Cleo's Mom

For small employers, here are their nuggets: The Affordable Care Act offers tax credits and cost savings You know the value of providing health insurance to your employees. But it can be a real challenge for small businesses. On average, small businesses pay about 18% more than large firms for the same health insurance policy. And small businesses lack the purchasing power that larger employers have. The Affordable Care Act provides tax credits and the ability to shop for insurance in Exchanges that help close this gap. An Exchange is a new transparent and competitive insurance marketplace where individuals and small businesses can buy affordable and qualified health benefit plans. Exchanges will offer you a choice of health plans that meet certain benefits and cost standards. 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 this year 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. Employer-based plans that provide health insurance to retirees ages 55-64 will be able to get financial help through the Early Retiree Reinsurance Program that starts in June 2010. This program is designed to lower the cost of premiums for all employees and reduce employer health costs. Starting in 2014, the small business tax credit goes up to 50% (up to 35% for non-profits) for qualifying businesses. This makes the cost of providing insurance even lower. Starting in 2014, small businesses with generally fewer than 100 employees can shop in an Exchange, which gives you power similar to what large businesses have to get better choices and lower prices. An Exchange is a new marketplace where individuals and small businesses can buy affordable health benefit plans. Exchanges will offer a choice of plans that meet certain benefits and cost standards. Starting in 2014, Members of Congress will be getting their health care insurance through Exchanges, and you will be able buy your insurance through Exchanges, too. 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.

For young adults, here are their nuggets: The Affordable Care Act offers you more protections and options If you’re age 18-25, you may not be thinking about health insurance. You may think you’re healthy and don’t have to worry about it. Or, the cost might be keeping you from getting coverage. But, what if you get into an accident or have a serious illness? Your medical bills could put you in debt or ruin your credit and you may not be able to afford the health care you need to recover fully. The Affordable Care Act is expanding your options for health insurance and making them more affordable. Starting as early as September 2010, if you’re under age 26, you can be insured as a dependent on your parent’s health insurance. The only exception is if your parent has an existing job-based plan and you can get your own job-based coverage. Many plans have made a business decision to provide this coverage earlier, so if your parent has coverage with one of these plans, you could be insured before September 2010. Starting as early as September 2010, new health plans must cover certain preventive services without cost sharing. Starting in 2014, if you’re unemployed with limited income up to about $15,000 per year for a single person (higher income for couples/families with children), you may be eligible for health coverage through Medicaid. Starting in 2014, if your employer doesn’t offer insurance, you will be able to buy insurance directly in an Exchange. An Exchange is a new transparent and competitive insurance marketplace where individuals and small businesses can buy affordable and qualified health benefit plans. Exchanges will offer you a choice of health plans that meet certain benefits and cost standards. Starting in 2014, Members of Congress will be getting their health care insurance through Exchanges, and you will be able buy your insurance through Exchanges, too. Starting in 2014, if your income is less than the equivalent of about $43,000 for a single individual and your job doesn’t offer affordable coverage, you may get tax credits to help pay for insurance.

For seniors, who already enjoy government run healthcare, here are their nuggets: Medicare and the New Health Care Law — What it Means for You A Message from Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health & Human Services Th e Aff ordable Care Act passed by Congress and signed by President Obama this year will provide you and your family greater savings and increased quality health care. It will also ensure accountability throughout the health care system so that you, your family, and your doctor—not insurance companies—have greater control over your care. Th ese are needed improvements that will keep Medicare strong and solvent. Your guaranteed Medicare benefi ts won’t change—whether you get them through Original Medicare or a Medicare Advantage plan. Instead, you will see new benefi ts and cost savings, and an increased focus on quality to ensure that you get the care you need. Th is brochure provides you with accurate information about the new services and benefi ts to help you and your family now and in the future. Th e Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (the federal agency that runs the Medicare, Medicaid, and Children’s Health Insurance Program) will continue to provide you with up-to-date information about these new benefi ts and will ensure that your personal information is safe. Remember—rely on your trusted sources of information when it comes to accurate information about Medicare, and don’t hesitate to call 1-800-MEDICARE or go on-line at Medicare.gov if you have questions or concerns. Don’t give your personal Medicare information to anyone who isn’t a trusted source. 2 HEALTH CARE LAW What Stays the Same The guaranteed Medicare benefits you currently receive will remain the same. During open enrollment this fall, you will continue to have a choice between Original Medicare and a Medicare Advantage plan. Medicare will continue to cover your health costs the way it always has, and there are no changes in eligibility. But, there are some important benefits that you and your family can take advantage of starting this year. Look for more details in your Medicare and You Handbook coming this fall. Improvements in Medicare You Will See Right Away More Affordable Prescription Drugs• If you enter the Part D "donut hole" this year, you will receive a one-time, $250 rebate check if you are not already receiving Medicare Extra Help. These checks will begin mailing in mid-June, and will continue monthly throughout the year as beneficiaries enter the coverage gap. • Next year, if you reach the coverage gap, you will receive a 50% discount when buying Part D-covered brand-name prescription drugs.• Over the next ten years, you will receive additional savings until the coverage gap is closed in 2020. Important New Benefits to Help you Stay Healthy • Next year you can get free preventive care services like colorectal cancer screening and mammograms. You can also get a free annual physical to develop and update your personal prevention plan based on current health needs. Improvements to Medicare Advantage • Today, Medicare pays Medicare Advantage insurance companies over $1,000 more per person on average than Original Medicare. These additional payments are paid for in part by increased premiums by all Medicare beneficiaries—including the 77% of seniors not enrolled in a Medicare Advantage plan. • The new law levels the playing field by gradually eliminating Medicare Advantage overpayments to insurance companies. • If you are in a Medicare Advantage plan, you will still receive guaranteed Medicare benefits. • Beginning in 2014, the new law protects Medicare Advantage members by taking strong steps to ensure that at least 85% of every dollar these plans receive is spent on health care, rather than administrative costs and insurance company profits. HEALTH CARE LAW Improvements in Medicare You Will See SoonBetter Access to Care • Your choice of doctor will be preserved.• The law increases the number of primary care doctors, nurses, and physician assistants to provide better access to care through expanded training opportunities, student loan forgiveness, and bonus payments.• Support for community health centers will increase, allowing them to serve some 20 million new patients.Better Chronic Care • Community health teams will provide patient-centered care so you won’t have to see multiple doctors who don’t work together. • If you’re hospitalized, the new law also helps you return home successfully—and avoid going back—by helping to coordinate your care and connecting you to services and supports in your community.

