Free Our Free Markets: Non-Passage of Debt Ceiling | Logic 101http://t.co/yxry7c6 ||
"As is normal in media mergers, the F.C.C. imposed a long list of conditions on the deal. They were outlined in an F.C.C. news release on Tuesday. The conditions are intended to ensure that Comcast plays fair when dealing with rival programmers, cable providers and broadband Internet providers. Many of the conditions are intended to remain in place for seven years, an unusually long period of time." New York Times, January 18, 2011
"As is normal in media mergers, the F.C.C. imposed a long list of conditions on the deal. They were outlined in an F.C.C. news release on Tuesday. The conditions are intended to ensure that Comcast plays fair when dealing with rival programmers, cable providers and broadband Internet providers. Many of the conditions are intended to remain in place for seven years, an unusually long period of time." New York Times, January 18, 2011
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Blue Shield of California is planning to go forward with planned health insurance rate increases despite calls from government regulators to delay the move.
The San Francisco-based insurer said Friday that it asked an independent actuary to review the increases and would issue refunds if problems were found with the rates.
The insurer has implemented two rate hikes since Oct. 1. Some policyholders would pay 59 percent more in premiums cumulatively over the three increases.
California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones had asked Blue Shield to delay planned March 1 increases so his department could do a full review.
Blue Shield CEO Bruce Bodaken says the increases are necessary because of rising health care costs.
""Consumer advocates fear that the health care law could worsen some of the very problems it was meant to solve — by reducing competition, driving up costs and creating incentives for doctors and hospitals to stint on care, in order to retain their cost-saving bonuses.The above quote is from the November 21, issue of the New York Times.“The new law is already encouraging a wave of mergers, joint ventures and alliances in the health care industry,” said Prof. Thomas L. Greaney, an expert on health and antitrust law at St. Louis University. “The risk that dominant providers and dominant insurers may exercise their market power, individually or jointly, has never been greater.”""
"He is a top executive at JPMorgan Chase, where he is paid as much as $5 million a year and supervises the Washington lobbying efforts for the nation’s second largest bank. William M. Daley also serves on the board of directors at Boeing, the giant defense contractor, and Abbott Laboratories, the global drug company, which has billions of dollars at stake in health care reform." New York Times 01/06/11 more
Lord Acton, the British historian, said in 1887; "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."
I find it very interesting that conservative talk show hosts who say that Obama wants to surrender some of our governance to the United Nations are the same people who claim we have done nothing to cause the Palestinians, and much of the Muslim world, to be so upset with us. They forget that the state of Israel was taken from Palestinian land without their approval.
The Balfour Declaration of 1917 formalized British policy preferring the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people. Following World War I, the League of Nations granted Great Britain the Mandate for Palestine, which included responsibility for securing "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people". In 1947, Tte newly created United Nations approved the Partition Plan for Palestine, which sought to divide the country into two states—one Arab and one Jewish. Jerusalem was to be designated an international city administered by the UN.
"The tea party's success has drawn hundreds of politicians and groups seeking to fasten themselves to the movement, steer it and speak for it. Millions of dollars have flowed in from corporations and rich donors, all of whom have their own ideas about what the tea party should be. This struggle for the soul of the movement has left many of its original activists facing agonizing decisions: Do they, should they, still belong?" Washington Post 12/31/10
The Tea Party claims to be pro business and anti big bureaucracy, including big government. It believes that government stifles entrepreneurship and destroys creativity of its citizens. There is too much power centralized in government and thus diminishes the power and freedom of our citizens.
"Jan Hatzius, the chief United States economist at Goldman Sachs, said the economy was likely to grow at an annualized rate of around 3 percent this quarter. Goldman projected last week that the growth rate would be 4 percent for most of 2011. Morgan Stanley, which raised its growth forecast for 2011 to 4 percent, is even more optimistic, forecasting a rate of 4.5 percent this quarter" New York Times 12/24/10
Is there really a Santa? Did he really deliver a sleigh full of merriment and optimism? Or were the reporters at the New York Times and several economists across the country taking part in too much spiked eggnog?
