Election 2010: Teabaggin' the Ds & Rs

[Cletus Miller]

Originally Posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)

Pequot or Mohegan?

Aren't all Dakotans and Oklahomans Indians anyway? I thought they all lived in sod houses or tepees and rode horses to work.

[Cletus Miller]

Originally Posted by LessinSF

Ah, shit. You don't just read blogs for a living?

He quotes them, too!

[Penske 2.0]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

You know, I'm sick of this bullshit, which I usually ignore, so I'm going to say this once, to you, Hank, and Penske, and then I'll go back to ignoring you on it.

All three of you know what I do in real life, though others here don't. You can all tell that I have made a choice not to talk about what I do for a living on this board. The suggestion that I don't live in the real world, that somehow my experience in the different fields you all know about is entirely academic and practice -- you wouldn't say that to my face, because in a face-to-face conversation I wouldn't be constrained by the choice I've made about what I'll say on this board. It's a cheap debating trick, one that just takes advantage of what I'll say in response, and one that plays to other people reading the posts but that the four of us know is bullshit.

In fairness, I think you have made some good career moves, and I expect and look forward to your practical knowledge increasing as we move further into our second decade posting here. If it makes you feel any better, this one of my socks will wait for you to arrive amongst us, i.e. not put you on ignore while we wait for you to get a sense of the real world.

The censorship thing on the other hand.......

[Penske 2.0]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

I never understand when they do this, since I'm the only one here who has actually run a real business.

AH-HEM!

Don't be fooled by my less than top of the heap C-Suite titles. I'm the defacto CEO.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Penske 2.0

AH-HEM!

Don't be fooled by my less than top of the heap C-Suite titles. I'm the defacto CEO.

Whatever you say, Gareth.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Thanks for posting a link, but I don't think you meant to point me to a month's worth of blog posts, none of which included what you quoted.



This is interesting stuff, and entirely different from the bullshit you were spouting earlier. Owing to demands placed on me by the real world, I can't devote the time to it right now that it deserves. A link would be nice, too.

My bad. Here's the link. The text is near the bottom: http://is.gd/kjVVH

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Penske 2.0

AH-HEM!

Don't be fooled by my less than top of the heap C-Suite titles. I'm the defacto CEO.

Maybe you have cred for half-running a quasi-business, but I know for a fact that Hank's biggest responsibility is completing form 1099s. It takes up most of his time.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

I never understand when they do this, since I'm the only one here who has actually run a real business.

Selling mushrooms in college doesn't count.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Unemployment shifts a shitload of people from those paying into the PPACA to those receiving subsidies from it. This is a loss of anticipated funding. Additionally, the 3.8% tax on unearned income is not going to deliver what's expected. The flaws in the assumptions about revenue available to fund HCR are not undone by your repeating, "It's funded by Medicare cuts!" You know that's only a fraction of the funding, and you know damn well I'm right when I say money is fungible, and the cost of this program in light of the lack of much of what was anticipated to be available is going to have to be made up for with borrowing elsewhere.

Christian Science Monitor on HCR:

So where’s the cash to pay for this coming from? Remember, CBO says this bill will actually cut the deficit over 10 years. That means it has to raise a little more money than it will spend.

The answer is that the money will be provided by new taxes, fees on industries involved in health care, and cuts in projected spending growth for existing government health efforts, primarily Medicare.

Here are specifics on some of the biggest money raisers:
Higher Medicare taxes on rich people

If you are an individual making more than $200,000 a year, or a married couple making more than $250,000 a year, get ready to pay more for your Medicare if health care reform passes.

First of all, your Medicare Part A (that’s hospital insurance) tax rate would be increased by 0.9 percent, to 2.35 percent. Second, the bill creates an entirely new tax of 3.8 percent on unearned income (dividends, interest, stuff like that) for people in those same income brackets.

The good news is that this would not take effect until Jan. 1, 2013. And it is a big money raiser, truth be told. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates this would bring in $210 billion between 2013 and 2019.
New tax on expensive health insurance

They used to call this the “Cadillac tax,” but it’s been pared back enough so it might better be called the “Chevy with leather and A/C” tax.

The health care bill would impose an excise tax on insurers of employer-sponsored health plans that cost more than $10,200 annually for individual coverage, or $27,500 annually for family coverage. The tax in question would be 40 percent of the cost of the plan that exceeds those dollar thresholds.

This tax would not kick in until 2018. The JCT figures it would bring in around $32 billion in its first two years.
Fees on health care industries

The Obama administration figures it is only fair to slap some fees on health care industries, since they’d be getting lots of new customers if health care reform passes. So after negotiations with some big sectors, the White House struck a number of deals.

* Drug manufacturers would pay the US a total of $16 billion between 2011 and 2019.
* Health insurers would pay $47 billion over the same period.
* Medical device manufacturers would pay a 2.9 percent excise tax on the sale of any of their wares, beginning Jan. 1, 2013.