For pregnant women, here are their nuggets: The Affordable Care Act offers you more protections and options Pregnancy is an exciting time. You’re busy taking care of yourself and preparing for the arrival of your child. Worrying about health insurance and the cost of care is the last thing you want to do. The Affordable Care Act expands your options for health insurance and makes them more affordable. Starting as early as 2010, job-based health plans and new individual plans won’t be allowed to deny or exclude coverage to your baby (or any child under age 19) based on health conditions, including babies born with health problems. Starting as early as 2010, new health plans must cover certain preventive services without cost sharing. Starting in 2014, pregnancy and newborn care, along with vision and dental care for children, will be covered in all new individual, small business and Exchange plans. Starting in 2014, job-based health plans and new individual plans won’t be allowed to deny or exclude anyone or charge more for a pre-existing condition, including pregnancy or a disability. Starting in 2014, if your income is less than the equivalent of about $88,000 for a family of four today, and your job doesn’t offer affordable coverage, you may get tax credits to help pay for insurance.

For individuals with a medical condition, here are their nuggets: The Affordable Care Act creates options and affordability If you have a health condition, you know how important having health insurance is and how expensive it can be. Worrying about where to get coverage and the cost of your care is the last thing you want to do when you are dealing with chronic illness. The Affordable Care Act is expanding your options for health insurance and making them more affordable. If you have been uninsured for at least six months and have a health condition, you may be able to get health insurance through the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan. Starting as early as September 2010, if a new insurance plan doesn’t pay for services you believe were covered, you will have new, clear options to appeal the decision. Starting as early as September 2010, insurance companies won’t be able to drop you if you get sick just because you made a mistake on your coverage application. Starting in 2014, job-based and new individual plans won’t be able to exclude you from coverage or charge you a higher premium for a pre-existing condition, including a disability. Starting in 2014, if your income is less than the equivalent of about $88,000 for a family of four today and your job doesn’t offer affordable coverage, you may get tax credits to help pay for insurance.

For healthy individuals, here are their nuggets: The Affordable Care Act creates options and affordability Even if you’re healthy now, sooner or later there will come a time when you will need health insurance. Not having health insurance when you need it can result in large amounts of debt and bad credit ratings. Worrying about health insurance and the cost of your care is the last thing you want to do. The Affordable Care Act is expanding your options for health insurance and making them more affordable. Top 5 Things to Know Starting as early as September 2010, insurance companies won’t be able to drop you when you get sick just because you made a mistake on your coverage application. Starting as early as September 2010, if you have children under age 26, you can insure them if your policy allows for dependent coverage. The only exception is if you have an existing job-based plan, and your children can get their own job-based coverage. Many plans have made a business decision to provide this coverage earlier, so your child could be insured before September 2010. Starting as early as September 2010, job-based health plans and new individual plans won’t be allowed to deny or exclude coverage to any child under age 19 based on health conditions, including babies born with health problems. Starting in 2014, if your income is less than the equivalent of about $88,000 for a family of four today and your job doesn’t offer affordable coverage, you may get tax credits to help pay for insurance. Starting in 2014, if your employer doesn’t offer insurance, you will be able to buy insurance directly in an Exchange that gives you power similar to what large businesses and members of Congress have to get better choices and lower prices. An Exchange is a new transparent and competitive insurance marketplace where individuals and small businesses can buy affordable and qualified health benefit plans. Exchanges will offer you a choice of health plans that meet certain benefits and cost standards.

For Families with Children - here are their few nice nuggets: The Affordable Care Act increases options and controls costs You do your best to keep your children healthy, but sickness and accidents are a part of life. Getting health insurance for your children gives you peace of mind knowing they have health coverage when they need it. But for many hardworking families, affordable insurance can be hard to find. The Affordable Care Act is giving you more control over your family’s health care by expanding your options for health insurance and making them more affordable. Starting as early as September 23, 2010, insurance companies will be prohibited from imposing lifetime dollar limits on essential coverage. Starting as early as 2010, job-based health plans and new individual plans won’t be allowed to deny or exclude coverage for your children (under age 19) based on a pre-existing condition including a disability. Starting in 2014, these same plans won't be allowed to deny or exclude anyone or charge more for a pre-existing condition including a disability. Starting as early as September 2010, if you have children under age 26, you can generally insure them if your policy allows for dependent coverage. The only exception is if you have an existing job-based plan, and your children can get their own job-based coverage. In some plans, you can add your young adult children even earlier than September 2010. Starting in 2014, if your income is less than the equivalent of about $88,000 for a family of four today, and your job doesn’t offer affordable coverage, you may get tax credits to help pay for insurance. Starting in 2014, pregnancy and newborn care, along with vision and dental coverage for children, will be covered in all Exchange plans and new plans sold to individuals and small businesses. An Exchange is a new marketplace where individuals and small businesses can buy affordable health benefit plans. Exchanges will offer you a choice of plans that meet certain benefits and cost standards. Starting in 2014, Members of Congress will be getting their health care insurance through Exchanges, and you will be able buy your insurance through Exchanges, too.

