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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (757529)	12/13/2013 1:56:05 PM
From: RetiredNow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1576633

Fiscal discipline, otherwise pejoratively termed "austerity" by Democrats, turns out to work. Fantasyland economics as practiced by the Keynesians in this country is turning out to be the biggest joke. -------------- High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights. ft.com Ireland poised to exit EU bailout By Lina Saigol in London and Jamie Smyth in Dublin Dublin has been busily touting evidence of a fragile economic recovery as it becomes the first country to exit an EU/IMF bailout programme on Sunday. Ireland said on Friday it will become the first eurozone member state to exit officially its international financial rescue programme, emerging from one of the deepest recessions without precautionary funding three years after it sought emergency help. “This isn’t the end of the road. This is a very significant milestone on the road,” Michael Noonan, Irish finance minister, told a news conference. “But we must continue with the same types of policies,” he added. Ireland received a €67.5bn bailout in November 2010 after the financial crisis in 2008 dragged the country to near bankruptcy. As a condition, the government implemented strict austerity policies and structural reforms. The government has since met the terms of the programme, cutting spending and raising taxes to bring down its budget deficit and rebalance the economy. The country is due to leave the EU-IMF bailout on Sunday, December 15. The economy is forecast to expand about 2 per cent next year, unemployment has fallen below 13 per cent, from a 15.1 per cent peak in 2012, and Dublin is confident enough to do without a back-up credit line as insurance against market shocks. However, prime minister Enda Kenny’s government now faces a battle as it seeks to win over the Irish people. Critics of the government’s austerity plan say the structural and political changes promised by the Fine Gael-Labour coalition that guided Ireland through the crisis have not been delivered. Mr Noonan pledged to maintain fiscal discipline and said he will consider cutting income tax in the next two budgets to help boost economic growth. ““We can’t go mad again, even if we had the resources,” Mr Noonan said. He also praised the fortitude and forbearance of the public, who supported the government as it implemented €28bn in tax hikes and spending cuts without the type of social unrest and civil disturbances seen in other bail out countries, particularly Greece. “The real heroes and heroines of the story are Irish people, who’ve had their taxes increased, they’ve had their services cut drastically- some of them particularly public servants have had very serious pay cuts,” said Mr Noonan. Christine Lagarde, International Monetary Fund managing director, said on Thursday the performance of Ireland raised hopes for the future. “The Irish authorities have established a very strong record of policy implementation. This bodes well as Ireland exits its EU-IMF-supported programme,” she said.

To: tejek who wrote (757529)	12/13/2013 3:20:53 PM
From: Tenchusatsu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1576633

Ted, Obamacare enrollment in California surges I don't see how this is a "surge." From the article: Some 144,146 applications were completed and 49,708 people selected commercial plans in the first week of December, compared to 403,323 completed applications and 109,296 enrollments in the previous two months since the Covered California marketplace opened, officials said. And then … California is arguably the most crucial state for Obamacare. It has more uninsured people than any other state (7.4 million in 2011), and the law's supporters are counting on Californians to make up a good fraction of the 7 million people the White House hopes to enroll in health insurance through the law during this first open enrollment period, which runs through March 31. So if there were 7.4 million uninsured people in California (according to 2011 numbers), and only 160,000 signed up through Covered California, how would that amount to a "surge"? Plus we don't know how many of those 160,000 new enrollees were previously uninsured, or whether they're just signing up because their existing insurance is going to drop them by the end of the year thanks to ObamaCare. Meanwhile, the CA insurance commissioner said that more than one million Californians will have their health plans cancelled thanks to ObamaCare regulations. Not all of them will have to go through Covered California to get new health insurance plans, but a good percentage will. Bottom line is that this article is nothing but a pro-ObamaCare puff piece. Maybe the number of enrollees will truly surge before March 31 of next year, but until then, meaningless data points like the one your article brings up will amount to nothing. Tenchusatsu