Thursday, April 03, 2014

Barack Obama - Great Expectations - Dickens and the Left

.

Looking back at the nearly six years since Barack Obama stunned the world and was elected the first Black president in American history, it is not hard to see how he was more suited as a cast  member of the movie Great Expectations than the reality of leading a nation full of Great Expectations.




Whereas Charles Dickens' 13th novel, Great Expectations, was the story of a young lad coming of age, so was Obama's election that of a young lad coming of age.  Dickens' Great Expectations is a graphic book, full of extreme imagery, poverty, prison ships, "the hulks," barriers and chains, and fights to the death.


I see the same kind of extreme imagery in Obama's journey through the presidency.  Surrounded by powerful bankers and other insidious scoundrels and dependent on a host of close advisors and friends whose principal purpose was the exercise of self-serving greed, experience proved a very tough lesson for Dickens' Pip and America's Obama.


"Welcome to the presidency Barack," came the deafening roar of the liberal left and socialist lefter with every special interest group East of Eden clamoring for a piece of the fat cat Wall Street 1% of the wealth in America.

His embedded constituency never believed in Obama's message of HOPE plastered everywhere during the campaign.  They had no intention of "hoping" for anything, all along they were prepared to take what they wanted from whomever they wanted.


That might work in the smoke filled rooms of a long forgotten political yesteryear but this is not yesteryear, the public soon found out that those rascal fat cats could be disguised as either Republicans or Democrats with the results being much the same.

Well into his 7th year as president Obama still has no meaningful tax reform to keep the rich from getting richer and the poor poorer.  There is no immigration reform, no massive defense spending cuts so we could finance Obama's big government social agenda.


Health care and education in America are the world's most expensive disasters as the more money we throw at the problems the more entrenched the crooks and vast the crannies where billions of dollars just seem to disappear.

We almost have wound down war to the point where we have the worlds most powerful and angry fighting force and no war to go play in.  Powerful because the military industrial complex that really rules the world has had a siphon sucking our defense billions into their R&D, new and useless weapons systems, and war after war.


Obama was greeted into the presidency by the worst recession since the last time Wall Street was caught with their fingers in Uncle Sugars' federal cookie jar, the Great Depression.

In 2008 it was home mortgage fraud on a scale beyond imagination.

It was securities fraud and deception enabling crooks to control the stock markets.

It was bankrupt union and government pension programs because of incredible extravagance.


When the bankers, home mortgage financiers, powerful labor unions, Wall Street securities experts and of course the politicians and bureaucrats all share in the illegal wealth being generated well, is it any wonder why the rich get richer and the poor get screwed?


Of course the Main Street media, that Constitutionally protected force in America that went from reporting the news to manufacturing the news in order to serve their own special interests, jumped on the Obama bandwagon either because they saw him as the Messiah of a New Social Order or they were ordered to by their advertisers.

So let us review history.


 Obama #44 was greeted into the presidency by an economic disaster.


Bush #43 was welcomed into the presidency by the 911 Twin Towers catastrophe.



Clinton #42 was welcomed into the presidency by a bunch of young girl friends.




Bush, Sr. #41 was welcomed into the presidency by Desert Storm.


Reagan #40 was welcomed into the presidency by the Iran hostage crisis and the economic crisis.


Carter #39, was welcomed into the presidency by the Watergate scandal aftermath and public skepticism.


Ford #38 was welcomed into the presidency when the prior president disappeared on a helicopter. 

Nixon #37 was welcomed into the presidency with the Viet Nam war raging out of control.


Johnson #36 was welcomed into the presidency when his predecessor was assassinated.


Kennedy #35 was welcomed into the presidency by the Cuban missile crisis and Berlin Wall.

Eisenhower #34 was welcomed into the presidency with the Korean War.


Truman #33 was welcomed into the presidency with the atomic bombs dropping on Japan.


Roosevelt #32 was welcomed into the presidency with the Great Depression.


Hoover #31 was welcomed into the presidency with the 1929 Wall Street collapse.

Wait a minute, do you mean the last 14 presidents have all faced foreboding events in national and world affairs before or very early into their presidency?  Why on Earth didn't the Main Street media tells us about our history instead only focusing on Obama?

Every single one of the last 14 presidents with the exception of Clinton whose problems were kept pretty much undercover faced huge problems when taking office.

So maybe Obama didn't have it all that bad.  Maybe the Democratic leaders just need to stop whining about all their problems and roadblocks and roll up their sleeves and get to work.

There are still some issues of such importance to our future and magnitude to our present that if Obama and his enemy, the Republicans, could work together they still might leave a legacy of never losing sight that they are first and foremost Americans.


Wednesday, April 02, 2014

ObamaCare hits milestone - or does it?

.

By the end of March the Obamacare website had registered 7.1 million people, which was the initial goal of the roll out.  However, in order to be successful there has to be a minimum number of  young people to achieve actuarial solvency, the new members cannot be on Medicare or Medicaid since they were already eligible for existing programs, and we have to get the 48.6 million Americans with no health insurance (Census Bureau est. 2009) put on insurance.

So early estimates are that the youth factor failed to reach the Obama goals, meaning, if true, next year the rate base will have to be readjusted by potentially substantial health insurance premium rate increases for everyone.


It seems new members for Medicare and Medicaid would be easy to report so the only reason for not telling us the total new members in those entitlement programs, which the Administration and Lame Street media failed to do, then the real numbers must make the program look bad.

In light of the possibility of the previously discussed adjustments, it is not unreasonable to assume maybe 3-5 million of the 7.1 million need to be accounted for which brings up the next adjustment.  How many enrollees were people who lost their health insurance when ObamaCare was implemented and were buying replacement policies?


Finally we get to the people expected by the Obama Administration to benefit the most, the 48.6 million uninsured Americans.  How many of the 7.1 million enrollees came from the group the bill was passed to serve?

If we deduct the Baby Boomer enrollees sent to Medicare and Medicaid, say 2 million but it could be a lot more, then deduct those who lost their insurance because of ObamaCare, we might have 2-3 million who actually did not have insurance and do now.  Of course that assumes all the new enrollees also paid for their new insurance.

So perhaps if all went well we now have 2-3 million people insured who were not insured before.

 
To listen to the Main Street media react to the news you might think reaching 7.1 million enrollees was the greatest event in the history of our fledgling nation.  Greater than almost anything else because it vindicated President Obama and his socialist ways.

Of course they didn't release any numbers, which they do have, which seems pretty strange if the numbers do what he said they do.

Think about it.


Obama and the Democrat politicians pass ObamaCare with NO Republican support.

ObamaCare is to extend health insurance to 48.6 million uninsured.

After spending around a billion dollars to launch the new program, about the cost of one Obama political campaign, maybe 3 million uninsured are now insured.

I think that means after three years and billions of dollars we have lowered the number of  uninsured by one half of one percent.  At this pace we might eliminate the uninsured by the year 2114.


Of course how many more uninsured are there since over 10 million American workers still can't find jobs and have given up looking?  There could be millions of more uninsured since Obama took office which means we might have lost ground thus extending my projected solution date for eliminating the uninsured to closer to 2500.

In basketball terms, which the Administration surely understands, not only are we not scoring points, but we are making shots in the other team's basket giving them the points.

Progressive socialism is most certainly a peculiar concept.



.     

Saturday, March 29, 2014