Author Michael Lewis ('Flash Boys') described in detail back in 2014 how flash traders- using the high frequency trading (HFT) gambit are able to see milliseconds ahead of your buy orders to get there before you can, buy the stock and raise the price. In a way it's kind of tax on your transactions, so you don't come out as far ahead as you thought. Also, the same applies to sell orders. They can get there first, and you get much less than you originally thought you would.
Lewis - in connection with a book tour- emphasized the flash traders often traded on fractional share values but these inevitably pile up. Billions could be made off the backs of poor ordinary day traders, who trusted that when they placed their buy or sell orders no shenanigans or secret advantages were afoot. But alas, this isn't the case. It only takes a tiny fraction of a second of a flash trader's advantage (i.e. a delay or "latency" for you) for them to see slightly ahead - to what you're intention is - and do it before you do.
Now we learn ('High Speeds Seen Increasing Costs Of Stock Trading', WSJ, Jan. 28, p. B1) we're expected to believe that "latency arbitrage" (the process by which HFT greases the stocks wheels for the few) is a "myth" and circulated for political reasons. This put forward by Kirsten Wegner quoted in the piece who is an HFT specialist with Modern Market Initiatives - a bunch that promotes flash trades.
Here's the skinny you ought to know (ibid.):
"High frequency traders earn nearly $5 billion a year by taking advantage of slightly out of date prices, imposing a small but significant tax on ordinary investors."
This according to a new study by the UK's main regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The practice goes by the name "latency arbitrage".
"Latency" meaning the delay in time - often fractions of a second (hardly "out of date" as the WSJ describes it) so that the HFT guy can gain an advantage - enough so that by the time the ordinary run of the mill investor buys or sells it's already at markedly lower prices. In other words, if you also don't use HFT you lose. (Though one professor cited from the Univ. of Chicago's Booth School Of Business claims that the losses imposed for ordinary households are minor. )
He also says the HFT set already have to pay higher costs on their trades. Well, yeah, ok, but those losses may add up to a few hundred million bucks while they're still raking in over $4 billion extra a year off the hides of ordinary blokes..
But this is why politicians in both the U.S. and Europe - including Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are pushing for a financial transaction tax, "a policy aimed in part at curbing high speed trading".
The tax will be only a few cents on each dollar traded but because the HFT can do thousands of transactions per second, the tax hit on them will clearly be bigger than for the small fry ordinary investors- who may make only one 'call in' or online trade a day - or per hour at most.
All of which shows the experts cited in the piece who say "latency arbitrage raises costs for (ordinary) investors by making everyone in the markets less likely to post competitive price quotes for stocks" is correct. I mean why would you willingly lowball yourself if some HFT hotshot is getting ready to rip you off using fast trades? I.e.
Why do so, "knowing that those quotes will get picked off by the fast frequency trades."
Proving again the stock market is a rigged game unless one has the same 'weapons' or systems as the high frequency traders. Or plenty of disposable income to be able to afford the inherent disadvantages over time.
Showing posts with label Elizabeth Warren. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Elizabeth Warren. Show all posts
Friday, February 14, 2020
Monday, December 9, 2019
Seniors "Running Up" Medicare and Social Security Tabs? In Fact, Too Many Risk Going Bankrupt
"Maybe Elizabeth Warren - a Boomer- will finally raise taxes on her generation which is running up the tab on Medicare and Social Security" - Joseph Sternberg, WSJ, Sept. 13, p. 15A
"Yeah, I'm turning 65 next year. Can't wait to go broke trying to make ends meet with Medicare coverage. I worked 40 plus years paying into a system that will - at some point - kill me. Yes, I can afford supplemental insurance at this point, but sometime in the future I may not be able to because of deteriorating health as I age."- Denver Post letter writer, Nov. 2, 'The Needs Of Our Seniors', p. 3K
It may stun many people to know that Medicare is by no means a "freebie" or entitlement. First, people have paid into it over a life time at the rate of 1.45% in FICA taxes per paycheck. This is what appears on your W-2 tax form as "Medicare wages". It is that amount deducted from your pay for Medicare. Thus, it is most certainly not "welfare" and I'd even argue that it cannot be called an "entitlement".
Second, no genuine "entitlement" would require a beneficiary to cover extra expenses like eye glasses and dental - two aspects that cannot be ignored and can come to thousands of dollars a year. In addition, no entitlement makes increasing claims on one's budget - as the Denver Post letter writer complained about - in regard to having to buy supplemental insurance.
