There is more than one government for a start, which brings your point into question.
For me, essentially this argument is about big corporations not wanting to pay for externalities. Sadly "big government" is so in the pockets of industry that they are managing to maintain this state of affairs despite a scientific consensus that calls for action. Private capital takes all the profit, society takes all the risk. Standard practice in this lovely form of socialism we have. I don't know why you libertarians are so scared of large institutions abusing their power if they are governments but are perfectly happy for corporations to run roughshod over anything and everything in pursuit of private profits.
Even if global warming does prove to be some sort of big hoax, the efficient use of resources should be a priority.
"despite a scientific consensus that calls for action" This is not the case. A consensus was called to shut, kill the speech of those not following the dogma of REDDIT. Your blind faith in a centralized power, a victim of big corporations according to your devout commitment is proof there is still room for scientists to have different opinions based on what they measure, not on political devotion. |
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First of all, if you heard about robert gates latest book, you know the ex secretary of states pretty much says the obama adm made the US allies worry about the commitment of the One's word. At the same time he and his administration made his enemy bolder.
So bitcoin is a witness of all of this.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAkXih99fvcRobert Laszewski—a prominent consultant to health insurance companies—recently wrote in a remarkably candid blog post that, while Obamacare is almost certain to cause insurance costs to skyrocket even higher than it already has, “insurers won’t be losing a lot of sleep over it.” How can this be? Because insurance companies won’t bear the cost of their own losses—at least not more than about a quarter of them. The other three-quarters will be borne by American taxpayers. For some reason, President Obama hasn’t talked about this particular feature of his signature legislation. Indeed, it’s bad enough that Obamacare is projected by the Congressional Budget Office to funnel $1,071,000,000,000.00 (that’s $1.071 trillion) over the next decade (2014 to 2023) from American taxpayers, through Washington, to health insurance companies. It’s even worse that Obamacare is trying to coerce Americans into buying those same insurers’ product (although there are escape routes). It’s almost unbelievable that it will also subsidize those same insurers’ losses. But that’s exactly what it will do—unless Republicans take action. As Laszewski explains, Obamacare contains a “Reinsurance Program that caps big claim costs for insurers (individual plans only).” He writes that “in 2014, 80% of individual costs between $45,000 and $250,000 are paid by the government [read: by taxpayers], for example.” In other words, insurance purchased through Obamacare’s government-run exchanges isn’t even full-fledged private insurance; rather, it’s a sort of private-public hybrid. Private insurance companies pay for costs below $45,000, then taxpayers generously pick up the tab—a tab that their president hasn’t ever bothered to tell them he has opened up on their behalf—for four-fifths of the next $200,000-plus worth of costs. In this way, and so many others, Obamacare takes a major step toward the government monopoly over American medicine (“single payer”) that liberals drool about in their sleep. Laszewski adds, “The reinsurance program has done and will continue to do what it was intended to do; help attract and keep more carriers in Obamacare than might have otherwise come.” Thus, Obamacare is being aided by having taxpayers subsidize big insurance companies’ business expenses. (Who could ever have guessed that big government and big business might be natural allies?) But, amazingly, it doesn’t stop there. Laszewski writes that Obamacare also contains a “Risk Corridor Program that limits overall losses for insurers.” So insurers not only don’t have to pay out all of their costs; they also don’t have to swallow all of their losses. Laszewski explains that if an insurance company expects its costs in a given year to be X, and those costs end up being more than X plus 2 percent, taxpayers will come to that insurance company’s rescue—thanks to Obamacare. In fact, once an insurance company covers that initial 2 percent in unexpected costs, taxpayers will cover at least 80 percent of any additional costs the insurer accrues. Laszewski provides a couple of examples to help illustrate taxpayers’ unwitting generosity toward these “participating health plans” (plans sold through Obamacare’s government-run exchanges): “ f the health plan has costs at 110% of the medical cost target [the costs that the insurer expects to accrue], it will be responsible for only 102.4% of the target (a 2.4% shortfall)—only about a quarter of its losses.
“If the health plan’s medical costs come in at 120% of the expected claim cost target level, the health plan will only be responsible for 104.4% of the target (a 4.4% shortfall)—again only about a quarter of its losses.”
It’s actually only about a fifth in this example, as taxpayers would cover 78 percent of the losses, with the insurer covering just 22 percent.
Importantly, Laszewski (who’s in a position to know) says that “my sense is that health plans, because they are so insulated from big losses, will generally stand pat with their 2014 rate structures for 2015—no matter how bad the early claims experience looks. I expect that the health insurance industry will be content to give the Obama administration one more chance to reboot Obamacare in the fall of 2014, when the 2015 open enrollment takes place.”
In other words, because taxpayers will bail them out (through both the “Reinsurance Program” and the “Risk Corridor Program”), insurers won’t raise their premiums as much for 2015 as they otherwise would in response to the sicker, older risk pools that Obamacare is clearly attracting. This in turn will make Obamacare look better going forward than it should and will give its government-run exchanges another good swing at the “young invincibles,” who so far don’t seem too enamored with the product that Obama and his insurance cronies are hawking.