Really? I guess you didn't read this. I voted for the man. It wasn't meant to be him," Irvin Good Jr, the president of Goodtime Amusements, which ran the attraction, told the Morning Call newspaper. "If they took it that way, we apologise." This is that old backward apology. "If they took it that way" Are you freakin' kidding me? What other way should they have taken it?

I am not the hypocrite, you are. I am not the one who has denied the hatred for bush on the left. But you are the one who has denied the violence, hatred and racism for Pres. Obama on the right - going so far as to say it's all in my head.

U.S. Secret Service speaks with carnival operator of Barack Obama game Published: Thursday, August 05, 2010, 12:55 PM Updated: Thursday, August 05, 2010, 2:30 PM Contributed PhotoA boy plays the "Alien Attack" shooting game that depicts President Barack Obama during last weekend's Roseto Big Time. The U.S. Secret Service spoke with Goodtime Amusements owner Irvin L. Good Jr. concerning a carnival game inviting patrons to shoot darts at a likeness of President Barack Obama. "We’re aware of it," said Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan. "We’ve already spoken to the gentleman and we’ll take whatever action is appropriate." The carnival game "Alien Attack" was featured at the Our Lady of Mount Carmel Roman Catholic Church Big Time celebration in Roseto. The object was to hit the head and heart of the likeness of President Obama. Federal law provides tough sanctions for threats against the president's image, although a U.S. Attorney's office spokeswoman wasn't sure whether her office would take any action as a result of the game. Donovan declined to say whether his discussion with Good was shared with the U.S. Attorney's office. Gee, I wonder who they thought people would think this is? Presidential seal, Prez, healthcare bill, black man. Hmmmm!!! Also notice that they made him an alien. I guess that was a concession to the nutwing birthers. If you're appalled that a Catholic Church would sponsor and allow this, then call Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish (in Roseto, PA) and voice your complaint: 610-588-2183. I did.

I guess this is another examples of "no hate/racism" against Pres. Obama. Shooting gallery apologizes for using Obama as a target Source: Guardian Shooting gallery apologizes for using Obama as a target Pennsylvania fairground shooting game used image of black man in a suit wearing presidential seal, clutching 'health bill' A carnival game that offered fair-goers the chance to win prizes by shooting a black man has been axed after complaints that the target resembled President Obama. "I voted for the man. It wasn't meant to be him," Irvin Good Jr, the president of Goodtime Amusements, which ran the attraction, told the Morning Call newspaper. "If they took it that way, we apologise." The fairground shooting gallery, named "Alien Invasion", appeared at the Our Lady of Mount Carmel Big Time Fair in Roseto, Pennsylvania, last month, and attracted complaints for using using a lifesize figure of a black man in a suit, wearing a belt buckle labelled "The Prez" and clutching a rolled-up sheaf of papers marked "Health Bill". While Irvin Good said "I guess we made an error in judgment and we apologise for that," other fair-goers were not so sure. In a letter to the editor of the LeHigh Valley Express-Times, a family attending a reunion at the carnival wrote: "We were appalled to find that a shooting game had as its target an unmistakable image of President Obama. One wins a prize by shooting the president on targets placed on his head or heart. Adults and children alike were taking aim at the president." Yeah, I'm sure that people just mistook a cardboard cut-out of a black man in a suit, with the presidential seal and Prez on the belt buckle and holding a paper health care bill in its hand for Pres. Obama. Their bad. And I'm sure the people who erected it had no idea that people might make this mistake. :smile2: SEE MORE BELOW IN NEXT POST, WITH PICTURE.

As parent's under 26 year old kids get to stay on their policies next month and seniors start to get $250 donut hole checks and the uninsured with pre-existing conditions can start to get insurance in high risk pools (for the time being) you will see those numbers approving of healthcare reform go up. And when they get to see the lies for what they are.

Third on the list is that hypocrite McCain again, along with his darling Sarah Palin both of whom supported cap & trade during the 2008 election. Now they call it cap & tax and don't support it. More flip flopping. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orlD9Sp57n4 Start at the 2:44 mark. Where did this guy go?