To fix ideas, my Medicare Part B supplemental (Part B) insurance premium has just gone up to $144 a month. This is in addition to my private supplemental insurance (which covers hospital procedures and tests Medicare B doesn't) which has now gone up another $30 a month to $273 a month. or $3,276 /yr. At the same time Janice's private supplemental insurance has similarly gone up to $250/ month. So the total for both of for a year, with just supplemental insurance costs alone is now $5,004 + $4,728 = $9, 732 for next year. The Medicare supplemental insurance is offset by increasing the Social Security monthly payments in tandem, but all that means is that there is negligible benefit from any Social Security cost of living (COLA) increase, see e.g.
The Social Security cost-of-living increase is a cruel fraud ...
And:
The Mythical Social Security Cost Of Living Increa...
It is clear then, as the LA Times report notes, that current cost of living increases to Social Security are simply "cruel frauds" - i.e. if they can be wiped out with a simple offset. "Here you go, sir, your Social Security increase for the new year....But...your Medicare supplemental (Part B) is being increased too - just that amount - so will be deducted from your COLA to pay for it!"
Lastly, one needs to enroll in a Medicare Prescription Drug Plan (Part D), critical since you only get one shot getting lower cost access to prescription drugs. Even if you're not currently on any drugs per se, counselors assure you that the best bet is to at least sign into one, in case you have to rely on a prescription (say for blood pressure) later. Right now I am on a blood pressure med (amlodipine besylate) and a statin (prevastatin) both of which I need to control a tendency to malignant high blood pressure, plus control the condition of hyperlipidemia - the tendency to collect too much fat in blood and liver.
Fortunately, I can get both as generics so keep the total drug costs down to about $15 a month. But at the same time, the plan provider (Humana) has now announced the third monthly annual premium increase in a row - from what used to be ($18 / month), to now $60 a month. Hence, the monthly premium is now four times what I pay for the actual meds. For Janice the factor is a bit smaller as she takes more meds, but the monthly increase is no less painful. So for prescription drugs alone we are talking about another $1,440 a year.
Added to the cost of supplemental insurance - and leaving out the Medicare supplemental because it's offset by deduction from the Social Security COLA - that comes to: $7, 716 total. But this doesn't include any dental or glasses etc. which easily adds another $2, 500 a year for both of us. That makes a grand total of $7,716 + $2,500 = $10, 216 a year in premiums and procedures etc. not covered by Medicare. I show all this to also indicate what costs would be like for anyone who "buys into" Medicare.
Clearly, such proposals on offer from one or more Dem candidates need to be put into realistic perspective that people aren't just going to buy into the program and get a freebie. Not any more than those of us already in the Medicare program. It can't be otherwise. As for the 'Medicare for all' pipedream which claims all premiums can be wiped out for millions, I will believe that when I see it.
Adding up all these Medicare -related costs up it is clear Joseph Sternberg (top quote) is talking twaddle when he claims seniors are "running up the tab". In fact, the tab is being run up on us (including via the Medicare Advantage program which is bleeding traditional Medicare into insolvency. All one need do is run the numbers to see, in fact, that Medicare as we now know it fails to work for many retirees, leaving them in danger of going bankrupt. The corporo-media tends to give that short shrift.
Point of fact: . A study published this year by Gallup and West Health, a research organization dedicated to lowering health care costs, showed that people over 65 had withdrawn an estimated $22 billion from long-term savings accounts in the previous year to pay for health expenses Medicare didn’t cover. This is why T. Rowe Price and other investment centers emphasize a retiree today needs at least $250k saved just to cover medical expenses.
Few may recall that Medicare Advantage is the privatized spawn of the "Medicare Modernization Act" that Billy Tauzin and his Reepo criminal congress forced through back in 2003 - to the cheers of Big PhRMA. It was no wonder that soon after it passed, Goldman Sachs estimated the benefit to PhRMA ( in terms of corporate welfare), would be over $13.7 b over ten years. It's probably even more now.
Indeed, another vile aspect of the 2003 law was that it barred Medicare from negotiating for lower drug prices like the VA does. The law actually left the negotiating to private insurance companies and pharmacy benefit managers. The very existence of this refuse denied Medicare the ability to drive down prices - and indeed control prices.
