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A LITTLE UPDATE:…… OIL WENT TO 0.OO A BARREL THIS MORNING 2/24/11
FOOD, CLOTHING, AND MOST COMMODITY’S UP ACROSS THE BOARD
AND IF SAUDI GOES NEXT………………………ALL BETS ARE OFF

Just as the U.S. and global economies are finally strengthening, they face a new danger: Rocketing oil prices, which topped 0 a barrel Wednesday.

The U.S. economy can likely absorb 0 oil and keep expanding, even though gasoline prices would rise further and growth would slow. But it would hurt.

Gasoline for U.S. motorists already costs more than at any point since 2008, despite ample supplies. The national average for a gallon of unleaded was .19 on Wednesday — 53 cents more than a year ago. Analysts expect the average to range between .25 and .75 this spring.

Oil prices had been rising for months, but they jumped this week as violence gripped Libya. Analysts say any production declines in Libya could likely be absorbed by other producers like Saudi Arabia. Libyan oil accounts for less than 1 percent of U.S. crude imports.

Still, analysts say concerns about violence in North Africa and Middle East have put a "fear premium" that’s added about a barrel.

A persistent drop in the stock market, though, would likely chill spending, especially by wealthier Americans. Europe’s debt crisis in the spring of 2010 jolted Wall Street and slowed the U.S. economy as Americans reined in their spending.

David Hensley, an economist at JPMorgan Chase, said that if oil prices level off, even at 0 a barrel, the damage to the global economy would be slight and likely confined to the first half of this year. He thinks most countries could adapt to higher prices.

"But if the price keeps going up, and it’s accompanied by falling stock prices, then it takes on a more sinister tone," Hensley said.

Consumers and businesses would feel pinched by a sustained period of 0-a-barrel oil — and not just motorists. Stock prices, which have lost more than 2 percent so far this week, could sink further. That would reduce household wealth and consumer confidence. As fuel costs price rise, so would prices for travel services and products containing plastics.

This month, several airlines tacked on fuel surcharges — extra fees that help cover fuel bills.

Rising oil prices have pushed jet fuel close to a gallon. Fuel accounts for roughly one-third of the budget for U.S. airlines, up from less than one-fifth a decade ago. Fitch Ratings analyst William Warlick said if jet fuel reaches about .20 a gallon, "the whole industry will be challenged to stay profitable."

Airlines may soon decide to eliminate some flights and ground older jets to cut fuel consumption, Warlick said. Delta Air Lines has already scaled back plans to add flights this year.

Analysts estimate that over a year, 0 oil would reduce U.S. economic growth by 0.2 or 0.3 of a percentage point. So rather than grow an estimated 3.7 percent this year, the economy would expand 3.4 percent or 3.5 percent. That would likely mean less hiring and higher unemployment.

The global economy wouldn’t be affected as much. In part, that’s because emerging economies consume less oil, per person, than industrialized countries do. In addition, many developing countries regulate or subsidize the cost of gas. Global growth would slip about 0.1 percentage point, economists estimate.

But oil prices around 0 a barrel could threaten European economies, many of which are net importers of oil and gas, haven’t fully recovered from the financial crisis and face heavy debt loads. Spain and Italy, for example, where gas at the pump already goes for about a gallon, face years of a slow, grinding recovery. A spike in oil would deal their economies another setback.

Pricier oil would also push up inflation in Europe, where it already exceeds official targets, and in countries with surging food prices, like China, Brazil and India. Those countries might then have to raise interest rates to cool inflation. Doing so, in turn, would slow growth in Latin America and Asia.

A darker possibility — one that few analysts expect — is that oil prices will keep rising until they reach 0 or more and then stay there for months. Under that scenario, another recession is possible, economists say.

Gasoline prices would near a gallon. Consumers would spend much less. So would businesses, which would slash jobs.

"It would nail the economy," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. "All the benefits of the tax breaks we got in last year’s tax-cut deal would be completely wiped out and then some."

One reason the United States and other developed countries can still grow with oil at 0 a barrel is they’ve become more energy-efficient since the oil-price shocks of the 1970s. U.S. retailers and manufacturers that use oil-produced plastics, for example, have been shrinking packaging and packing more items onto their trucks. A new wave of redesigned products, like ultra-thin plastic bottles of water, has also emerged.

"Companies have been very clever in what they can do to reduce the production costs without affecting performance," said Jonathan Asher of Perception Research Services, which works with consumer product companies. The latest surge in oil "will turn up the heat even more."

