A wager opportunity for a liberal

If you are a lefty, you gotta love two things.

1) New York elects a socialist/marxist/communist as their mayor.

2) Making a conservative, like me, eat his words and enrich you by taking $1,000 out of my pocket.

So let's combine the two and make it happen.

I'll let you pick any objective (ie measurable) quality of life index. It could be school performance, unemployment, tax rates, crime rates, income distribution, etc. You pick the measurement.

At the end of Bill DeBlasio's four year term, if that measurment is better, I'll deliver 10 crisp $100.00 bills to you, to a place and time of your choice.

If you lose, you bring the same to me.

Now is the chance you've been waiting for, making some conservative pay for a couple of months of your new Obamacare policy.

Of course, I do have some history on my side. I remember Ed Koch, David Dinkins and bums sleeping in Times Square.

None the less, show me you have some guts and let's get it on.

Dear Millenial

This is an absolute must read for everyone..............

You Millenials voted for Obama by a margin of 28 percent, which will make it a lot easier for me to accept the benefits you will be paying for. We warned you that liberalism was a scam designed to take the fruits of your labor and transfer it to us, the older, established generation. Oh, and also to the couch-dwelling, Democrat-voting losers who live off of food stamps and order junk from QVC with their Obamaphones.
You didn’t listen to us. Maybe you’ll listen to pain.
I have been told that being hard on you Millennials will turn you against conservatism, that I should offer you a positive, hopeful message that avoids the touchy problem of your manifest stupidity.

No. There’s no sugar-coating it – your votes for Democrats have ensured that you are the first generation in American history that will fail to exceed what their parents attained. Embracing liberalism was a stupid thing to do, done for the stupidest of reasons, and I will now let you subsidize my affluent lifestyle without a shred of guilt. 

Force your kids and grandkids to read this whole thing.

The best education I received in my life was from the school of hard knocks. Millenials are about to get a Masters Degree from there.
 

Why I'll never vote for another school levy

Liberalism = Projection

Don't take my word for it.

Here's a liberal's word.....................

I realize now that my prejudices against conservatives were, in many ways, just as uncompromising as the prejudices I’d often projected onto them. They were just people. Not issues. Not votes. People whose daughters go to school with my daughters, whose dogs run away and come back and run away again, whose hands found my shoulders and who didn’t judge, the night I wept over a friend who had taken her own life.

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Gordon loses his PCP

Obamacare hits home.

The Lovely Mrs. Gekko has been on my back to get a physical. Which at 50 I know that means a colonoscopy, prostate checks and the like.

I've been putting it off all summer but Friday I decided to call and set up my appointment only to find out that my doc moved on to the VA a year ago (BTW thank you for letting me know).

I liked my doc because he was my age so any inflictions I might have he could relate to. But I knew the last time I saw him, he wasn't going to be up for all this new crap.

He wanted to practice medicine, he wasn't a business man. For kicks, I'm sure he'd rather be checking out X-rays than receivable agings.

What's interesting is that his remaining partners are not taking on new clients but they referred me to a Dr Bahti. I'm not a racist but I am a linguist. I insist on being able to understand what my doc is telling me.

So now I have to go through the manual to see who is approved under my wife's plan, see that they are taking new patients and get in for an appointment.

Our industrious president would call this an opportunity to shop. I'm calling it out as a pain in the ass.

Who did she vote for? #818

Meet Paula Howard. Why is Paula in the news?

A Florida woman was arrested by authorities Thursday for allegedly acting as a madam for her three teen daughters — two of whom are minors.

Paula Howard was caught in a sting operation offering either one of her girls — ages 16, 16 and 18 — to have sex with a detective in exchange for money, according to the Orlando Sentinel.

So in the last election, did Paula support Obama or Romney?

 

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oooops

I guess he thought the tooth fairy picked up the plan

Another disillusioned liberal...................

My old plan was as bare-bones as they came, so I assumed that even though the new plan would cost more, my coverage would improve under Obamacare, at least marginally.

It did not.

Under my old plan, my maximum out-of-pocket expense was $4,900. Under the new plan, I’m on the hook for up to $6,350. Copays for my doctor visits will double. For urgent-care visits, they will quadruple. Though slightly cheaper plans exist if I decide to shop around on the exchange, I will lose my dental coverage should I switch.

Needless to say, I am not pleased.  

Most young, middle-class Americans I know are happy that millions of previously uninsured people will receive free or heavily subsidized insurance under the Affordable Care Act.

We just didn’t realize that, unless we had health insurance at work, we’d be the ones paying for it.