But then many of us at the time suspected the Bushies were behind this recklessly expensive, bogus law as a means to rush Medicare toward insolvency - the better to privatize it. They even embedded a Trojan horse in the law called "Medicare Advantage" which is now spending $12b a year more than traditional Medicare.
Moreover, our money is daily being pilfered, "borrowed" from the Social Security Trust Fund to pay for military -defense spending, as well as other national budgetary incidentals. The total now owed is estimated at $3.4 trillion. So it is outrageous that Sternberg could even suggest higher taxes on Social Security beneficiaries. But this is the skewed political landscape we inhabit now.
It's no surprise Sternberg would try to make a specious case to tax Medicare and Social Security given the 207 GOP tax cuts have sent deficits soaring. So the Reep defenders want some way of replenishing the revenue lost by the reckless tax cuts. But no one with even a normal intelligence is biting.
See also:
10 Reasons Medicare Advantage Plans Will Never Meet Our Needs
And:
Social Security
Saturday, November 2, 2019
Sen. Elizabeth Warren's "Plan" To Pay For Medicare for All Exists Only In The Realm Of Fairy Tales
According to a NY Times report, Senator Elizabeth Warren on Friday revealed her plan to pay for an expansive transformation of our health care system in her own version of Medicare for All. Notably absent in this "plan" (which isn't going anyplace anyway unless the Dems snatch the Senate back from the Repukes) is any tax increase for the middle class. Which in my opinion shows it totally in the realm of fairy tales or fantasy. Warren could as well have told her donors and others that the tooth fairy will leave $20.5 trillion under their pillows to fund it.
What she is proposing are military cuts of $800b and huge tax increases on businesses and wealthy Americans to help cover her price tab of $20.5 trillion in new federal spending. Look, this is pure poppycock and bull pockey. Warren ought to be ashamed to believe that this math mockery (not to mention abandonment of reality) could pass the most remote smell test for any rational person.
First, there is no way in hell she is going to be able to finagle $800 billion in cuts to the military. We know ever since the military-industrial complex emerged (after WW II) it has been the devil's own job to try and tame it as it just sucks up more and more $$$ each year. Much of that is plowed into localities (like here in Colorado Springs) that have multiple military bases, or have a defense contractor making planes, bombs or tanks. That is the new mode of job creation and there is absolutely no way that those special interests will cede that money to Warren. Does she "have a plan" that will work? Sure. Possibly in an alternative universe where austerity freaks - not to mention Repugs - disappeared like the Whigs in this universe.
Second, anyone who does the math knows there is simply not the money in corporations and the wealthy alone to support her far- fetched plan. Even if a massive new tax on both could be passed which it won't (so long as Moscow Mitch runs the Senate) it will still fall far short of the funds needed to support Medicare for all - which most honest brokers and spokespersons estimate is more in the realm of $30 trillion over ten years. Even Sen. Bernie Sanders admitted this, e.g. in the last Dem debate:
"At the end of the day the overwhelming majority of people will save money on their health care bills. But I do think it is appropriate to acknowledge that taxes will go up."
To which Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a moderate Dem, replied: "At least Bernie’s being honest here.".
As The Times observes, her plan "represents a significant bet that enough voters will favor an approach that dismantles the current system and replaces it with Medicare for all, a government-run health insurance program. And it comes after decades in which Democrats have largely tiptoed around policy proposals that relied on major tax increases and Republicans ran on tax cuts."
Hmmm... seems that I recall even in the early days of Obama's administration and when the Dems had a filibuster- proof majority of 60 in the Senate they couldn't even get the most modest public option passed. So riddle me this: How would a President Warren manage a feat that will cost twenty times more- and through a Senate likely to still be in Reepo hands?
Folks, this is the stuff of fairy tales, no lie. (Hey, I know Reeptards also called it a 'fairy tale" but even a broken clock is right twice a day!)
The Times piece also notes:
Excerpt:
"The Massachusetts senator is adamant that her plan would not impose any taxes on the middle class. According to Tim Higginbotham, a Democratic Socialists of America organizer writing in Jacobin, her plan is “an impossible premise.”
Higginbotham believes Warren’s no-middle-class-taxes claim is dishonest: First, because any Medicare for All plan “will require some form of taxation, direct or indirect, on the broad ‘middle class.’” Second, because her premise ignores the possibility that even with a modest tax increase, Medicare for All will still provide overall health care cost savings in the long run for low- and middle-income families."