Marc Rosenberg, a marketing official for WowWee Toys, says its products use 30 percent less plastic compared with five years ago.

"Can we live with 0 a barrel oil?" said economist Ken Mayland of ClearView Economics. "I think so. Can that economy still grow if oil is at 0 a barrel? Yes. But past that, you start getting uncomfortably close to the point where people start curbing their spending."

An example was in July 2008. That’s when Americans faced record-high oil prices — 7 a barrel. Gasoline prices followed suit. They hit a record .11 a gallon nationwide.

The economy was already in a recession in the summer of 2008. But consumers hadn’t yet cut their spending much. That changed in the third quarter of 2008 as oil and gas prices soared. Consumers slashed spending at a 3.5 percent annualized rate. It was the sharpest drop since 1980.

Ken Perkins of RetailMetrics, a retail research firm, thinks higher gas prices at the tank are already affecting low-income shoppers who are also paying higher grocery prices. He says gas prices would have to reach a gallon or more to affect moderate-income consumers.

Perkins said more people will shop at neighborhood dollar chains or drugstores to pick up milk or bread and save on gas, further hurting Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Wal-Mart’s sales have already been hammered by stepped-up competition.

Fears of another unchecked jump in prices have rattled investors. This week, investors have dumped stocks and shifted money into the safety of Treasury bonds, causing Treasury yields to fall.

The rise in Treasury prices this week lowered the yield on the 10-year Treasury note to 3.49 percent. That yield is used to peg rates on home mortgages and other consumer loans. Borrowers would face lower costs as such rates fall.

That said, interest rates are already relatively low by historical standards. So even a sustained decline in rates, by itself, wouldn’t much stimulate Americans’ appetite to spend, economists say.

Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center: main hall panorama


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See more photos of this, and the Wikipedia article.

Details, quoting from Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum: Steven F. Udvar-Hazy | _details_pending_:

LIVING FRUGALLY: Tips on Saving Money and Living within Your Means

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Q&A: If I put $5k in a Money Market Account w/interest rate 2.13% & APY 2.15%, how much will I get in 1 month?

by UggBoy♥UggGirl [ PHOTO // WORLD // TRAVEL ]

Question by vunts56: If I put k in a Money Market Account w/interest rate 2.13% & APY 2.15%, how much will I get in 1 month?
interest is compounded and credited monthly.

Best answer:

Answer by rtfm
You get 2.15 percent per year, so in a year, you would earn $ 106.50. In a month, you would earn one-twelfth of that, or about $ 8.90.

Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!

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Q&A: What is a typical interest rate on a money market account or a CD in a Norwegian Bank?

by jajacks62

Question by binfordaepi: What is a typical interest rate on a money market account or a CD in a Norwegian Bank?
I am considering moving my liquid assets to a Norwegian bank to hedge against the weak dollar. Does anyone know what a Norwegian money market account or CD pays? (If not, does anyone know what the word in Norwegian for “money market account” is so I can search for it?)

If you can please put include a link to a bank or somewhere advertising the rate. Thanks.

Best answer:

Answer by leverpostei
As u might have guessed, the terms money market account and CD makes no sense when directly translated to norwegian.
But I assumed u wanted an account that has high interest rate.
Such accounts are normally called “Høyrentekonto”, or “Plasseringskonto”, but the names may differ from bank to bank..

I took this example from a random norwegian bank. (the bank is IMO not the best bank around though, I’m sure u can get banks with better rates than this)

Up to kr 49999 -2,70 %
from kr 50000 -3,50 %
100000 – 500000 – 4,35 %
500000 – 1000000 – 4,60 %
over 1000000 – 4,85 %

(kr is short for norwegian kroner, also known as NOK)

100000 NOK is approx 18500 USD

here are some of the major norwegian banks:

http://www.nordea.no

https://www.dnbnor.no/

http://www.fokus.no/

Also notice that there might be differences from bank to bank when it comes to how often (like once a month or once a year) they actually pay you the interest earned.

Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!

V Sattui Winery, St. Helena, California, USA

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V Sattui Winery, St. Helena, California, USA


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V Sattui Winery, St. Helena, California, USA

History of the V Sattui Winery:

Dario Sattui remembers visiting Vittorio, his great-grandfather, who continued to live upstairs at the long dormant Bryant Street winery until his death at age 94. "As a small child, my first recollection was the aroma of wine emanating from the old building as soon as I entered," he says. He played among the barrels and ovals in the cellars, stories of the old family wine business ringing in his ears. It was then, Dario believes, that the dream of reopening the winery began.