All of this puts two things in sharp relief: First, Republicans should attach a no-bailout provision to any debt-ceiling increase—as Charles Krauthammer has suggested—along with a provision delaying Obamacare’s liberty-sapping individual mandate (the delay of which would further undermine Obamacare’s exchanges). Second, Obamacare needs to be comprehensively repealed in January 2017, not modified or “fixed”—and Republicans need to advance a winning alternative to pave the way to that crucial result.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/bailing-out-health-insurers-and-helping-obamacare_774167.html
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Bailing Out Health Insurers
Bailing Out Health Insurers
Bailing Out Health Insurers
Bailing Out Health Insurers
Bailing Out Health Insurers
Bailing Out Health Insurers
Bailing Out Health Insurers..... Cooked in the law. Now it will happen. It is Ok as we ALL LOVE Bailing Out Health Insurers
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Beck is pretty much saying what I think about gates and his book... You had the power to say something. You were part of the obama administration. How can you distant yourself in a book after all the facts? I am not a fan of the obama administration, but a dislike rats even more, especially when the cheese was good, eating it. That is too easy. Yes learning obama and clinton making political decisions using the troops was awful but not awful enough for you to step down mister gates? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X91O6LmbHQ#t=380 |
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This thread is an excellent example of why you lot got banned from reddit  Why? Too much free speech kills free speech? |
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The Democratic party has found a new consequence of climate change: prostitution. Rep. Barbara Lee and twelve other House Democrats issued a resolution stating that climate change can cause food and water shortages, which could lead impoverished women to turn to prostitution as a means of income: “ nsecure women with limited socioeconomic resources may be vulnerable to situations such as sex work, transactional sex, and early marriage that put them at risk for HIV, STIs, unplanned pregnancy, and poor reproductive health,” it says.
More broadly, the resolution says climate change will hurt “marginalized” women, such as refugees, sexual minorities, adolescent girls, and women and girls with HIV. It also cites Hurricane Katrina as evidence of how climate change can affect women, noting that the storm displaced “over 83 percent of low-income, single mothers” in the region.
http://www.ijreview.com/2014/01/107526-house-democrats-climate-change-turns-women-prostitutes/
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Why would any scientist wishing to make money by falsifying evidence claim climate change exists? I'm pretty confident they could earn a lot more espousing the opposite Grant money. Getting published into scientific journals by people who think alike. |
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There's an easy fix. Just drive an old car!
...Soon to be banned for their pollution level and "lack of security" |
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In other news... banks say YES! to big pharma and drug cartel laundering operations.
Yes, that's a curious dichotomy. Real, we know that. Maybe they will say yes to the Cartel in place in Colorado, but no to the small businesses. I remember a bunch of jokers decided to put weed seeds around a police station (in a tropical region). It was funny to see their faces when none were paying attention to those weed but everybody knew how stupid they looked "fighting drugs" Maybe someone should do the same everywhere around the banks. Might not work with all regions but... |
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A Ford Motor executive who said the company tracks and collects data on how Ford customers drive their vehicles said Thursday that he regrets making the comments. Jim Farley, executive vice president of marketing and sales at Ford, said that he was wrong to suggest to customers that the automaker uses GPS devices in vehicles to collect data on how people drive. http://www.cnbc.com/id/101323703"I definitely left the wrong impression with my comments, and I regret it," Farley told CNBC. "It's important to me that our customers know where we stand and that we do not track them." Wednesday night, while taking part in a panel at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Farley was quoted as saying: "We know everyone who breaks the law, we know when you're doing it. We have GPS in your car, so we know what you're doing. By the way, we don't supply that data to anyone." Business Insider first reported Farley's comments Thursday morning. The article and Farley's remarks immediately raised concerns that Ford is monitoring drivers without their consent. Farley told CNBC that his comments were meant to be in response to a hypothetical question about whether or not automakers could track how vehicles are driven. He said the automaker does not have GPS tracking data in the vehicles it sells. "We do not monitor and aggregate data from our cars," Farley said. http://www.cnbc.com/id/101324749 |
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15°C? So this is how we know global warming is man made because surely it was 14.889°C or something just before the industrial revolution? |
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“We are becoming increasingly concerned about momentum that is quickly building among some leading conservatives for elimination of the risk corridor and reinsurance programs,” [Blue Cross Blue Shield Association CEO Scott] Serota wrote… “Their efforts, along with growing support for repealing the risk corridor and reinsurance programs, could combine to create a perfect storm to, at a minimum, dissuade the Administration from modifying risk corridor program rules to provide increased funding in light of the recent ‘transitional policy’ allowing insurers to offer consumers the option to renew their 2013 health plans for 2014,” Serota wrote. In attached talking points, seemingly directed at Republican lawmakers opposed to risk corridors and reinsurance, BCBSA is asking members to argue that eliminating the risk corridors will lead to the eventual downfall of Obamacare and lead to a single-payer system: “It jeopardizes the entire private health insurance market and will ultimately lead to a single-payer system. Furthermore, it will close the door to pro-competitive health care reform alternatives.” One bolded talking point, “use with appropriate audiences only,” charges that “eliminating these programs will result in massive premium increases and could cause private insurers to become insolvent.” In Serota’s email, however, this point is intended for Democrats only. http://www.buzzfeed.com/katenocera/lobbying-talking-points-show-insurer-freak-out-over-potentia |