Next on the list is the republican lie that tax cuts for the rich stimulate the economy, create jobs, etc.. You'd think that the fact that we've had the bush tax cuts for the rich in place for 10 years while losing 8 million jobs would squash this argument, but apparently not: Rich Doctor Whines About Eliminating Bush Tax Cuts. by Verbalpaintball Wed Aug 04, 2010 at 03:39:49 AM PDT From Robert Reich at HP: During almost three decades spanning 1951 to 1980, when America's top marginal tax rate was between 70 and 92 percent, the nation's average annual growth was 3.7 percent. But between 1983 and start of the Great Recession, when the top rate was far lower -- ranging between 35 and 39 percent -- the economy grew an average of just 3 percent per year. Supply-siders are fond of claiming that Ronald Reagan's 1981 cuts caused the 1980s economic boom. In fact, that boom followed Reagan's 1982 tax increase. The 1990s boom likewise was not the result of a tax cut; it came in the wake of Bill Clinton's 1993 tax increase. Nonetheless, while the top 1% is far away from that 92% income tax, the well-off are still whining about their poor earnings as a result of a tax increase that HASN'T EVEN HAPPENED YET. Here's a typical buffoon responding in the comment area of that same article: Whatever you say Berkely dude. As one of the business owners that makes (joint income) over $250,000 year I don't care if my tax rate goes from 35% to 39.6%. Won't matter to me if capital gains goes up. Won't matter when you add another 4% on as a healthcare tax. Won't matter when I'm reimbursed at Medicare rates for the care I provide for everyone, not just those over 65. Doesn't matter that I still have to pay ever increasing Malpractice rates and business expenses and my business mortgage stays the same I'll just have less to bonus and pay my employees. Less to put into my SEP (and theirs). Less to put into my local community and economy. I'll just give it to Uncle Sam, he will spend it better than me. Not one to let a perfectly bogus claim stand, I responded as follows: First of all, if you are making a salary of $250,000, as a business owner your gross income is more (I am a business owner, so you can't fool me there). If you're a smart business owner, that extra income is in the form of company shareholder profits or dividends (at a tax rate of 15%). Now, you're a doctor of some sort, so the Medicare reimbursement issue is certainly a concern, but this tax increase ONLY affects your taxable income. Furthermore, as a business owner you have expenses. Mine take my taxable rate down about 10% every year. How about you? I'll tell you how the Bush tax cuts have affected me. It wasn't in the pittance I got back in my pocket, but the increase in property taxes in my state through the reduced revenue. What was $3,800 in 2003 is now $8,400 this year. That's the legacy of the Bush tax cuts. As far as you not being able to pay your employees bonuses, well, that's an issue of company profits and not your taxable income. Either you know this or are trying to be deceptive. There are other factors that affect profits, but your small salary increase won't be one of them. And that's really the crux of it. The rich will complain, even though their taxes will remain the same. This is how my accountant assesses it: If income taxes go up, pay yourself less. If they go down, pay yourself more. This guy owns his own business, so he has that luxury. As a Doctor, sure, he has to deal with a decrease in Medicare payments. As an employee, he has to deal with an increase in healthcare tax. But the issue with many Doctors (particularly General Practitioners) is that the cost of business is too high to make a profit with malpractice insurance involved. In short, they can only make $150,000 instead of $200 or $300,000 or more like specialists can. Still in all, dissolving the Bush tax cuts have no effect on these problems at all. What's lost in all of this, outside of the issue of where those government cuts went (property tax increases) are the fact that tax cuts do not create jobs. So, in short, those of us in the middle class have gotten screwed, pay more (over double in property taxes, like I have), and aren't seeing any new jobs coming from that rich 1% who are getting the true benefit from these tax cuts. But the Republicans still push this stupidity, mainly because they have no respect for the intelligence of the American people, and their ties to business are too great to buck. Get a load of the initiative they proposed yesterday: From HP: The Economic Freedom Act of 2010 -- introduced by Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) -- proposes deep tax cuts favoring the wealthiest in America, a reduction in regulatory oversight and the elimination of a federal tax on the estates of millionaires, which will allow wealthy investors to escape taxes entirely on a significant portion of their income. Republicans say the bill will create jobs where President Obama's policies have failed to do so. Michael Linden from Center For American Progress on this new act: "This is almost five times bigger than Bush tax cuts were," Linden said. "It really represents a doubling down on Bush's economic agenda. Where he skewed his tax policy heavily to the rich, this would skew it even further even to the exclusion of the middle class."

This morning I am exposing the republican hypocrisy, lies and misrepresentations, starting with this: There They Go Again: Two Senators Continue False and Misleading Attacks on Recovery Act Posted by Jared Bernstein on August 03, 2010 at 09:53 AM EDT This morning two senators—John McCain and Tom Coburn—released their third report critiquing 100 Recovery Act projects. And just like the last two, this one was an inaccurate and misleading attack on programs that are putting Americans to work across the nation. I’ll present some details in a moment, but it’s very unfortunate that, once again, instead of trying to help create the conditions for stronger growth, to help build on the momentum of the Recovery Act, McCain and Coburn spend their valuable time cooking up phony critiques and, with their Republican colleagues, blocking votes of even bipartisan measures to help small businesses. Let’s start with the bigger picture. Just last week two prominent, independent economists released a rigorous study on how actions by the government (and the Federal Reserve), including the Recovery Act, helped to end the Great Recession. One of the authors—Mark Zandi—was one of McCain’s top advisers during his presidential bid. He and Alan Blinder (a former vice-chairman of the Federal Reserve) found that the Recovery Act has created or saved about 2.7 million jobs so far, and shaved about a point and a half off of the unemployment rate. These jobs are the result of over 70,000 projects in action around the country, of grants to states supporting jobs of teachers, police, and firefighters, of tax cuts for working households, loans to small businesses, and investments in innovative new industries producing advanced batteries, clean energy, and much more. They’ve helped reverse a situation where last year, we were losing millions of private sector jobs; in the first half of this year, we’ve added 593,000 private sector jobs. Now, we’re always glad to take a second look at projects when concerns are raised. In fact, there’s never been a stimulus program of this magnitude with anywhere near the amount of oversight that’s been brought to bear on the Recovery Act. And when we find a problem, we fix it. We’ve shut down hundreds of projects that weren’t delivering the goods. But the inaccuracy of McCain/Coburn in this regard renders this report just as unreliable as the last two. We followed up the projects in those reports, and found half of their claims to be flat-out false or misleading. Many of the others criticized worthwhile, job-creating projects. Check out this link and you’ll see that news outlets like CNN have debunked their claims in the past, often by simply going to the folks who were working on the project and learning about it: In the current report, our review so far finds that five of the 100 projects are not even Recovery Act projects. And others are just blatantly wrong on the facts. Take for example an award that McCain and Coburn describe as “funding a WNBA Practice Facility,” when in fact the award is building a tribal government center that will create education and health facilities while also creating hundreds of jobs. Moreover, the tribe has agreed to disallow any commercial use of the facility. One of their top critiques in the new report is a clean energy program in California that’s put about 50 people to work so far, expects to create 1,500 construction jobs, and then 500 permanent green jobs after that. Gov. Schwarzenegger praised the program, as did the Chamber of Commerce. What would McCain and Coburn say to these workers? That they shouldn’t have this opportunity? That they should go back to the jobless roles? That building a clean energy future is the wrong way to go? What ideas does Senator Coburn have to offer to the 35,000 people working in Oklahoma who wouldn’t be there without the Recovery Act? What about the 64,000 Arizonans at work because of the Act? Instead of answers, we’re left with a partisan attack contradicted by one of the author’s own former advisers. But that’s not all. We’re also left with a choice. The President has shown he is willing to work with anyone who will join us to figure out new ways to create more jobs. The Vice-President spends each week making sure we’re squeezing job out of every Recovery Act dollar. Meanwhile, Republicans are blocking an up or down vote on a package of bipartisan proposals that would cut taxes for small businesses and allow them access to capital through community banks. It’s incredible, when you think about it: last week as they were working to turn out this hit-job of a report, these same two senators were voting against helping small businesses expand and create jobs. Yes, we must carefully evaluate our progress, but we must do so without partisan thumbs on the scale. In that regard, the report these two senators are touting today is not a road map forward. To the contrary, it is one back to the failed policies that got us into this mess. We’ve tried that route. We cannot afford to go back there again. Jared Bernstein is Chief Economic Advisor to the Vice President And to think that McCain the flip-flopper was whom some wanted for president. He has changed his position on so many issues that he barely resembles the so-called maverick that he used to call himself, but now denies.