In 1972, after two years in Europe beyond college, Dario began his apprenticeship at various Napa Valley wineries. He still had his dream, the same dream he’d had as a child. Dario pledged he "would reestablish V. Sattui Winery to its former glory."

But just how to do this was the problem. Dario had almost no capital and little practical knowledge of the wine industry. So he dedicated himself to developing the tools and skills he’d need to make the dream become a reality. Soon Dario had developed a business plan and began looking for prospective investors. Later, he found a parcel of land for sale that had a small walnut orchard with an old house on it. Dario remembers bringing prospective investors to the property telling them, "’Here is where we will build our winery,’ all the while afraid that the people living on the property would throw me off for trespassing." Since he couldn’t afford to purchase the property outright, he managed to get a lease-option for 0 a month. "The house was in such bad condition we lived in my VW bus for more than a month while making it suitable enough to live in."

Time passed as Dario continued to look for investors, but there were no takers. With his last 0, he paid for one more month on the property. Dario had only raised half the capital he needed to begin the winery, but he managed during that "last" month to talk a Napa real estate broker into buying the property, building a small winery on it, and then leasing it to Dario with an option to purchase it back sometime in the future. Still short of funds, Dario enlisted investors without money, but with the skills needed to help him create the winery building. That summer, July of 1975, they began construction, and it was finished in early 1976.

Renting the winemaking equipment he needed, using his great-grandfather’s hand-corking machine and Vittorio’s original design for the wine labels, the winery was open for business.

When Dario had lived in Europe, he’d remembered seeing small, family-run neighborhood delis filled with freshly made foods and wonderful selections of cheese. He was able to convert this memory into what was to become the perfect match for great wine, V. Sattui’s famous Cheese Shop and Deli. Years passed and the struggle continued. Slowly, the winemaking process improved and success came. However, in those first few years, times were hard and Dario lived frugally, sometimes spending his nights sleeping on the floor of the winery so he could put what money he had into the new business. The original winery building is now the Tasting Room, Cheese Shop and Deli and Gift Shop.

As business grew, Dario began to be able to accumulate the best equipment available.

By 1985, V. Sattui Winery was able to build a beautiful stone winery amid the venerable 250 year-old oaks, reminiscent of the late 19th century wineries in Italy and France. With its two stories, tower, wine caves and underground aging cellars, its completion was a fitting tribute to help celebrate the centennial of Vittorio’s dream. That same year, the 34-acre vineyard adjacent to the winery became available.

Renamed Suzanne’s Vineyard, after his wife, it was soon joined by Carsi Vineyard in Yountville, followed in 1993 by the 556-acre Henry Ranch property in the Carneros grape-growing region, and then in 1998, a 128-acre ranch in Solano County. These, along with other acquisitions, will in the near future allow V. Sattui Winery to supply over 85% of its grape needs from five very distinct microclimates.

From the very beginning, Dario refused to compromise on the quality of the wine. The production and retailing concept offers insight into the reasons for V. Sattui Winery’s success. Dario’s vision has always been to fully integrate the process of winemaking from the grape to the consumer. This vertical control over all aspects of viticulture, winemaking, and sales is the future for V. Sattui Winery. It is because of Dario Sattui’s dream that it has been able to provide the finest wines possible while continuing to sell them at a fair price directly to its customers.

V Sattui Winery, St. Helena, California, USA


Image by jimg944
V Sattui Winery, St. Helena, California, USA

History of the V Sattui Winery:

Dario Sattui remembers visiting Vittorio, his great-grandfather, who continued to live upstairs at the long dormant Bryant Street winery until his death at age 94. "As a small child, my first recollection was the aroma of wine emanating from the old building as soon as I entered," he says. He played among the barrels and ovals in the cellars, stories of the old family wine business ringing in his ears. It was then, Dario believes, that the dream of reopening the winery began.

In 1972, after two years in Europe beyond college, Dario began his apprenticeship at various Napa Valley wineries. He still had his dream, the same dream he’d had as a child. Dario pledged he "would reestablish V. Sattui Winery to its former glory."