The tanning tax

OK, it’s not a big money raiser, but we could not resist mentioning that health care reform would establish a tax of 10 percent on indoor tanning services. (Outdoor tanning services remain untaxed, of course.) This would raise $2.7 billion between 2010 and 2019.
Medicare cuts

Government payments to Medicare Advantage – plans run by private insurers that are an alternative to traditional Medicare – would be reduced by $132 billion over 10 years under the health care reform bill. (Those plans now get around 14 percent more per person than traditional Medicare does.)

Medicare payments for home health care would also be reduced by $40 billion over 10 years. And cuts in certain payments to hospitals would raise another $22 billion by 2019.

Like I said, I really don't have time to do this right. But

(a) $200 billion from Medicare cuts is more than a "fraction."

(b) Please explain to me how the rise is unemployment is going to make a huge difference in the 3.8% on dividends, interest and other unearned income paid by people in the highest tax bracket.

More generally, I would be a fool to say that the CBO has definitively nailed it, and won't be proven wrong. So I never have. But I'm certainly not foolish to say, these things are hard to predict, so the hackish worst-case predictions trotted out by the President's political opponents must all be true.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally Posted by Cletus Miller

No, it doesn't. Doesn't even do that in Mass. As Burger sez, it will cause a delay and be costly--and it may even be costly enough that it no longer makes economic sense for the lenders to seek foreclosure--but the ruling in NO way makes even a single mortgage unforecloseable.

Aren't the people who are most screwed the new "owners" of the home that was sold in the foreclosure sale? Presumably the bank conveyed to them a title that they didn't really hold (at least not yet).

[Cletus Miller]

Originally Posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)

Aren't the people who are most screwed the new "owners" of the home that was sold in the foreclosure sale? Presumably the bank conveyed to them a title that they didn't really hold (at least not yet).

Yep, at least as to relative level of inconvenience. The banks are not going to come out of it well, either, tho.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Christian Science Monitor on HCR:



Like I said, I really don't have time to do this right. But

(a) $200 billion from Medicare cuts is more than a "fraction."

(b) Please explain to me how the rise is unemployment is going to make a huge difference in the 3.8% on dividends, interest and other unearned income paid by people in the highest tax bracket.

More generally, I would be a fool to say that the CBO has definitively nailed it, and won't be proven wrong. So I never have. But I'm certainly not foolish to say, these things are hard to predict, so the hackish worst-case predictions trotted out by the President's political opponents must all be true.

I have never carried the water of those hacks. I have said the thing won't meet its projections. The degree of the miss I think could be huge. But I can't say specifically, and so I haven't. Hence my comment, "You may be right" about the programs saving something near what its architects said it would. I highly, highly doubt it, but it could happen, theoretically.

Specifically:

(a) It is a big fraction. But it is not the sole source of payment for the program. Not even close.

(b) It doesn't. I wasn't linking those two. (Or, Nice try.) Those drop because as the economy falters, fewer people and portfolios fall within the crosshairs of those taxes.* You can make the myriad linkages between unemployment and that yourself, if you like, but I don't need it. The argument's strong enough without it. (But thanks for giving me another one.)

You're trying to compartmentalize HCReform into something that operates outside stressors from the outside economy. That doesn't work. Except theoretically.

*Many portfolios have bounced back, but many have not. And without even seeing that portion of the bill, I guarantee the revenue estimates from that tax are projected way above reality. Probably based on pre-recession numbers. A fine bit of AIG modeling, no doubt. (Could you ever imagine the govt being frank enough to project a future with lower tax revenues due to adverse conditions? Hell no. They forecast everything based on the last similar cycle. That'd be 1982. You seeing the 7.6% growth we had in 1983 today? Anywhere on the near horizon?)

[LessinSF]

Originally Posted by Cletus Miller

No, it doesn't. Doesn't even do that in Mass. As Burger sez, it will cause a delay and be costly--and it may even be costly enough that it no longer makes economic sense for the lenders to seek foreclosure--but the ruling in NO way makes even a single mortgage unforecloseable.

full employment for monkey fucking scribes working on securitizations, and a nice money machine for law firms that can hire an army of contract lawyers at $80/hour and bill them out at $300, to have them scrub every mortgage assignment.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

You know, I'm sick of this bullshit, which I usually ignore, so I'm going to say this once, to you, Hank, and Penske, and then I'll go back to ignoring you on it.

All three of you know what I do in real life, though others here don't. You can all tell that I have made a choice not to talk about what I do for a living on this board. The suggestion that I don't live in the real world, that somehow my experience in the different fields you all know about is entirely academic and practice -- you wouldn't say that to my face, because in a face-to-face conversation I wouldn't be constrained by the choice I've made about what I'll say on this board. It's a cheap debating trick, one that just takes advantage of what I'll say in response, and one that plays to other people reading the posts but that the four of us know is bullshit.

Oh, yeah? Well, you're green and have short stubby arms. Take that!

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by LessinSF

full employment for monkey fucking scribes working on securitizations, and a nice money machine for law firms that can hire an army of contract lawyers at $80/hour and bill them out at $300, to have them scrub every mortgage assignment.

We may have had this conversation before, but is it monkey fucking scribes or fucking monkey scribes?