Archive
Study: Obamacare regs have cost $27.6 billion, killed 30,000 jobs
“Fully implementing Obamacare regulations have already cost the U.S. economy $27.6 billion and more than 18,000 jobs according to a new study released today. Just the top ten most expensive regulations have cost $24.4 billion, according to the new non-partisan and independent American Action Forum (AAF) report.
Just complying with the state health exchanges alone has to cost employers $3.4 billion according to the AAF totals which were compiled from Federal Register data. In addition to the regulatory costs, AAF estimates that Obamacare regulatory compliance has eaten up more than 60 million hours in paperwork. At 2,000 hours a year that comes to 30,000 jobs.
The AAF paper also calculated the regulatory costs and job losses in each state for the top ten must expensive Obamacare regulations. California has borne the brunt of Obamacare’s costs suffering $3.4 billion in costs and 2,917 jobs lost. Texas has been hit second hardest with $1.8 billion in costs and 1,292 jobs lost.”
22 Statistics That Prove That The American Dream Is Being Systematically Destroyed
“The American Dream is being systematically destroyed right in front of our eyes and most Americans don’t even realize what is happening. In the old days, if you were a hard worker and you played by the rules you could always find a good job. That good job would enable you to buy a house, buy at least one car and support a family. It would also enable you to take a couple of vacations each year and buy some nice things for your family. After working for 30 or 40 years you would look forward to a comfortable retirement. But these days fewer and fewer Americans are able to enjoy the American Dream. Once upon a time, the United States had the largest and most prosperous middle class in the history of the world, but now that is changing at a breathtaking pace. Our economy is not producing nearly enough jobs for all of us anymore, and an increasing percentage of the jobs that are being produced pay 10 dollars an hour or less. The cost of living continues to rise steadily every single year while wages do not. Close to half of all American workers are living month to month, and many American families have gone deep into debt as they struggle to pay the bills. Millions more Americans are falling into poverty each year and dependence on the government is at an all-time high. Something is fundamentally wrong with our economy. It is not working the way that it used to, and the middle class is being absolutely shredded. Most American families are finding it harder and harder to make it through each passing year, and unless a miracle happens things are going to continue to get even harder.”
Marc Faber: 100% Chance of Global Recession
“The stock market [.SPX 1317.82 -2.86 (-0.22%) ] appears to be at a critical inflection point. That’s the takeaway from widely followed economist Marc Faber, author of the Boom, Gloom & Doom newsletter.”
“Faber’s bearish market calls have been followed closely since 1987 when he warned his clients to cash out before Black Monday.
And in a live interview on CNBC’s Fast Money Halftime Report, Faber again warned that economies of the world may be on the brink of a serious slowdown.
Faber indicated that while investors remain focused on Greece and Europe – other issues, bigger issues are looming. And they’re more threatening.
“As an observer of markets – whenever everyone focuses on one thing – like Greece and Europe – maybe they miss issues that are far more important – such as a meaningful slowdown in India and China.””
Via CNBC
95 Percent Of The Jobs Lost During The Recession Were Middle Class Jobs
“Who is the biggest loser in the ongoing decline of the U.S. economy? Is it the wealthy? No, the stock market has been soaring lately and their incomes are actually going up. Is it the poor? Well, the poor are definitely hurting very badly, but when you don’t have much to begin with you don’t have much to lose. Unfortunately, it is the middle class that has lost the most during this economic downturn. According to Bloomberg, 95 percent of the jobs lost during the recession were middle class jobs. That is an absolutely astounding figure. Yes, some executives lost their jobs during the last recession as did some minimum-wage workers. But overwhelmingly the jobs that were lost were middle income jobs. Sadly, the limited number of jobs that have been added since the end of the last recession have mostly been low income jobs. A higher percentage of Americans are working low income jobs than ever before, and the cost of living continues to rise at a very brisk pace. This is causing an erosion of the middle class unlike anything we have ever seen in American history.”