But just how to do this was the problem. Dario had almost no capital and little practical knowledge of the wine industry. So he dedicated himself to developing the tools and skills he’d need to make the dream become a reality. Soon Dario had developed a business plan and began looking for prospective investors. Later, he found a parcel of land for sale that had a small walnut orchard with an old house on it. Dario remembers bringing prospective investors to the property telling them, "’Here is where we will build our winery,’ all the while afraid that the people living on the property would throw me off for trespassing." Since he couldn’t afford to purchase the property outright, he managed to get a lease-option for 0 a month. "The house was in such bad condition we lived in my VW bus for more than a month while making it suitable enough to live in."

Time passed as Dario continued to look for investors, but there were no takers. With his last 0, he paid for one more month on the property. Dario had only raised half the capital he needed to begin the winery, but he managed during that "last" month to talk a Napa real estate broker into buying the property, building a small winery on it, and then leasing it to Dario with an option to purchase it back sometime in the future. Still short of funds, Dario enlisted investors without money, but with the skills needed to help him create the winery building. That summer, July of 1975, they began construction, and it was finished in early 1976.

Renting the winemaking equipment he needed, using his great-grandfather’s hand-corking machine and Vittorio’s original design for the wine labels, the winery was open for business.

When Dario had lived in Europe, he’d remembered seeing small, family-run neighborhood delis filled with freshly made foods and wonderful selections of cheese. He was able to convert this memory into what was to become the perfect match for great wine, V. Sattui’s famous Cheese Shop and Deli. Years passed and the struggle continued. Slowly, the winemaking process improved and success came. However, in those first few years, times were hard and Dario lived frugally, sometimes spending his nights sleeping on the floor of the winery so he could put what money he had into the new business. The original winery building is now the Tasting Room, Cheese Shop and Deli and Gift Shop.

As business grew, Dario began to be able to accumulate the best equipment available.

By 1985, V. Sattui Winery was able to build a beautiful stone winery amid the venerable 250 year-old oaks, reminiscent of the late 19th century wineries in Italy and France. With its two stories, tower, wine caves and underground aging cellars, its completion was a fitting tribute to help celebrate the centennial of Vittorio’s dream. That same year, the 34-acre vineyard adjacent to the winery became available.

Renamed Suzanne’s Vineyard, after his wife, it was soon joined by Carsi Vineyard in Yountville, followed in 1993 by the 556-acre Henry Ranch property in the Carneros grape-growing region, and then in 1998, a 128-acre ranch in Solano County. These, along with other acquisitions, will in the near future allow V. Sattui Winery to supply over 85% of its grape needs from five very distinct microclimates.

From the very beginning, Dario refused to compromise on the quality of the wine. The production and retailing concept offers insight into the reasons for V. Sattui Winery’s success. Dario’s vision has always been to fully integrate the process of winemaking from the grape to the consumer. This vertical control over all aspects of viticulture, winemaking, and sales is the future for V. Sattui Winery. It is because of Dario Sattui’s dream that it has been able to provide the finest wines possible while continuing to sell them at a fair price directly to its customers.

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MORE DIRTY TRICKS FROM YOUR SOCIALIST/MARXIST PRESIDENT AND HIS NASTY LITTLE ADMINISTRATION HACKS


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Obamacare’s Dirty Tricks

By Peter Ferrara on 1.5.11 @ 6:08AM

Most commentators have focused on the revelation just before Christmas that Obamacare’s end of life death panel consultations rejected by Congress were resurrected by the Obama Administration by regulatory requirement. There is no truth to the rumor that President Obama has agreed, after his term of office ends, to head up a new organization called Democrats Against Democracy.

But while this regulatory authoritarianism is, indeed, yet another dirty trick of Obamacare, it is small potatoes compared to the real dirty tricks of Obamacare. A dirty trick is defined here as burying in vague language in the abusive, several thousand page Obamacare legislation socially repulsive policies that the public overwhelmingly opposed and that Congress denied it was adopting. Like the end of life death panel consultations.

Phasing Out Private Insurance

But as indicated above, the emerging abuses of Obamacare are much graver than that. Also just before Christmas, on December 21, HHS Commissar Kathleen Sebelius claimed authority buried deep within the Obamacare abomination to impose federal price controls on health insurance companies, which members of Congress again denied they were adopting when they passed Obamacare. In fact, she issued a 136 page "regulation" providing precisely for such federal rate regulation.

Most states have long regulated health insurance premiums. The state regulators know from long experience that in this regulation they have to make sure that the insurance company has the money to pay the promised benefits. If the regulators don’t allow sufficient premiums to pay benefits, in the states they know that it is the sickest people covered by the insurance company who lose out. Because then the insurance company goes out of business and the sick people it was covering don’t have the money to pay their medical bills.