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The interesting thing to me is so many of you have never lived outside of a credit card world. you young whippersnappers when I was your age...  we used cash. Yes BTC has some unique features that cash doesn't. But they figured out how to collect cash taxes long before the modern system. They could easily do the same with crypto and they will. If you want to business and engage in commerce you have to pay taxes willingly (coercively) or face the punishments by the establishment. Crypto may make it easier to evade but not by much. If you are employed there is a record of it, sell property there is a record of it, and etc. I had a friend who smuggled a lot of cash out of the country in semi legal fashion. But the gov He was audited and they didn't know what he took or where but figured out he was short, and assessed a fine and said he could pay it or go to prison. That is how bitcoin would be taxed too. They don't need access to it, they only need access to you. As for the notion that bitcoin will suddenly revolutionize the system, end corruption, all of the hopium being smoked around here, I don't see why it would. People are people, and they are corruptible, and when the bitcoin billionaires take the reins they will be susceptible to evil and manipulation and control. IN fact they may be worse, I think a lot of the hi tech community really looks down on the masses as if they are not even the same species. The two really do not understand each other. That is dangerous as empathy is at a minimum, and empathy holds a society together above all. I do think it will be a net positive though, just a fascinating transition and really would keep an open mind and expect to be surprised by how it all unfolds. The thing that makes bitcoin bitcoin is the math, no need to trust a human being. Human nature is more in touch with a debt based society than a bitcoin society. People see credit cards as free money. Bitcoiners buying Lamborghini and Tesla, etc. nothing wrong with this but... I haven't seen Red Cross Bitcoin or something similar thus far. One thing is to see another system than the banking system but for us to believe bitcoin will change our heart? Hmmm... Doubt it. So I agree. |
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Aside from the free PR, this seems like a bigger monetary win for Coinbase since they are the ones processing the bitcoin transactions, right?
depends what payment plan they are going in. coinbase has a 1% flat rate plan so that would be like $1,240 they made in a day, but they also offer 0% fees on the first $1million dollars worth of transactions with that plan, so in that would most likely mean they didn't make any money today from overstock. also i remember overstock saying they paid 2% on credit card transactions so if they are using coinbase's 1% payment plan then i believe that means both any money coinbase makes is also the same amount in extra savings overstock gets, so its pretty equal on whos benefitting more. It's 1% after your first 1M transaction. https://coinbase.com/docs/merchant_tools/pricing |
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Insurance companies are still trying to sort out cases of so-called health insurance orphans, customers for whom the government has a record that they enrolled, but the insurer does not. They are worried the process will grow more cumbersome as they deal with the flood of new customers who signed up in December as enrollment deadlines neared. The government says the problem is real but under control. Officials say the total number of problem cases they are trying to resolve with insurers currently stands at about 13,000. That includes orphan records. More than 1 million people have signed up through the federal insurance market that serves 36 states. Officials contend the error rate for new signups is close to zero. Insurers, however, are less enthusiastic about the pace of the fixes. The companies also are seeing cases in which the government has assigned the same identification number to more than one person, as well as so-called “ghost” files in which the insurer has an enrollment record but the government does not. But orphaned files — when the insurer has no record of enrollment — are particularly concerning because the companies have no automated way to identify the presumed policyholder. They say they have to manually compare the lists of enrollees the government sends them with their own records because the government never built an automated system that would do the work much faster. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/health-insurers-no-record-them-171226952.html-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I guess those in favor of this law will find it is an acceptable level of ERR.... Obviously an opportunity. For another Big Socialist Fix. ...By the same company that built healthcare.gov on the first place. The fact the boss was a princeton classmate with michelle obama is pure coincidence; her company got the deal, only her company. |
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A group of Bay Area environmentalists has proposed labels that will warn drivers of their contribution to global warming every time they pull up to the pump. Similar to the Surgeon General’s warning on a pack of cigarettes, the proposed stickers would remind motorists of the State of California’s position that fossil fuels are leading to potentially hazardous climate change. The labels are needed because, “There’s no immediate signal to a consumer of gasoline to show their effects on climate,” Jamie Brooks told the San Francisco Chronicle. Brooks represents 350BayArea.org, the group behind the proposal. The Chronicle reports that the proposal is being proposed to individual city governments, and that San Francisco and Berkeley officials have already been approached about the idea. There was no timeline on when the labels could appear. If approved they would likely face legal challenges from the oil industry.  http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2014/01/09/warnings-labels-proposed-as-global-warming-reminder-at-california-gas-pumps/ |
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 Not a fake. |
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The real reason not to impeach Obama is that too many liberal idiots like him. That's the only one I can think of. For crying out loud, he insults our allies and negotiates with terrorist groups (hamas, Iran)
 More smart power and reset buttons   |
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