Dude, I feel your pain............ Actually I don't because because I didn't vote for these assholes. Oh and thank you Matthew for paying for my colonoscopy.

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Who did she vote for? #10101

Did this voter support Romney or Obama in the last election?

Life in "Progress" State - Illinois edition

So you plan to retire with a nice cushy state of Illinois public pension?

In the words of Lee Corso........ "not so fast!"

This is scarier than waking up with The Billary...........

All Five Systems Bankrupt

TRS, SERS,SURS, JRS, and GARS are all insolvent. None of them can possibly meet their pension obligations. With 10-year treasuries yielding a scant 2.5%, plan assumptions of 8% are preposterously high on a sustained basis.

Yet, TRS went another $3.5 billion in the hole in spite of a 12.8% annual return.

What the hell is TRS going to do in the face of a stock market plunge, a bond market plunge, or both?

GARS, the General Assembly Retirement System is only 17.4% funded. Is it any wonder that state legislators are pressing for more tax hikes?
Read more at http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2013/10/illinois-teachers-retirement-fund-is-40.html#VPhtSHoRC5a73koI.99

First, TRS only has $0.40 in the bank for every dollar it should have today to make necessary pension payouts in the future. That means the high investment returns in 2013 were earned on less than half of the assets that TRS should have

TRS acknowledged this in a recent press release:

"Despite these strong returns, TRS cannot invest its way out of the funding hole we are in,” Ingram added. “This increase in the System’s unfunded liability, even with good investment results, is another wake-up call to state officials and our members that TRS long-term finances continue to head in the wrong direction."
Read more at http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2013/10/illinois-teachers-retirement-fund-is-40.html#VPhtSHoRC5a73koI.99

First, TRS only has $0.40 in the bank for every dollar it should have today to make necessary pension payouts in the future. That means the high investment returns in 2013 were earned on less than half of the assets that TRS should have

TRS acknowledged this in a recent press release:

"Despite these strong returns, TRS cannot invest its way out of the funding hole we are in,” Ingram added. “This increase in the System’s unfunded liability, even with good investment results, is another wake-up call to state officials and our members that TRS long-term finances continue to head in the wrong direction."
Read more at http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2013/10/illinois-teachers-retirement-fund-is-40.html#VPhtSHoRC5a73koI.99

In spite of a 12.8% annual return, with an 8% return assumption, the Illinois Teachers Retirement System (TRS) fell another $3.5 billion in the hole. TRS pension underfunding grew to $55.73 billion as of June 30, 2013.
Read more at http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2013/10/illinois-teachers-retirement-fund-is-40.html#VPhtSHoRC5a73koI.99

Where's Linda Douglas today

A new definition of Capitalism

bullying

Ouch.... Richard Cohen's not going to want to listen to his voicemails

Because the Obamunists will clearly be on attack with this column......

Where is Casey Stengel when we need him? In 1962, as the manager of the brand new and determinedly hapless New York Mets — 40 wins, 120 losses — he looked up and down his bench one dismal day and wondered, “Can’t anybody here play this game?” That phrase kept coming at me recently as I watched the impressively inept performance of the Obama administration in both foreign and domestic policy. On a given day, this administration makes the ’62 Mets look good. 

This is a surprise — at least to me. If Barack Obama has an image, it is of the infinitely cool, cerebral leader. The man can give a rousing speech, but he is, at heart, a planner and a plodder. Both of his presidential campaigns were exercises in micromanagement — digital all the way. Obama was the better candidate, but he had, by far, the better organization. 

Yet this same man has lately so mishandled both domestic and foreign policy that he is in mortal peril of altering his image. This unsettling and uncharacteristic incompetence became shockingly clear when Obama failed to come to grips with the Syrian civil war. I did not agree with the president’s do-nothing policy, but at least it was both a policy and intellectually coherent. What followed, though, was both intellectually incoherent and pathetically inconsistent — a “red line” that came out of nowhere and then mysteriously evaporated and a missile strike that was threatened and then abandoned. It was a policy so wavering that if Obama were driving, he would be forced to take a breathalyzer. 

The debacle of the Affordable Care Act’s Web site raised similar questions about confidence. This was supposed to be Obama’s Big Deal. The president has other accomplishments — navigating out of the Great Recession was no minor feat — but restoring the status quo does not get your face on Mount Rushmore. It takes achievement, a program — something new and wonderful. The Affordable Care Act was supposed to be it.

I guess we're all racists now.


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You have a choice, but it has to be the right choice

Sally Kohn, like most liberals in the crosshairs today, are espousing the following meme on the healthcare debacle. Sure we lied to you about keeping your existing healthcare because you now get extra special insurance above and beyond what you liked before.........