State insurance regulation is consequently simply a matter of mathematics. The regulators analyze the cost data, and the actuarial probabilities, and they set premiums based on that data sufficient to allow the insurance company only a modest, reasonable, market rate of return on its operations. As a result, the hard numbers unquestionably show that health insurance companies only make modest if not below average profits at best. That is why in many states there are so few health insurance companies left, and so many of those that remain are actually non-profits.

The resulting bottom line is that health insurance company profits are not a significant factor in overall health costs. And those politicians who rant and rave about them, calculating that they can take political advantage of the clueless and gullible, are shameless demagogues who dishonor our democracy by their participation in it.

Under the new federal power that Sebelius has seized, the supposed smarter, wiser bureaucrats in Washington will review the state regulation, and Washington will decide if the state approved rate increases are "reasonable." If the Washington wise guys decide the increases are not, they will deem the state regulation not "effective," and substitute Washington’s rate regulation.

Sebelius has already decreed, not based on a review of the actual data, that increases over 10% are probably not reasonable, even though many increases across the country are coming in over 20%, based on the analysis described above, as predicted. Indeed, the Red Queen has intimated that even lesser premium increases may be deemed too much.

But there is socialist method behind the madness. Obamacare raises health insurance costs by mandating that health insurers provide expensive new benefits. That is why it was so obvious that Obamacare will raise health insurance costs. But now come the federal regulators who plan to dictate to the insurers that they cannot reflect those costs in higher premiums.

It will work just like the Democrats’ "affordable housing" policies worked in causing the financial crisis. First the regulators forced banks to lend mortgage money to so many who were not financially qualified under traditional lending standards. Bill Clinton bragged in 1995 that through this scheme he had found a way of spreading housing prosperity to so many "without costing the taxpayers a dime."

But now we know how all that turned out. When so many proved unable or unwilling to pay the mortgages, as the displaced traditional lending standards suggested they might, the mortgage backed securities that had been spread so widely throughout the financial system began their downward spiral that froze credit markets, and the whole financial system began to unravel, costing taxpayers a fortune in bailouts and lost jobs.

Left-wing sophisticates know from experience that their grassroots troops can’t follow that logic. Your average grassroots Democrat supporter can’t understand that if the law forces health insurance costs up with required new benefits, but the insurance company can’t raise premiums to cover those higher costs, the company goes out of business.

But this is exactly what the Reds who now run today’s modern Democrat party want. They are planning precisely to use this new federal rate regulation power to drive private insurers out of business, so the only option left will be the outright socialized medicine public option that first the public and then the Congress rejected in the health care "debate" last year. Hence the foundation for the new organization, Democrats Against Democracy.

This plot against the people is already underway in the more Left states that the Democrats still control. On December 22, the Wall Street Journal editorialized regarding the ongoing "political thuggery" in Connecticut regarding former state insurance commissioner Tom Sullivan. The Journal explained, "In September, following a thorough actuarial analysis, Mr. Sullivan approved some rate increases reaching 20% for Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, the largest insurer in the state by membership."

Even though the higher rates applied only to new customers, to cover the new costs of Obamacare, "Attorney General Richard Blumenthal made the approval a centerpiece of his Senate bid, while Mr. Sullivan was demonized by local labor unions." In a letter to Blumenthal explaining his resignation, Sullivan explained that he could not sensibly operate in an environment where "we are required by Congress to approve richer benefit packages, while simultaneously being called upon by you to reduce rates." To complete the travesty, his successor, under federal pressure from the same bureaucrats who have now seized new federal ratemaking power, overturned the increase, and Blumenthal rode his shameless demagoguery to election. Similar travesties are now playing out in Massachusetts as well.

But once the private insurers have been driven out, patients will have nowhere to turn but the friendly Obama national political machine. The leading lights in that operation, such as the recess-appointed, unconfirmed head of Medicare and Medicaid, "Dr. Doom" Donald Berwick, have already made the determination that more votes can be bought redirecting all the money that is now spent saving the sickest and most vulnerable to other causes.

Health Coverage, Not Health Care

President Obama barnstormed the nation promising health care for all, to achieve passage of Obamacare. But the legislation he delivered is already on course to decimate the ability of the health care system to deliver critical health care to the sickest and most vulnerable. Most Democrats and liberals have no idea what they have done. This assault on the most essential health care of the American people, achieved flying under false pretenses, should be recognized as a national scandal.