BJean: Everything you said is so true. Ed Schultz's book about the assault on and the decline of the middle class makes many of these points. I am also reading another book that points out that employers don't need employees. We need employers for a paycheck, healthcare and retirement. They don't need us because they can overwork the employees they have, getting more out of each one. This is evident because despite the unemployment rate staying the same, GDP is up. And they also ship jobs overseas for cheap labor while enjoying our country's generous tax breaks for them. And once again I have to ask - and those who support all of this is who some want to elect more of?

Keep in mind that these are the people that the republicans want to extend the tax cut to. A tax cut that is not paid for and adds to the deficit they keep yapping about. Also keep in mind that the argument that these people create jobs is a fallacy. Do the Rich Even Need the Rest of America Anymore? Yves Smith Naked Capitalism August 3rd, 2010 12:31AM Robert Frank at the Wall Street Journal contends that the rich don't need the rest of us all that much (hat tip reader Don :blushing:: Late last year, the U.S. economy experienced a surprising decoupling. As stocks boomed, the wealthy bounced back. And while the Main Street economy was wracked by high unemployment and the real-estate crash, the wealthy-whose financial fates were more tied to capital markets than jobs and houses- picked themselves up, brushed themselves off and started buying luxury goods again. Who knows what the next few months and years will bring. But one thing seems clear: the economic fate of Richistan seems increasingly separate from the fate of the U.S. Some argue that the decoupling has gone even further. Michael Lind, a policy director for the Economic Growth Program at the New American Foundation, argues in Salon that the American rich no longer need the rest of America. He says the wealthy increasingly earn their fortunes with overseas labor, selling to overseas consumers and managing financial transactions that have little to do with the rest of the U.S. "A member of the elite can make money from factories in China that sell to consumers in India, while relying entirely or almost entirely on immigrant servants at one of several homes around the country." This is an interesting line of PR. To the extent those at the top of the food chain believe it, and better yet, can get the great unwashed to buy into it, the more they will be able to get their way. Yes, the rich increasingly live lives apart from those not in their economic cohort. But separation is not the same as independence. The Southern plantation owner had little interaction with his slaves (his overseer took care of that), yet he clearly depended on their labor. The financial crisis resulted in the greatest looting of the public purse in history. While the banksters were the obvious beneficiaries, most of the rest of the rich were carried along with them. The sudden recovery in the fortunes of the wealthy was no accident, but the result of a host of policies to prop up asset values. This line of thinking is hardly new. James Galbraith, in The Predator State, discusses how the corporate elite have come to serve their own interests rather than those of their companies, and have become adept at using the state to further their personal aims. Thus the profit potential of remaining engaged in the US (albeit at as much of a remove as the top echelon can manage) is too great to be ignored.