Charting The Legacy Of The Baby Boomers
“While it is difficult to properly attribute blame for the collapse of the US economy, which commenced in the early 1980s, on either the Fed’s policy of easy money starting with Alan Greenspan (and terminating with today’s statement by Goldman that merely a suggestion of “not easing” may be equivalent to “tightening” – a symptom of a terminal junkie), or the resultant self-indulgent lifestyle of the maturing baby boomers, one thing is certain: the paradigm downturn of the United States began in the early 1980s. And here we are willing to break the cardinal rule of statistics and assume that correlation does imply causation. Because the 4 simple charts below don’t lie: the US economy, as represented by its Balance of Payments, the profligacy of the US consumer, the massive expansion of consumer leverage, and the collapse in US manufacturing jobs, and specifically its current near-terminal state, is as much as legacy of the baby boom generation’s actions (and lack thereof), as of everything else that has already been mulled over and scapegoated an infinite number of times in both the mainstream and fringe media. “
Via Zero Hedge
47 Signs That China Is Absolutely Destroying America On The Global Economic Stage
“Have you ever watched a football game or a basketball game where one team dominates the other team so badly that calling it a “blowout” would be a huge understatement? Well, that is what China is doing to the United States. China is absolutely destroying America on the global economic stage. Once upon a time, the Chinese economy was a joke and the U.S. economy was the most powerful the world had ever seen. But over the past couple of decades the U.S. economy has decayed and declined while the Chinese economy has skyrocketed. Today, China makes more steel, more automobiles, more beer, more cotton, more coal and more solar panels than we do. China has the fastest train in the world, the fastest computer in the world and they export twice as much high-tech equipment as we do. In 2011, our trade deficit with China was the largest trade deficit that one nation has had with another nation in the history of the world, and China has now accumulated more than 3 trillion dollars in foreign currency reserves. Every single day, we lose more jobs, more businesses and more of our national wealth to China. In technical economic terms, China has “taken us out behind the woodshed” and has beaten the living daylights out of us. Unfortunately, most Americans are so addicted to entertainment that they don’t even realize what is happening.”
30 Statistics That Show That The Middle Class Is Dying Right In Front Of Our Eyes As We Enter 2012
“Once upon a time, the United States had the largest and most vibrant middle class that the world has ever seen. Unfortunately, that is rapidly changing. The statistics that you are about to read prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the U.S. middle class is dying right in front of our eyes as we enter 2012. The decline of the middle class is not something that has happened all of a sudden. Rather, there has been a relentless grinding down of the middle class over the last several decades. Millions of our jobs have been shipped overseas, the rate of inflation has far outpaced the rate that our wages have grown, and overwhelming debt has choked the financial life out of millions of American families. Every single day, more Americans fall out of the middle class and into poverty. In fact, more Americans fell into poverty last year than has ever been recorded before. The number of middle class jobs and middle class neighborhoods continues to decline at a staggering pace. As I have written about previously, America as a whole is getting poorer as a nation, and as this happens wealth is becoming increasingly concentrated at the very top of the income scale. This is not how capitalism is supposed to work, and it is not good for America.”
The Top 100 Statistics About The Collapse Of The Economy That Every American Voter Should Know
“The U.S. economy is dying and most American voters have no idea why it is happening. Unfortunately, the mainstream media and most of our politicians are not telling the truth about the collapse of the economy. This generation was handed the keys to the greatest economic machine that the world has ever seen, and we have completely wrecked it. Decades of incredibly foolish decisions have left us drowning in an ocean of corruption, greed and bad debt. Thousands of businesses and millions of jobs have left the country and poverty is exploding from coast to coast. We are literally becoming a joke to the rest of the world. It is absolutely imperative that we educate America about what is happening. Until the American people truly understand the problems that we are facing, they will not be willing to implement the solutions that are necessary.”
More Missing The Mark From The MSM
“Money has basically nothing to do with educational outcomes. What we’ve done in this nation is a crime when it comes to our schools – moving away from phonics to “whole language”, dumbing down the math curriculum and removing direct instruction everywhere it can be removed and allowing disruptive students and those who simply are outside the bell curve’s second standard deviation to remain in the common classroom, then insisting that they not be “behind”, thereby dumbing down the curriculum and progress for everyone else.
None of this is an accident and none of it has anything to do with money. In fact, mathematics, history, English and the other basics of learning haven’t changed in a hundred years. There is no need for “new” textbooks or any sort of technology beyond pencils, paper, a chalk board and flash cards in the first two or three grades!
The rest of the article talks about the “workers of tomorrow”, yet the image at the top is that of a blue-collar worker – the very person who we have done our damndest to outsource to China.
The facts are this: We do not need a lot of rocket scientists. Oh sure, we need some, just as we need some engineers, doctors, physicists and computer programmers.”
Via Market Ticker
30 Signs That The U.S. Economy Is About To Go Into The Toilet
“If you think the U.S. economy is bad now, just wait for a few months. Things are about to become absolutely nightmarish. None of the long-term economic trends that are hollowing out our economy have been addressed and more bad economic news seems to come out virtually every single day. Now there is constant talk of the “next recession” in the mainstream media. But did the last recession ever truly end? The number of good jobs continues to decline, more stores are closing, incomes continue to go down, credit card debt and student loan debt are soaring, the housing market resembles a corpse, the number of Americans living in poverty continues to rise and government debt is at unprecedented levels. We are losing blood fast, and almost all of our leaders are either too corrupt or too incompetent to be able to do anything about it. The U.S. economy really and truly is about to go into the toilet, and if something is not done very quickly we are going to experience a complete and total economic disaster in this nation.”