The assault begins with Medicare. I have previously reported that my analysis of last summer’s annual Medicare Trustees Report concluded that the President’s Obamacare policies involve cutting trillion in payments to doctors and hospitals for services and treatment to seniors under Medicare, over the first 20 years of full implementation of Obamacare.

Confirmation of this and more now comes from the recently released 2010 Financial Statement of the United States, from the U.S. Treasury Department. That report openly brags, repeatedly, about the Medicare cost savings resulting from Obamacare. The accompanying data reveals, in fact, that the total future Medicare cuts in payments to doctors and hospitals under Medicare accumulate to trillion! The Obama Administration is apparently convinced that its supporters cannot understand that if the government does not pay the doctors and hospitals for medical care and treatment under Medicare, seniors are not going to get medical care and treatment under Medicare.

This is why Medicare’s Chief Actuary has already reported that ultimately under these Obamacare policies Medicare payment rates will be only half of what is paid by Medicaid, where the poor often can’t find access to essential care. The Chief Actuary also reports that even before these cuts already two-thirds of hospitals were losing money on Medicare patients. Cuts of this magnitude will consequently wreak havoc and create chaos in health care for the elderly. Health providers will either have to withdraw from serving Medicare patients, or eventually go into bankruptcy.

Too many conservatives have been reticent to criticize Obamacare for these draconian cuts, out of recognition that Medicare is hopelessly bankrupt over the long run, and will have to be sharply cut in any event. But this view is far too simple minded, for refusing to pay the doctors and hospitals for the health care they provide under Medicare is no way to reform the program.

That would not only suddenly leave seniors without the health care they have been promised, and have come to rely on as a result. It would suddenly leave doctors, clinics, specialists, and hospitals with uneconomic practices for seniors that they entered in good faith on the promise of payment from the government. This is like trying to achieve budget savings in national defense by not paying the manufacturers of the Air Force’s planes, the Navy’s ships, the Army’s tanks and artillery, and the bullets, bombs and guns. How long do you think our national defense would last under that policy? The same goes for health care for America’s seniors.

Think of it this way. You wouldn’t try to balance your own family budget by just refusing to pay your bills, particularly for goods and services you planned to continue to consume. You would recognize that is really just impractical stealing. Yet that is the Obamacare policy for Medicare. Except that what they are really thinking was explained above. They have decided, as every government running socialized medicine programs has, that more votes can be bought with all the money spent on saving the sickest and most vulnerable by spending it elsewhere. That is the dirty little scandal of Obamacare.

Conservatives should assail this socialist assault on the most important of all medical care for the American people, an essential and fundamental component of their rapidly receding highest standard of living in the world, and advance more fundamental, more carefully structured Medicare reforms, that can achieve far more in savings over the long run.

One example of that is the Medicare reforms in the Ryan Roadmap. Seniors would receive vouchers they could use to buy their choice of coverage in the private sector, including Health Savings Accounts. The growth of the voucher amounts would be restrained over time, so seniors would have to pay more out of pocket for such coverage over time than they would otherwise. But at least they would be able to get the essential health care they want and need. The lowest income seniors would be protected by supplemental payments. The Ryan Roadmap has been scored as achieving full solvency for Medicare, and permanently balancing the federal budget over the long run.

But the most long run budget savings by far would be achieved by allowing younger workers to save and invest their Medicare payroll taxes in personal accounts. In retirement, those accounts would finance their health insurance vouchers, and would be able to finance far more because of the accumulation of all the market returns over the years. This would shift huge amounts of spending out of the federal budget altogether, and to the private sector. The general revenues currently used to finance so much of Medicare would be used for means tested supplements for lower income seniors to ensure that they could afford essential coverage and care. But these general revenues devoted to Medicare would be limited to grow no faster than the rate of growth of GDP, providing further huge savings over the long run.

These more basic, more fundamental reforms would be far more politically salable that than the wholesale slaughter of health care for seniors that is going to result from the current Obamacare policies. Seniors showed in the last election that they understand this. Why not conservative political strategists?

Already we see on our current course the beginnings of the disappearance not only of private health insurance, but also of private, independent medical practices as well. Sally Pipes of the Pacific Research Institute reports that while in 2005 at least two thirds of doctors practices were private, independent operations, less than half are today, and that is expected to fall below 40% by the end of this year.