Accuracy of Fossils and Dating Methods Michael Benton An ActionBioscience.org original article Fossil dating is accurate since the method follows strict scientific guidelines: the age of rocks around a fossil can be considered mathematical calculations are used the state of decay, carbon-14, and isotopes figure in calculations tree of life relationships often help sort the dates January 2001 Fossils provide a record of the history of life. Engraving from William Smith’s 1815 monograph on identifying strata based on fossils. Smith (1759-1839) is known as the Father of English Geology. Source: Oxford Library. Our understanding of the shape and pattern of the history of life depends on the accuracy of fossils and dating methods. Some critics, particularly religious fundamentalists, argue that neither fossils nor dating can be trusted, and that their interpretations are better. Other critics, perhaps more familiar with the data, question certain aspects of the quality of the fossil record and of its dating. These skeptics do not provide scientific evidence for their views. Current understanding of the history of life is probably close to the truth because it is based on repeated and careful testing and consideration of data. The rejection of the validity of fossils and of dating by religious fundamentalists creates a problem for them: Millions of fossils have been discovered. They cannot deny that hundreds of millions of fossils reside in display cases and drawers around the world. Perhaps some would argue that these specimens - huge skeletons of dinosaurs, blocks from ancient shell beds containing hundreds of specimens, delicately preserved fern fronds — have been manufactured by scientists to confuse the public. This is clearly ludicrous. Some skeptics believe that all fossils are the same age. Otherwise, religious fundamentalists are forced to claim that all the fossils are of the same age, somehow buried in the rocks by some extraordinary catastrophe, perhaps Noah’s flood. How exactly they believe that all the dinosaurs, mammoths, early humans, heavily-armored fishes, trilobites, ammonites, and the rest could all live together has never been explained. Nor indeed why the marine creatures were somehow ‘drowned’ by the flood. Rejecting fossil data cannot be supported by proof. The rejection of dating by religious fundamentalists is easier for them to make, but harder for them to demonstrate. The fossils occur in regular sequences time after time; radioactive decay happens, and repeated cross testing of radiometric dates confirms their validity. Fossils occur in sequences Fossil sequences were recognized and established in their broad outlines long before Charles Darwin had even thought of evolution. Early geologists, in the 1700s and 1800s, noticed how fossils seemed to occur in sequences: certain assemblages of fossils were always found below other assemblages. The first work was done in England and France. Fossil hunting began by accident in England around 1800. Around 1800, William Smith in England, who was a canal surveyor, noticed that he could map out great tracts of rocks on the basis of their contained fossils. The sequences he saw in one part of the country could be correlated (matched) precisely with the sequences in another. He, and others at the time, had discovered the first principles of stratigraphy — that older rocks lie below younger rocks and that fossils occur in a particular, predictable order. Stratigraphy, the study of rock layers, led to paleontology, the study of fossils. Then, geologists began to build up the stratigraphic column, the familiar listing of divisions of geological time — Jurassic, Cretaceous, Tertiary, and so on. Each time unit was characterized by particular fossils. The scheme worked all round the world, without fail. From the 1830s onwards, geologists noted how fossils became more complex through time. The oldest rocks contained no fossils, then came simple sea creatures, then more complex ones like fishes, then came life on land, then reptiles, then mammals, and finally humans. Clearly, there was some kind of ‘progress’ going on. All became clear, of course, in 1859 when Charles Darwin published his “On the origin of species”. The ‘progress’ shown by the fossils was a documentation of the grand pattern of evolution through long spans of time. Accuracy of the fossils Fossils prove that humans did not exist alongside dinosaurs. Since 1859, paleontologists, or fossil experts, have searched the world for fossils. In the past 150 years they have not found any fossils that Darwin would not have expected. New discoveries have filled in the gaps, and shown us in unimaginable detail the shape of the great ‘tree of life’. Darwin and his contemporaries could never have imagined the improvements in resolution of stratigraphy that have come since 1859, nor guessed what fossils were to be found in the southern continents, nor predicted the huge increase in the number of amateur and professional paleontologists worldwide. All these labors have not led to a single unexpected finding such as a human fossil from the time of the dinosaurs, or a Jurassic dinosaur in the same rocks as Silurian trilobites. Scientists now use phylogeny, mathematics, and other computations to date fossils. Paleontologists now apply sophisticated mathematical techniques to assess the relative quality of particular fossil successions, as well as the entire fossil record. These demonstrate that, of course, we do not know everything (and clearly never will), but we know enough. Today, innovative techniques provide further confirmation and understanding of the history of life. Biologists actually have at their disposal several independent ways of looking at the history of life - not only from the order of fossils in the rocks, but also through phylogenetic trees. Phylogenetic trees are the family trees of particular groups of plants or animals, showing how all the species relate to each other. Phylogenetic trees are drawn up mathematically, using lists of morphological (external form) or molecular (gene sequence) characters. Modern phylogenetic trees have no input from stratigraphy, so they can be used in a broad way to make comparisons between tree shape and stratigraphy. The majority of test cases show good agreement, so the fossil record tells the same story as the molecules enclosed in living organisms. Accuracy of dating Dating in geology may be relative or absolute. Relative dating is done by observing fossils, as described above, and recording which fossil is younger, which is older. The discovery of means for absolute dating in the early 1900s was a huge advance. The methods are all based on radioactive decay: Fossils may be dated by calculating the rate of decay of certain elements. Certain naturally occurring elements are radioactive, and they decay, or break down, at predictable rates. Chemists measure the half-life of such elements, i.e., the time it takes for half of the radioactive parent element to break down to the stable daughter element. Sometimes, one isotope, or naturally occurring form, of an element decays into another, more stable form of the same element. By comparing the proportions of parent to daughter element in a rock sample, and knowing the half-life, the age can be calculated. Older fossils cannot be dated by carbon-14 methods and require radiometric dating. Scientists can use different chemicals for absolute dating: The best-known absolute dating technique is carbon-14 dating, which archaeologists prefer to use. However, the half-life of carbon-14 is only 5730 years, so the method cannot be used for materials older than about 70,000 years. Radiometric dating involves the use of isotope series, such as rubidium/strontium, thorium/lead, potassium/argon, argon/argon, or uranium/lead, all of which have very long half-lives, ranging from 0.7 to 48.6 billion years. Subtle differences in the relative proportions of the two isotopes can give good dates for rocks of any age. Scientists can check their accuracy by using different isotopes. The first radiometric dates, generated about 1920, showed that the Earth was hundreds of millions, or billions, of years old. Since then, geologists have made many tens of thousands of radiometric age determinations, and they have refined the earlier estimates. A key point is that it is no longer necessary simply to accept one chemical determination of a rock’s age. Age estimates can be cross-tested by using different isotope pairs. Results from different techniques, often measured in rival labs, continually confirm each other. There is only a 1% chance of error with current dating technology. Every few years, new geologic time scales are published, providing the latest dates for major time lines. Older dates may change by a few million years up and down, but younger dates are stable. For example, it has been known since the 1960s that the famous Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary, the line marking the end of the dinosaurs, was 65 million years old. Repeated recalibrations and retests, using ever more sophisticated techniques and equipment, cannot shift that date. It is accurate to within a few thousand years. With modern, extremely precise, methods, error bars are often only 1% or so. Conclusion: The strict rules of the scientific method ensure the accuracy of fossil dating. Conclusion The fossil record is fundamental to an understanding of evolution. Fossils document the order of appearance of groups and they tell us about some of the amazing plants and animals that died out long ago. Fossils can also show us how major crises, such as mass extinctions, happened, and how life recovered after them. If the fossils, or the dating of the fossils, could be shown to be inaccurate, all such information would have to be rejected as unsafe. Geologists and paleontologists are highly self-critical, and they have worried for decades about these issues. Repeated, and tough, regimes of testing have confirmed the broad accuracy of the fossils and their dating, so we can read the history of life from the rocks with confidence.

