Our constitution is the oldest in world history. No other has lasted as long with so little change. Yet we have people in Washington who want to ‘gut it’. Currently the first amendment is a key issue to the ‘left’. It is a major source of stomach acid to them as it inhibits their ability to silence those who disagree with their perspective.
Monthly Archives: May 2015
ObamaCare Imact — On Economy and Companies
Everyone knows that ObamaCare has been implemented, right? Well, not quite. Our ‘leader’ sold us on the idea it was to be totally implemented by 2014. But, on second thought, his administration determined that if it was totally implemented now it would negatively impact the U.S. economy and cause things to be ugly on his watch. Consequently he postponed full implementation until 2017 — after he is gone. (Let Hillary handle it!!?) :-)
Well, starting this year the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is starting to really take effect. Toward the end of 2016 it will kick in completely. Then wait and see what happens..? My point? We should be preparing for hard economic times in the immediate future. If you’re not saving now, get to it. My estimation is that corporate America will be dropping employees faster than during the previous two years. Already the economy is slowing, but I believe it will really start to stall around the end of this year. But hey, that’s just my guess.
The following is an article with real case evidence demonstrating how the ACA is impacting our economy now. Put this together with my previous article on companies shutting down stores, and it is an indicator of things to come.
ACA Impact — Now!
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Tesla Powerwall — The Future of Home Energy?
I just watched the 18 minute video produced by Tesla on their new ‘Powerwall’. Like anything new it sounds great, and, unbelievable. Especially when you hear the price — i.e., low! If he can make this work and be practical to implement, we may see a change in how our homes are powered in the very near future.
To learn more about this new invention, watch his video. His web page goes into more detail.
I’ve got to admit, it’s tempting..?!
FDIC Banking Insurance ‘Coverage’
Everyone has heard of the FDIC insurance on their bank accounts. Consequently no one is concerned about their money being ‘lost‘ as a result of a ‘significant event‘. However what they don’t know is, how much money does the fed have to cover America’s bank accounts?
Per FDIC rules individuals’ accounts are covered up to $250,000. Joint accounts (married couples) are covered up to $500,000. Which all sounds great. But I recently got this information which is concerning.
“In the U.S., the FDIC has about $30 billion in capital. But those funds are all it has to back an estimated $9 trillion worth of deposits in the U.S. In essence, the FDIC is broke and in the event of a major bank failure or systemic failure, your money at U.S. banks could also go up in smoke.”
I find this similar to the California earthquake coverage. At one time residents of California could buy commercial insurance to cover their home in the event of earthquake. However several years ago the insurance commissioner in California changed the law. He required that any company operating within the California boards were required to offer earthquake insurance — whether they could afford it or not! Consequently all insurance companies dropped their coverage for homes in California.
In response, California created an earthquake insurance fund. The purpose was to cover anyone who chose to pay the premiums to California!! One problem, homes in California are often priced at $1M or more for a three bedroom older home! I actually read the state law and it stated that those funds would cover homes up to the balance of the earthquake fund’s balance — everyone else, you’re screwed!! Oh, by the way, their balance was about $30B!!?! How many million dollar homes will that cover??
This FDIC thing sure sounds a lot like California’s plan for residents..?! Scary stuff…
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Major Chains Closing
Each day we are told how things are getting ‘so much better economically’..? Yet we watch the cost of food rising and salaries remain the same — especially if you’re retired! Well if things are so great, how come there’s so many companies closing stores? Why are companies laying off employees? How come Izod is closing its ‘outlet store’ at the Tanger market place — along with the other ‘120’ of their stores!!? If things are so bad that outlet stores can’t make it, what do you think the rest of America is doing?
Please read the following report and view the list of companies closing stores by the hundreds — e.g., Radio Shack closing 1784 stores!
Major Chains Closing
You might ask yourself, “Why isn’t this national news?” Maybe because they don’t want you to know!!?
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IT Jobs in the U.S. — An Example
Having worked at IBM for 20 years, I have some insight into what was going on within the company. During the early 90’s IBM had approximately 400,000 employees world wide — 250,000 of those employees were within the U.S. Around 1993 Lou Gershner took the helm and became the grand hatchet man!! Within about 1-1.5 years he shaved 150,000 employees from the rolls — we were down to ~250K total.
Now today IBM is back up to about 400K employees world wide. However, less than 100K of those jobs are in the U.S.!! What happened you ask? A LOT of American jobs went to India and China!! They started moving jobs to Russia, but found they were too expensive — ~$25K/year!! I personally talked to Indian technical people with masters degrees who were paid less than $20K/year. And when they try to get a job within the U.S, they don’t get paid any more!!? (Now you see why they have 6-10 people in one apartment here.)
Read the numbers and activity over the past several years here.
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Freedom of Religion or Worship?
In the ever mounting effort of the ‘party‘ to convert our nation into one of a country without laws, they have taken yet another step..?! Apparently they changed the wording on an immigration test to state that U.S. citizens have the ‘freedom of worship‘, not religion.!? The DHS has decided to alter the constitution of a sort — at least for those who don’t know the constitution.
Please read this brief article on how the DHS is presenting a different view of the constitution to potential new citizens.
Freedom of Religion
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