Instead they are fleeing to salaried positions at large hospitals, where they are safe from Obamacare’s draconian cuts in their compensation, and they can sharply reduce the patient load they take on when their personal economic survival is at stake. This trend is strongly supported by President Obama’s top health care aide Nancy-Ann DeParle, who openly cheerleads the consolidation of America’s health care system into modern HMOs, called now Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs). Such a system will be far more able to enforce the health care rationing and denial policies of the Obama political machine.

spectator.org/

GOBERMINT MOTORS ….”CAUSE THIS BE HOW WE ROLL”


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”Every single great idea that has marked the 21st century, the 20th century and the 19th century has required government vision and government incentive.”

— Joe Biden, Oct. 26

WASHINGTON — General Motors, an appendage of the government, which owns 61 percent of it, is spending some of your money, dear reader, on full-page newspaper ads praising a government brainstorm — the Volt, Chevrolet’s highly anticipated and prematurely celebrated (sort of) electric car.

Although the situation is murky — GM and its government masters probably prefer it that way — it is unclear in what sense GM has any money that is truly its own. And the Volt is not quite an electric car, or not the sort GM deliberately misled Americans into expecting.

It is another hybrid. GM said the Volt would be an “all electrically driven vehicle” whose gas engine would be a mere range-extender, powering the Volt’s generator, not its wheels: The engine just would maintain the charge as the battery ran down.

Now GM says that at some point when the battery’s charge declines, or when the car is moving near 70 mph, the gas engine will power the wheels.

The newspaper ads proclaim, “Chevrolet Runs Deep.” Whatever that means, if anything, it does not mean the Volt runs deep into a commute or the countryside just on electricity. At the bottom of the ads, there is this, in microscopic print: “Volt available in CA, TX, MI, NY, NJ, CT and Washington, D.C., at the end of 2010. Quantities limited.” Well.

Quantities of everything — except perhaps God’s mercy, which is said to be infinite — are limited. But quantities of the Volt are going to be so limited that 44 states can only pine for Volts from afar. Good, because the federal government, which evidently is feeling flush, will give tax credits of up to ,500 to every Volt purchaser.

The Volt was conceived to appease the automotive engineers in Congress, which knows that people will have to be bribed, with other people’s money, to buy this ,000 car that seats only four people (the 435-pound battery eats up space).

Mark Reuss, president of GM North America, said in a letter to The Wall Street Journal: “The early enthusiastic consumer response — more than 120,000 potential Volt customers have already signaled interest in the car, and orders have flowed since the summer — give us confidence that the Volt will succeed on its merits.”

Disregard the slipperiness (“signaled interest” how?) and telltale reticence (how many orders have “flowed”?). But “on its merits”? Why, then, the tax credits and other subsidies?

The Automotive Engineer in Chief — our polymathic president — says there will be a million plug-in cars in America by 2015. This will require much higher gasoline prices (perhaps a gallon) and much bigger bribes: GM, which originally was expected to produce as many as 60,000 next year, now says 10,000 for all of North America.

GM says that, battery-powered, the Volt has a 40-mile range. Popular Mechanics says 33.

Thomas R. Kuhn, president of the Edison Electric Institute, the trade association of the electric utility industry, is, understandably, a Volt enthusiast: This supposedly “green” vehicle will store electric energy — 10 to 12 hours of charging on household current — produced by coal- and gas-fired power plants.

The federal government, although waist-deep in red ink, offers another bribe: Any purchaser can get a tax credit of up to 50 percent of the cost (up to ,000) of an extra-powerful (240 volt) charger.

California, although so strapped it recently issued IOUs to vendors, offers a ,000 cash rebate for which Volt buyers are not eligible but purchases of Nissan’s electric Leaf are. Go figure.

In April, in a television commercial and a Wall Street Journal column headlined “The GM Bailout: Paid Back in Full,” GM’s then-CEO Ed Whitacre said “we have repaid our government loan, in full, with interest, five years ahead of the original schedule.” Rubbish.

GM, which has received almost billion in government subventions, repaid a .7 billion loan using other federal funds, a TARP-funded escrow account.

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, called this a “TARP money shuffle.” A commentator compared it to “paying off your Visa credit card with your MasterCard.”