Hi, Judy. Welcome to rants & raves. We welcome your input.

Will Be Healthy: What you say is so true. In the 60's and 70's our time had come. Fed up with the horror of what happened in Vietnam, with women being second class citizens, and people of color or disability being discriminated against - we rose up. And after awhile, white males started panicking. We were asking for a share of the pie that they, for so long, controlled. White men held the power and the good jobs. So, the only way for them to get it back was to limit the success of others who wanted some. Women or blacks were the enemy. Women only worked for "pin money" thus taking jobs from men who needed them and blacks just got hired because of affirmative action, again taking jobs from white men. This whole premise was based on the idea that all power and jobs (except maybe nurses, secretaries, elementary teachers and janitors) belonged to white men. No one else need apply. Thus began the power struggle. No one who has the power ever willingly shares it. The republican southern strategy for elections would often include sending mailings showing a white hand being given a pink slip at work with the not so subtle implication that you know who would be taking that job. It worked. And this continued in earnest with Reagan. He started voodoo economics, that don't work, and he made the government the enemy. The rich got richer, the poor poorer and the middle class started to shrink in terms of buying power and earnings. And it has been going on ever since. I finished reading Ed Schultz's book: Killer Politics - how the middle class is being destroyed. Very informative. We need to wake up and become more proactive to keep our country from becoming a 2 class society - the rich and the poor, but without safety nets. That's where we're headed if we let the republicans back in power. That's what they want.

160,000-year-old fossilized skulls uncovered in Ethiopia are oldest anatomically modern humans Robert Sanders | 11 June 2003 BERKELEY - The fossilized skulls of two adults and one child discovered in the Afar region of eastern Ethiopia have been dated at 160,000 years, making them the oldest known fossils of modern humans, or Homo sapiens. Image © J. Matternes Flash slideshow: The first Homo sapiens The skulls, dug up near a village called Herto, fill a major gap in the human fossil record, an era at the dawn of modern humans when the facial features and brain cases we recognize today as human first appeared. The fossils date precisely from the time when biologists using genes to chart human evolution predicted that a genetic "Eve" lived somewhere in Africa and gave rise to all modern humans. "We've lacked intermediate fossils between pre-humans and modern humans, between 100,000 and 300,000 years ago, and that's where the Herto fossils fit," said paleoanthropologist Tim White, professor of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and a co-leader of the team that excavated and analyzed the discovery site. "Now, the fossil record meshes with the molecular evidence." This is the complaint that I have about those who start with a biblical premise (creationism) and then have to reject anything that doesn't support that - in this case the scientific evidence. I am not going to engage in a long drawn out debate with you posting all your biblical quotes. I will believe the scientific evidence as to the age of the earth and humans. Period.

E.J. Dionne Jr.: The car industry bailout is working And Presidents Bush and Obama deserve credit. It's time to stop the slur of 'socialism.' Monday, August 02, 2010 Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP Drive time: President Obama at the Jefferson North Chrysler Plant in Detroit on Friday. WASHINGTON -- Who could have imagined that the bailout of the auto industry, one of the single most unpopular moves by the Obama administration, would become one of its best talking points? But don't for an instant imagine that the comeback of the nation's rescued car companies, particularly General Motors, will change the way we debate government's role in the economy. When it comes to almost anything the government does, ideology trumps facts, slogans trump reality, and loaded words ("socialism") trump data. Let there be no mistake: rescuing GM and Chrysler took political courage, and I want to put in a good word not only for President Barack Obama but also for George W. Bush. True, Mr. Bush's electoral career was over in December 2008, when he extended $17.4 billion of TARP money to keep the companies alive long enough to give Mr. Obama a chance to act. Still, it took guts for Mr. Bush to decide not to "leave the next president to confront the demise of a major American industry in his first days of office." Yet it was Mr. Obama who put in the bulk of the cash -- in all, Mr. Bush's input had grown to $25 billion before he left office while Mr. Obama put up an additional $60 billion -- and created the tough restructuring plan. Both presidents faced broad public resistance. A CNN Poll in December 2008 found that 61 percent of Americans opposed the bailout; only 36 percent supported it. When Mr. Obama acted two months later, a Gallup Poll found 72 percent opposing the additional money for the auto companies and only 25 percent in favor. At the time, I was in the bailout-supporting minority because a collapse of the car industry would have devastated an already ailing Midwest. Enterprises dependent on the auto firms would have come crashing down. A White House report last week concluded that 1 million jobs would have been lost if the government had not intervened, and some estimates last year went much higher. The decision to lose one of our core manufacturing sectors would also have been irreversible -- a severe enough threat that even Bush, the staunch free-marketer, wouldn't let it happen. That's why the Obama administration is bragging a bit about the 55,000 auto jobs added since last June. "The auto rescue," White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, who met with a group of columnists last week, said, "is a great example of how the administration's policies helped lead to a turnaround in the industrial base of our country." The arguments against the bailout were predictable but not unreasonable. Many suspected that government would inevitably make politicized choices: plant-closings determined by political influence and Obama favorites on company boards pursuing pet administration projects at the expense of sound business judgments. This didn't happen. Even though the administration lost one fight when Congress voted to protect the interests of the auto dealers, the White House let the automakers behave like private companies. Ron Bloom, a major architect of the restructuring, told the columnists: "For the last nine or 10 months, we've kept our hands off of it." Directors, Mr. Bloom added, were chosen for their business expertise, not for their politics. Ironically, Steve Forbes, the former Republican presidential candidate, confirmed the administration's story in an opinion piece in Politico last week, whose purpose was to deny Obama any credit for the auto industry's comeback. "GM's management," Mr. Forbes said, "is using solid, conservative, free-market management principles to get the company back to long-term profitability." But this is exactly what opponents of the bailout said could never happen if the government stepped in. By Mr. Forbes' own testimony, they were wrong. That's why President Obama could declare at a Chrysler plant in Detroit on Friday that "for the first time since 2004, all three U.S. automakers are operating at a profit," meaning that taxpayers are likely to recoup most of their investment and possibly more. Might practical-minded business people now admit that there are occasions when government intervention can be good for capitalism by saving it from some of the very forces it unleashes? OK, Wall Street is full of whining ingrates who would have been wiped out absent government help. Many business folks ignore how much they depend on effective government so they can keep complaining about taxes and regulations. But honestly: without government, we would have lost large parts of our auto industry. Doesn't this matter to anybody? Good thing Pres. Obama didn't listen to the poll numbers and instead did what was right for this country.

