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Politics : Mainstream Politics and Economics -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (20509)	7/24/2012 11:59:54 AM
From: longnshort	1 Recommendation Respond to of 85487

there won't be any insurance exchanges, if Obamacare remains private insurance co. will get out of the business leaving only the feds and then we are all screwed

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (20509)	7/24/2012 12:02:42 PM
From: longnshort	2 Recommendations Respond to of 85487

Elton John praises George W. Bush and ‘conservative American politicians’ [VIDEO] Read more: dailycaller.com and no one claps, blind hatred of Bush. liberals are a hateful ignorant bunch

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (20509)	7/24/2012 12:11:13 PM
From: Sdgla	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 85487

If you have up to 25 employees, pay average annual wages below $50,000, and provide health insurance, you may qualify for a small business tax credit of up to 35% (up to 25% for non-profits) to offset the cost of your insurance. This will bring down the cost of providing insurance. If ... May .. might qualify... Wharf... you base your business on if/may/might you WILL be out of biz pronto. Running the country on those ifs/mays & mights is how you get high UE and zero GDP growth. Nothing in Obamacare brings down health insurance costs period. Nothing in Obamacare helps lower or contain health care costs. my insurance costs have doubled since Obamacare was passed. Only way to get these costs turned lower is to eliminate all the bureaucracies that are feeding on the Doctors, hospitals and patients. Let people and their doctors handle their business directly. As Jack said.. go sell crazy somewhere else... we are all stocked up here.

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (20509)	7/24/2012 12:26:23 PM
From: longnshort	1 Recommendation Respond to of 85487

Let America Be America Again

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (20509)	7/24/2012 12:56:22 PM
From: longnshort	3 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 85487

IT'S STARTING: Nearly one in 10 employers to drop health coverage IT'S STARTING: Nearly one in 10 employers to drop health coverage...

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (20509)	7/24/2012 3:53:55 PM
From: longnshort	2 Recommendations Respond to of 85487

Morning Bell: The Green Graveyard of Taxpayer-Funded Failures Solar-cell manufacturer Solyndra became a household name when it collapsed, taking $627 million in American taxpayer dollars with it. It’s the poster company for the government picking winners and losers—or really, just losers—in the energy market. But there are 12 more “green energy” losers that have declared bankruptcy despite attempts to prop them up with taxpayer money—and the list is growing. There’s a reason why these companies could not rely solely on private financing and needed help from the government. They couldn’t make it on their own; they couldn’t even make it with extra taxpayer help. These green government “investments” take from one (by taxing or borrowing) and give to another, but they merely move money around. They do not create jobs. They send labor and resources to areas of the economy where they are wasted. Proponents of special financing and tax credits for solar companies claim that these benefits will pay for themselves down the line—but when the companies receiving them are going bankrupt, that is highly unlikely. Kate Adams, a member of Heritage’s Young Leaders Program, and Heritage’s Rachael Slobodien compiled a list of the 12 members of the Green Graveyard—companies that received taxpayer money for green initiatives yet have filed for bankruptcy. Abound Solar (Loveland, Colorado), manufacturer of thin film photovoltaic modules. Beacon Power (Tyngsborough, Massachusetts), designed and developed advanced products and services to support stable, reliable and efficient electricity grid operation. Ener1 (Indianapolis, Indiana), built compact lithium-ion-powered battery solutions for hybrid and electric cars. Energy Conversion Devices (Rochester Hills, Michigan/Auburn Hills, Michigan), manufacturer of flexible thin film photovoltaic (PV) technology and a producer of batteries and other renewable energy-related products. Evergreen Solar, Inc. (Marlborough, Massachusetts), manufactured and installed solar panels. Mountain Plaza, Inc. (Dandridge, Tennessee), designed and implemented “truck-stop electrification” technology. Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsens Mills Acquisition Co. (Berlin, Wisconsin), a private company producing ethanol. Range Fuels (Soperton, Georgia), tried to develop a technology that converted biomass into ethanol without the use of enzymes. Raser Technologies (Provo, Utah), geothermal power plants and technology licensing. Solyndra (Fremont, California), manufacturer of cylindrical panels of thin-film solar cells. Spectrawatt (Hopewell, New York), solar cell manufacturer. Thompson River Power LLC (Wayzata, Minnesota), designed and developed advanced products and services to support stable, reliable and efficient electricity grid operation. Some lawmakers are looking for a solution. The aptly named No More Solyndras Act would prohibit any new loan guarantees from Title XVII of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. As Heritage’s Nicolas Loris wrote, Republicans and Democrats alike need to end their addiction to energy subsidies, or we’re going to continue down the same failed path of wasteful spending…We don’t need to fix the energy subsidy programs. We need to abolish them. President Obama said in 2010 that “ the true engine of economic growth will always be companies like Solyndra.” He couldn’t be more wrong. Companies that are innovating and creating real value for consumers are the engine of economic growth, and they’re doing it without millions in taxpayer funding.

