Usa Thread

[Flashermac]

Over 300 million people in the USA and the best they can come up with are Hillsie and fatso Christie?

[unit731]

...but now, Hillary has an eye on the next presidential election...

 

It will be a miracle if the right wing allows Christie to become nominated candidate.

On the other side it will be Hilary if she wants it.

 

The last election showed that demographics have changed. The Republicans lost just about all Blacks, Asians, Hispanics - and left with old White men. They can't win a national election with just old White men. Specially wiith angry old White men.

 

Gerrymandering may keep the Republicans in control of the House.

[unit731]

"It turns out that forcing millions of Americans to buy health insurance is quite profitable for the giant health insurance companies that helped write Obamacare – health insurance providers across the board saw their stock prices soar today.

 

On the first day that new insurance exchanges were made available to Americans, companies like WellPoint Inc. and Molina Healthcare Inc. saw their stocks gain over 2.5%.

 

It’s unsurprising that large health insurance companies are enjoying the fruits of mandatory Obamacare regulations, since they helped write them in the first place.

 

WellPoint’s performance today will surely be celebrated by its former Vice President Liz Fowler,

who wrote the 87-page white paper that was the foundation of Obamacare. After it was passed, Senator Max Baucus profusely thanked Fowler for being personally responsible for crafting the Affordable Health Care Act. Politico described her as a “major player†in getting the bill through Congress."

 

LINK

[Flashermac]

Public college cites high cost of Obamacare in canceling students' health plans

 

 

Officials at one one of the nation's oldest and most elite historically black colleges are citing the Affordable Care Act (ACA) as the reason they have cancelled a school-wide affordable health care plan they had offered students.

 

The official website for Bowie State, a Maryland public school less than an hour's drive from Washington D.C., explains that Obamacare's new regulations would force the cost of the insurance to rise from $50 to $900 a semester.

 

"Bowie State University has suspended offering health insurance for domestic students for the 2013-2014 academic year," states the school's official website. "Due to new requirements of the Affordable Care Act which will go into effect on January 1, 2014, the cost of insurance for domestic students will increase to approximately $1800 per year."

 

That works out to approximately $900 per semester. The student health insurance plan had cost students $50 per semester for the 2012-13 school year, according to a cached page of the university's description of the plan. The original link to the description has been deleted.

 

According to an article in The Bulldog Collegian, Bowie State's official student newspaper, the Director of the Bowie State University Wellness Center said that the university decided it would not be worth it to provide student health insurance at all given how expensive it would be to do so under the new regulations.

 

The student's article, published Nov. 10, had slightly different numbers than the school website's. It states that the student health plan used to cost $54/semester, not $50, and that the new insurance costs would amount to $1,900 per year, not $1,800.

 

In August of this year, White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest suggested that President Obama's would lend special support to the country's historically black colleges and universities.

 

"The President and this administration have been strong supporters of historically black colleges and universities all across the country," said Earnest, speaking from the White House on August 20. "Funding for those colleges and universities has increased under President Obama." "[T]he record -- the President’s record on these issues -- he has a bias in favor of historically black colleges and universities because of the service they provide and because of the quality education that they provide to their students."

 

Bowie State's Wellness Center did not respond to requests for comment from Campus Reform in time for publication.

 

Several other colleges and universities, such as community colleges in New Jersey, have also had to cancel student health insurance plans because of Obamacare.

 

 

http://campusreform.org/?ID=5235

[Flashermac]

Income distribution in America ...

 

http://www.utrend.tv/v/9-out-of-10-americans-are-completely-wrong-about-this-mind-blowing-fact/

[BelgianBoy]

WOW !

[Flashermac]

Wealth, Income, and Power

 

This document presents details on the wealth and income distributions in the United States, and explains how we use these two distributions as power indicators.

 

Some of the information may come as a surprise to many people. In fact, I know it will be a surprise and then some, because of a recent study (Norton & Ariely, 2010) showing that most Americans (high income or low income, female or male, young or old, Republican or Democrat) have no idea just how concentrated the wealth distribution actually is. More on that a bit later.

 

As far as the income distribution, the most striking numbers on income inequality will come last, showing the dramatic change in the ratio of the average CEO's paycheck to that of the average factory worker over the past 40 years.

 

First, though, some definitions. Generally speaking, wealth is the value of everything a person or family owns, minus any debts. However, for purposes of studying the wealth distribution, economists define wealth in terms of marketable assets, such as real estate, stocks, and bonds, leaving aside consumer durables like cars and household items because they are not as readily converted into cash and are more valuable to their owners for use purposes than they are for resale (see Wolff, 2004, p. 4, for a full discussion of these issues). Once the value of all marketable assets is determined, then all debts, such as home mortgages and credit card debts, are subtracted, which yields a person's net worth. In addition, economists use the concept of financial wealth -- also referred to in this document as "non-home wealth" -- which is defined as net worth minus net equity in owner-occupied housing. As Wolff (2004, p. 5) explains, "Financial wealth is a more 'liquid' concept than marketable wealth, since one's home is difficult to convert into cash in the short term. It thus reflects the resources that may be immediately available for consumption or various forms of investments."

 

We also need to distinguish wealth from income. Income is what people earn from work, but also from dividends, interest, and any rents or royalties that are paid to them on properties they own. In theory, those who own a great deal of wealth may or may not have high incomes, depending on the returns they receive from their wealth, but in reality those at the very top of the wealth distribution usually have the most income. (But it's important to note that for the rich, most of that income does not come from "working": in 2008, only 19% of the income reported by the 13,480 individuals or families making over $10 million came from wages and salaries.)

 

...

 

http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

[unit731]

Income distribution in America ...

 

http://www.utrend.tv...d-blowing-fact/

 

The talk about raising the minimum wage.

 

Why should the business owner take the hit?

 

In reality all taxpayers subsidize those whose full time jobs pay below the stated poverty level.

Taxpayer funded food stamps and such for those.

 

That's the question.

Should the busines owner or large corporation pay more or do all of the taxpayers subsidize the working poor?

 

Walmart profit after expenses: $15.6 billion. All is a tad complicated. But maybe Walmart could provide the employees a tad more in wages instead of all of the taxpayes subsidizing those that fall below the stated poverty level.

Someone will fund those in the stated poverty level. The $15.6 billion dollars of profit that Walmart makes or the taxpayer.

[cavanami]

...like Walmart is going to take the hit...think not!!

 

The taxpayer is on the hook for: the banking fark ups, gov overspending, the Prez and his vacations/road

trips, etc etc etc

 

Raise the min wage, just another drop to the bucket...

[Flashermac]

I knew a widow in the States who worked as a cashier for Wallmart. Well, she did until she neared 6 months with them. After 6 months, employees qualified for a pay increase. Standard practice was to let them go just before they reached there and hire new ones. That is what they did to her, and that was over 20 years ago!