Conservatives are expressing shock and outrage that the Obama administration knew that many people in the individual insurance market would not be able to keep their plans once the Affordable Care Act took effect. Such shock is not surprising; overblown outrage is the stock and trade of conservative politics these days.

But here's what conservatives won't tell you, lest it undermine their theatrics: Many insurance plans are shutting down because they don't meet the higher bar of quality benefits required under Obamacare, and of those people who lose access to their plans, many will pay less and all will have better and more comprehensive options.

So of course, you may have liked your previous insurance but you now how mental health coverage you didn't have before. Pediatric dentistry, prenatal care, and birth control are also new coverages your too stupid to know you have. Even though you're a 50 year old without kids.

 George Will kick this in the nuts right here............

Morning Joe montage shows White House denying knowledge of various scandals

Obama League Management

Years ago, I worked for a large auditing firm. As part of any audit engagement, the CPA firm will issue a management letter to the company's management and audit committee.

On one particular audit, we were going to be issuing a particularly negative management letter to the company. Troublesome, because they pay your fee and if they don't like it, you won't be inivited back to do the next audit.

None the less, as we were working on the audit, I made a comment to one of the controllers that "everything was OK". My supervisor pulled me aside, and told me "Look, when you talk to these people, they need to get the message that nothing is OK. They're going to get a bad letter from us and the last thing we want is push back from the company telling us that they were blindsided. In the future, whenever you talk to these people, pick out something that is a problem. If you can't think of one, tell them the coffee sucks."

Basically, what he was telling me is to set people up for bad news. Start building the foundation for it so people aren't so surprised. You'll get less shit in the end.

It's also a spin off of the "under promise, over deliver" business mantra that you learn in, usually, your second day on a job........... any job.


So how is it that the Obamaunists so screwed up this healthcare roll out?  Did they just expect that people would get these insurance cancellations and say "oh gee Wally"?

Did they expect that the media would continue to carry their lagoon of water for them and just fail to report all this? Sort of, if a tree makes a sound and no one's around to report it, it didn't happen?

I'd call it Bush league. But idiots (ie liberals) would think I was referring to the last president.

Which brings me to what the president knows and when did he learn it? Literally. Maybe the media needs to ask the question of the inventory of knowledge this guy actually has. He's the Sargent Schultz of presidents.

Seriously, this guy has no idea what's happening in his own government unless it's reported on an ESPN crawler under a football game?


Heathcare.gov debacle - didn't know
Benghazi - Didn't know
NSA Spying - Didn't know
IRS targeting - Didn't know
Fast and Furious - Didn't know

The list goes on and on.

WTF does this guy do during the day? It's clearly not getting briefings from his underlings.

Now if you or I were running a company, any company, say, Lowes and we failed to tell the board that the earnings report would be 98% below estimates and the Board had to learn about it through the Wall Street Journal, how long would we keep our job?

I'm still wondering when the media is going to get the smelling salts and start really reporting the lack of management skills this administration has.

Bring us Bush League.

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It's not insurance, it's a co-op

Why Obamacare will ultimately fail. Because it's really not an insurance business model. It's more of a Co-op.

Here's a great piece explaining it here............

Experts say that young, healthy people must enroll in ObamaCare’s health exchanges to cover the cost of insuring sicker, older people. It’s a simple math equation: Charge everyone roughly the same rate for access to basically the same product. The people who use it less will subsidize the people who use it more.

The problem with this plan is that it hoses young, relatively poor people like me right when we least need high bills for services they’re not using. And it helps older, relatively rich people who should be able to afford the care they need. If America’s downtrodden and struggling young people are smart, they’ll opt out. Then it’ll be up to the federal government to fine them enough to make up for the shortfall.

First, let’s look at the math. As Nick Gillespie and Veronique de Rugy have pointed out for Reason magazine, the concept of today’s older generation as impoverished is simply wrong. 

In fact, today’s seniors are far wealthier than today’s young adults.

Looking at rates of homeownership, 83% of elderly households own a home. Meanwhile, 36% of millennials are still living under their parents’ roof. Those over 65 years of age have much lower poverty rates than most other demographic groups. Households headed by people 65 or older have 22 times the wealth of households headed by people under 35.

For a while, whenever I would see a buddy of mine (an executive of a Fortune 500 company), I would buy him a beer and thank him for subsidizing my healthcare.

But I totally had it screwed up, I should be going to night clubs and thanking all those young thirty year old baristas for subsidizing my healthcare.

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