Meretricious accounting and deceptive marketing are inevitable when government and its misnamed “private sector” accomplices foist state capitalism on an appalled country. But those who thought the ethanol debacle defined outer limits of government foolishness pertaining to automobiles were, alas, mistaken.

www.reporternews.com/news/2010/nov/13/shocking-hype-on-gm…

Nokia E71 vs. Blackberry Curve 8900


Image by code_martial
Nazia’s white Nokia E71 next to my shiny new Blackberry Curve 8900. View large

The E71 is called Tululu and the BB Curve is called Halle, being a hot black berry

Why’s the BlackBerry 8900 Curve Hot?
If your gadget lust has got you going after the BlackBerry Curve 8900 and you’re looking for reasons to shell out the extra money over the considerably cheaper Nokia E71 or the slightly less cheap Nokia E75, here’s what that extra money will get you:

1. Keypad The best tactile QWERTY keypad among the three and probably the best in the market. Check out these blog posts totalling ~1500 words and counting, that I could type without hurting my fingers while taking a rather bumpy cab ride in twilight. Among the Nokias, I rate the E71 keypad higher than that of E75 because the former has contoured keys with good tactile feedback while the latter has flat, spongy keys. When you’re thumbing through a long mail, you’d soon realise that a wider keypad is more of a nuisance since you can’t reach the middle columns easily unless you have large hands. Still, the last word on the matter would come from you. Do try the keypads out yourself because you know best what works for you in this regard.

2. Trackball To quote one of my friends comparing the iPhone to a BlackBerry, it’s too much of a hassle moving your fingers all over the screen to get something done. The revolutionary (he’s fond of hyperboles, yeah) thing that BlackBerry has done is to converge all of that onto one single point — the trackball. I won’t comment on whether the trackball has what it takes to convert all the iPhone freaks, but it does add a dimension to the way you use the phone, over the Nokia E71 and E75.

3. Interface Though the BlackBerry interface has a bit of an identity crisis in that some of it is as slick as in the most stylish smart-phones while under the hood you still have the BlackBerry staple long menus, it’s still way ahead of the crummy Nokia interfaces. It would take me a lot of time to write about each of the things I like with the Blackberry interface (and if you’re reading this months after it was written, you might find a blog post at the link up there) but in terms of the interface, BlackBerry is miles and miles ahead of the Nokias. A bit of advice: take some time to learn the shortcuts available. Given that the BlackBerry is likely to stay with you for long, it would be a worthwhile investment of your time.

4. Camera The camera on the BlackBerry Curve 8900 has exceeded my expectations. It has shortcomings in that it’s slow and it’s hard to tinker with its (rather limited) settings but I usually run it in full auto (except deciding on whether or not to turn on flash) and the results from the camera are quite good. They do seem to be better than that of E71 (whose screen, BTW, has a nasty blue colour cast). See un-edited photos I’ve taken with BlackBerry Curve 8900.

5. Music Player One of the most surprising and unexpected things about the BlackBerry Curve 8900 for me has been the music player. Adding tracks to the player is as simple as uploading files to the music folder in the SD card and the media player automatically organises the files by album, artist and genre. That’s something many other media players do, but the interface looks so slick, it blows you away. You can also create automatic playlists by selecting tracks based on combinations or genre, album or artist, without having to manually select tracks.

6. Size and Weight The BlackBerry Curve 8900 is lighter than Nokia E71, which in turn is lighter than the E75. It is also shorter than the E71, which is as tall as the E75. The BlackBerry turns out to be the widest of the three, though. All in all, I find it very convenient to carry in my pocket — more so than the E71, though less so than the E75.

Why would you still want to buy the E71/E75?

1. Maps (Update: Though BlackBerry Maps continue to be unavailable in India, Nokia has freed up its maps since this review was written. The new Nokia maps are not as fast anymore so a big chunk of favour now goes to Google Maps and BlackBerry) This has to be the biggest reason to go for the Nokia E71/E75, at least in India. BlackBerry Maps aren’t available in India so the only option is to use the free Google Maps application. Google Maps, though, is slower to update position and requires downloading map images all the time. Nokia maps are pre-loaded on the phone. Besides, Google maps are less accurate/correct than Nokia maps, at least for Bangalore. One caveat though, Nokia maps require payment beyond the first 3 months of usage. Once that expires, you could either pay up or go to the free Google Maps application, thereby levelling the field.

2. Email out-of-the-box This is a bummer. Nokia email works out-of-the-box with standard POP/IMAP accounts and has additional support for GMail whereas the BlackBerry requires activation of something called "BlackBerry Services" before you can add email accounts. At least with my Airtel connection, this wasn’t enabled by default. There is a GMail app available for BlackBerry that handles multiple accounts and new mail notification but it doesn’t use any of the BlackBerry emaily goodness.

3. Speaker The E71 has a better sounding loudspeaker than the BlackBerry Curve 8900 because the latter’s battery cover rattles!

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