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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: longnshort who wrote (474064)	2/26/2012 5:08:21 PM
From: FJB	2 Recommendations Respond to of 794009

Barack in Sarah clothing February 26, 2012 by Don Surber Republicans have President Obama on the run. He has had to disguise himself and his stupid policies again — this time by donning the political garb of his arch rival. President Barack Obama looks pretty nice in Sarah Palin’s dress. And by dress, I mean her energy policy. He is now mouthing the very words he mocked 4 years ago when he said we don’t need to drill for oil. In 2008, Candidate Obama preached that if everyone just needs to check the air pressure in their tires, we’ll be fine. Ah, the mocker-in-chief boo-hooing about being mocked… VIDEO: blogs.dailymail.com Now that the economy is in the toilet, President Obama is all drill, baby, drill. First, here is what Sarah Palin said on June 13, 2010: Am I the only one who wonders what could possibly be the agenda of any politician who would thwart our drive toward energy independence? Continuing to lock up America’s domestic energy reserves, including the energy-rich Last Frontier of Alaska, only equips dangerous foreign regimes as they fund terrorist organizations to harm us and our allies. I’m going to keep speaking and writing about this in the simplest of terms until someone can provide a simple answer as to why liberal Democrats don’t understand that we have safe, warehoused onshore and shallow water reserves waiting for permission to be extracted. They either choose not to understand the geology, science, and technology behind an all-of-the-above approach to energy security, or they understand it, yet for whatever frightening reason choose to be lap dogs to Chavez and Ahmadinejad. This is what our president said on Saturday: Now, we absolutely need safe, responsible oil production here in America. That’s why under my Administration, America is producing more oil today than at any time in the last eight years. In 2010, our dependence on foreign oil was under 50% for the first time in more than a decade. And while there are no short-term silver bullets when it comes to gas prices, I’ve directed my administration to look for every single area where we can make an impact and help consumers in the months ahead, from permitting to delivery bottlenecks to what’s going on in the oil markets. But over the long term, an all-of-the-above energy strategy means we have to do more. It means we have to make some choices. But President Obama is not the real deal. He’s in drag. President Obama is not a real believer in American energy independence. He’s a fake. A fraud. A phony. In his very next breath, the president said: Here’s one example. Right now, four billion of your tax dollars subsidize the oil industry every year. Four billion dollars. Imagine that. Maybe some of you are listening to this in your car right now, pulling into a gas station to fill up. As you watch those numbers rise, know that oil company profits have never been higher. Yet somehow, Congress is still giving those same companies another four billion dollars of your money. That’s outrageous. It’s inexcusable. And it has to stop. A century of subsidies to the oil companies is long enough. It’s time to end taxpayer giveaways to an industry that’s never been more profitable, and use that money to reduce our deficit and double-down on a clean energy industry that’s never been more promising. Because of the investments we’ve already made, the use of wind and solar energy in this country has nearly doubled – and thousands of Americans have jobs because of it. And because we put in place the toughest fuel economy standards in history, our cars will average nearly 55 miles per gallon by the middle of the next decade – something that, over time, will save the typical family more than $8,000 at the pump. Now Congress needs to keep that momentum going by renewing the clean energy tax credits that will lead to more jobs and less dependence on foreign oil. Of course the “tax giveaways” are ordinary business deductions akin to the ones given the businesses of his billionaire buddies — Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, George Soros and the rest. An actual giveaways was that half-billion “loan guarantee” that he gave his billionaire buddy, George Kaiser’s company, Solyndra. They are now arguing over who will pay for the contamination by this “green” company. Still, nice dress. Too bad we do not have a president who can wear it properly.

To: longnshort who wrote (474064)	2/26/2012 5:33:22 PM
From: puborectalis	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 794009

What Warren Buffett's Results Tell Us About Obamacare 3 comments, 1 called-out + Comment now You might remember a few months back an assertion that there was a bomb buried in Obamacare. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has it in a provision about medical loss ratios. This was going to mean the imminent and inevitable collapse of all private medical insurance in the United States. The essential idea was that the Act insisted that 80% of premiums (85% for large group insurers) has to be paid on actual real medical care consumed by those covered by the insurance. Given that overheads, the collection of the premiums, the management of them, those gilded palaces where the top management earn their multi-millions, take some 13% of premium income, this leaves only 2% for profit. And no one’s going to do this for just two percent. I rather dismissed this argument back then. It shows a disturbing lack of knowledge about how insurance companies really work. Now we’ve got the results in for Warren Buffett‘s Berkshire Hathaway. I have to say that they support my version of the economics rather than the bomb under Obamacare version. Buffett uses so-called float, or the insurance premiums Berkshire holds before paying claims, as a source of funds for investments. That’s essentially what Buffett is running. An investment fund using those insurance premiums to fund the investments. As I pointed out, this is an important source of income for insurance companies, over and above the premium income itself. In most years the cost of claims has been lower than premiums collected, delivering an underwriting profit to Berkshire in addition to investment income. As you can see, we need to pick out the two sources of profit for an insurance company: on premiums and on investment income. The insurance businesses had a fourth-quarter underwriting loss of $107 million driven by results at Berkshire Hathaway Reinsurance Group. See that? The insurance companies in the group had an underwriting loss ratio of over 100%. They paid out more in claims than they made in premiums that quarter. That compares with a profit of $414 million a year earlier. They often, they usually, have an underwriting loss ratio of under 100% it is true. Insurance investment income fell to $825 million from $911 million a year earlier after the redemption of securities Berkshire held in Goldman Sachs Group Inc., General Electric Co. and Swiss Re Ltd. But just look at that. The company makes twice in investment income what it makes from premium income even in the good times. Which is why the medical loss ratios in Obamacare just aren’t the bomb under private medical insurance that some seem to think. Because insurance companies have two streams of income, not just one. They have the premiums, yes, and they also have the investment income from those premiums. And the medical loss ratio only applies to the premiums themselves, not to the investment income from them.