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (20509)	7/24/2012 3:55:13 PM
From: longnshort	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 85487

Locke and Load: The Right to Resistance By Kyle Becker on Jul 24, 2012 in Featured, Opinion <!-- --> [iframe allowtransparency="true" hspace="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" onload="var i=this.id,s=window.google_iframe_oncopy,H=s&&s.handlers,h=H&&H,w=this.contentWindow,d;try{d=w.document}catch(e){}if(h&&d&&(!d.body\|\|!d.body.firstChild)){if(h.call){i+='.call';setTimeout(h,0)}else if(h.match){i+='.nav';w.location.replace(h)}s.log&&s.log.push(i)}" vspace="0" id="aswift_1" name="aswift_1" style="left: 0pt; position: absolute; top: 0pt;" frameborder="0" height="60" scrolling="no" width="468"][/iframe] Statists argue that the myriad tragedies that happen in a country of three hundred million people related to gun use are a call to disarm Americans and leave them prey to the caprices of the federal government. But it is no coincidence that the escalating tyranny of the U.S. government is matched by the increasingly insidious, self-serving, and opportunistic arguments that citizens can’t be trusted with guns. It’s time to Locke and load. American politicians like to think of themselves as invincible sovereigns who can toy with the fates of citizens and there is nothing the latter can do about it. The elected elite blow the taxpayers’ money with no regard for the country’s future, endlessly meddle with the economy, and brazenly flaunt The Constitution that grants them any power to begin with. The same hubris that causes politicians to ignore the laws of economics leads them to ignore political history. This is not just to the nation’s peril, but to their own. As hard as it may be to concede, Ice T was right: Guns are the final line of defense against tyranny. The following puts some philosophical flesh on that bare-boned statement. The following is from “Never Ask Who Should Rule: Karl Popper and Political Theory” by Andreas Pickel (1989): The specific problematic for which Locke developed his theory of sovereignty can be characterized as containing all three fundamental problems of political theory in a prominent and acute form. [The problems of institutional control of the sovereign, political order, and legitimacy. Ed.] In one sense, the problem of institutional control was perhaps the most fundamental of the three since Locke sought a solution to the problem of the right of resistance in a mixed constitution. (101-102) This is significant because it seems to have been forgotten by our would-be rulers that The Constitution is the only basis of their legitimacy. The Constitution was formed to allow a specific government, comprised of sovereign citizens, to solve certain problems using the limited powers granted to it. It was not a mandate to rule over anyone. And just as The Constitution was incorporated as a grant of legitimacy given to the government on behalf of the people, that grant of legitimacy can be taken away. The right of resistance can be invoked at any time, not as a form of sophistic bluffing, like the left likes to invent rights out of thin air, but as a matter of the people defending themselves from a tyrannical, that is to say, illegitimate government. The article continues: By vesting constituent power (ultimate sovereignty) in the People rather than in Parliament, Locke was able to assign legislative supremacy (delegated sovereignty) to Parliament as the representative of the People and partial supremacy to the king as the bearer of executive power. “The People was the latent and, on the dissolution of the government, the active sovereign; the legislature was the supreme organ of government so long as government endured, but could be dissolved by the People at any time; the executive power, held on trust, was supreme only so long as it operated within the legislature’s law. (102) Granting that Locke’s influence on The Constitution that brought the American government into being might be a bit too obscure to modern politicians, perhaps this passage might be a a bit more familiar: When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another… The train of abuses of the British government pale in comparison with those of the current American government. Unless the government seeks a crisis of legitimacy, the politicians had better cease serving themselves and start serving the interests of the citizens who provisionally grant them power. We don’t intend to give up our right to bear arms or the right to resistance to a government bent on depriving Americans of liberty. Constitutional conservatives know exactly what this agenda entails, and the disastrous consequences for acceding to it.

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (20509)	7/28/2012 11:34:48 AM
From: TimF	Respond to of 85487

If you have up to 25 employees, pay average annual wages below $50,000, and provide health insurance, you may qualify for a small business tax credit of up to 35% (up to 25% for non-profits) to offset the cost of your insurance. So they increase the cost of insurance (extensive coverage requirements for conditions, requirement to pay for people with preexisting conditions, outlawing catastrophic insurance while expensively limiting co-pays and deductibles), and then say "its OK, the government will help you out", while increasing taxes on a number of successful small businesses (S-Corps) through increasing the top tax rate (not directly part of Obamacare, but part of Obama's plans, and also Obamacare directly increases taxes as well see atr.org ) Also you create an incentive for companies to stay at under 25 employees. Because discouraging growth and hiring from small companies is such a good way to strengthen the economy I guess. Under the health care law, employer-based plans that provide health insurance to retirees ages 55-64 can now get financial help through the Early Retiree Reinsurance Program.... Starting in 2014, the small business tax credit goes up to 50% (up to 35% for non-profits) for qualifying businesses. This will make the cost of providing insurance even lower. Because a cost isn't really a cost if the government pays it right? We can ignore all the increasing expenses and keep our head in the sand. Deficits are good, they are "stimulus"... Employers with fewer than 50 employees are exempt from new employer responsibility policies. They don’t have to pay an assessment if their employees get tax credits through an Exchange. Again creating an incentive to keep companies small.