When Did Dinosaurs Live? The story we have all heard from movies, television, newspapers, and most magazines and textbooks is that dinosaurs lived millions of years ago. According to evolutionists, the dinosaurs “ruled the Earth” for 140 million years, dying out about 65 million years ago. However, scientists do not dig up anything labeled with those ages. They only uncover dead dinosaurs (i.e., their bones), and their bones do not have labels attached telling how old they are. The idea of millions of years of evolution is just the evolutionists’ story about the past. No scientist was there to see the dinosaurs live through this supposed dinosaur age. In fact, there is no proof whatsoever that the world and its fossil layers are millions of years old.No proof? Are you kidding me? What about carbon dating and all the other scientific dating mechanisms? Proof. Not disputed. Accepted by mainstream science. WOW! No scientist observed dinosaurs die. Scientists only find the bones in the here and now, and because many of them are evolutionists, they try to fit the story of the dinosaurs into their view. As opposed to those of you who ignore and deny science to fit into your religious views. Other scientists, called creation scientists, have a different idea about when dinosaurs lived. They believe they can solve any of the supposed dinosaur mysteries and show how the evidence fits wonderfully with their ideas about the past, beliefs that come from the Bible. The Bible, God’s very special book (or collection of books, really), claims that each writer was supernaturally inspired to write exactly what the Creator of all things wanted him to write down for us so that we can know where we (and dinosaurs) came from, why we are here, and what our future will be. The first book in the Bible—Genesis—teaches us many things about how the universe and life came into existence. Genesis tells us that God created everything—the Earth, stars, sun, moon, plants, animals, and the first two people. Although the Bible does not tell us exactly how long ago it was that God made the world and its creatures, we can make a good estimate of the date of creation by reading through the Bible and noting some interesting passages: God made everything in six days. He did this, by the way, to set a pattern for mankind, which has become our seven day week (as described in Exodus 20:11). God worked for six days and rested for one, as a model for us. Furthermore, Bible scholars will tell you that the Hebrew word for day used in Genesis 1, can only mean an ordinary day in this context. We are told God created the first man and woman—Adam and Eve—on Day Six. Many facts about when their children and their children’s children were born are given in Genesis. These genealogies are recorded throughout the Old Testament, up until the time of Christ. They certainly were not chronologies lasting millions of years. As you add up all of the dates, and accepting that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came to Earth almost 2000 years ago, we come to the conclusion that the creation of the Earth and animals (including the dinosaurs) occurred only thousands of years ago (perhaps only 6000!), not millions of years. I laughed out loud at this one. Again. WOW. Just dismiss all the scientific evidence to the contrary. I guess the Egyptians rode the dinosaurs. Maybe that's how they built the pyramids. With T-Rex's help. Thus, if the Bible is right (and it is!), dinosaurs must have lived within the past thousands of years. I found this on some right wing religious site (answersingeneis.org) and WOW. How can so many pieces of religious propoganda and lies be contained in one article? At least it gave me a good laugh. Hey, pattygreen, did they get their interpretation of the bible right?

More republican hypocrisy: I guess they only want transparency from Democrats. REPUBLICANS GETTING ALL UP IN EACH OTHERS' BIZ-NESS - Looks like the whole unified front thing is hitting a bit of a snag. "Several House Republicans are balking at a request by their leadership to offer up a copy of their August schedules for a GOP Conference online database. 'My constituents know how to find me,' Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) said. 'I'm listed in the phone book.' GOP leaders have asked Members to submit their schedules as part of their 'America Speaking Out' agenda project, but some Republicans said doing so would only create opportunities for their opponents to embarrass them...Likewise, Rep. Mike Simpson said he would not be submitting his schedule to leadership either, in part because he felt it was not 'the Conference's business.'" CQ: Not the "conference's business"??? It's MY business. Everything you do as a congressman is MY business, you arrogant hypocrite. I am your employer. :thumbup: