wages they teach job skills; customer service, scheduling, listening, task completion and plain old “boss respect”.

An old story that emphasizes this point:

Here’s one reason why Volkswagen likes hiring former fast-food employees for its 2.5 million-square-foot plant here in the heart of the Tennessee Valley.

“Inexperience is a key,” said Gary Booth, director of the Volkswagen Academy training operation. “Some of our best employees came from McDonald’s. They know standardized work.”

Booth, strolling the halls of Volkswagen’s 163,000-square-foot training facility connected to the plant, said he doesn’t want to hire assembly-line workers who have developed “bad habits” at previous manufacturing jobs.

I work at a highly specialized center and I continually advocate hiring local McDonald managers to fill our centers.

Just sayin’.

Leave a comment

Posted in Economics, Middle Class, Politics: National

Tagged , ,