And:
What she is proposing are military cuts of $800b and huge tax increases on businesses and wealthy Americans to help cover her price tab of $20.5 trillion in new federal spending. Look, this is pure poppycock and bull pockey. Warren ought to be ashamed to believe that this math mockery (not to mention abandonment of reality) could pass the most remote smell test for any rational person.
First, there is no way in hell she is going to be able to finagle $800 billion in cuts to the military. We know ever since the military-industrial complex emerged (after WW II) it has been the devil's own job to try and tame it as it just sucks up more and more $$$ each year. Much of that is plowed into localities (like here in Colorado Springs) that have multiple military bases, or have a defense contractor making planes, bombs or tanks. That is the new mode of job creation and there is absolutely no way that those special interests will cede that money to Warren. Does she "have a plan" that will work? Sure. Possibly in an alternative universe where austerity freaks - not to mention Repugs - disappeared like the Whigs in this universe.
Second, anyone who does the math knows there is simply not the money in corporations and the wealthy alone to support her far- fetched plan. Even if a massive new tax on both could be passed which it won't (so long as Moscow Mitch runs the Senate) it will still fall far short of the funds needed to support Medicare for all - which most honest brokers and spokespersons estimate is more in the realm of $30 trillion over ten years. Even Sen. Bernie Sanders admitted this, e.g. in the last Dem debate:
"At the end of the day the overwhelming majority of people will save money on their health care bills. But I do think it is appropriate to acknowledge that taxes will go up."
To which Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a moderate Dem, replied: "At least Bernie’s being honest here.".
As The Times observes, her plan "represents a significant bet that enough voters will favor an approach that dismantles the current system and replaces it with Medicare for all, a government-run health insurance program. And it comes after decades in which Democrats have largely tiptoed around policy proposals that relied on major tax increases and Republicans ran on tax cuts."
Hmmm... seems that I recall even in the early days of Obama's administration and when the Dems had a filibuster- proof majority of 60 in the Senate they couldn't even get the most modest public option passed. So riddle me this: How would a President Warren manage a feat that will cost twenty times more- and through a Senate likely to still be in Reepo hands?
Folks, this is the stuff of fairy tales, no lie. (Hey, I know Reeptards also called it a 'fairy tale" but even a broken clock is right twice a day!)
The Times piece also notes:
"While the proposal allows Ms. Warren to say she is not raising taxes on the middle class, it opened her to renewed charges that her plan is too radical to pass through Congress. "
Doh! Of course it is too radical! Has Warren done a head count of the deficit hawks and austerity cheerleaders still in congress? Does she believe they will magically vanish if she's elected? She needs to stop chomping on that special Astra Ultra MJ candy methinks.
Confirming her ingestion of new higher punch candies we then read:
"It represents an extraordinary embrace of the tax system to redistribute wealth and re-engineer one of the pillars of the American economy, with measures that would double her proposed wealth tax on billionaires and impose new levies on investment gains and even stock trades. "
And it possibly could work-- in Canada or Denmark. But I can tell her right now it will never work here, not if Barack Obama and a Senate with 60 Dems couldn't even get a public option in 2010.
Warren needs to come back to reality, cease imbibing those high buzz candies, and once that's done, stop babbling nonsense - when most Americans with any sense will see right through it as errant codswallop.
Those who are honest - like Bernie, a fellow DSA member - know that middle class taxes being raised 15-20 % will be the most pragmatic way to pay for any new health program.
As I've shown with other large scale liberal Dem plans, such as the Green New Deal, the bugbear or deal breaker in all of them is the failure or avoidance to reckon in the math, E.g.
Applying Physics (And Some Math) To The Green Ne...
Where I pointed out that omitting nuclear energy from the mix would be a non-starter. As I put it, "Leave out nuclear and the time needed to get to a preponderance of renewables, even using Germany's high standard of adding 0.7 trillion kwh of clean energy per year, would take close to 150 years - by which time this planet would be on the verge of being another Venus. "
The same retreat from reality is evident in Warren's "plans" and defense of Medicare for all. She seems unable or unwilling to tell voters straight that the choice is one between more taxes or less health care.
As I've shown with other large scale liberal Dem plans, such as the Green New Deal, the bugbear or deal breaker in all of them is the failure or avoidance to reckon in the math, E.g.
Applying Physics (And Some Math) To The Green Ne...
Where I pointed out that omitting nuclear energy from the mix would be a non-starter. As I put it, "Leave out nuclear and the time needed to get to a preponderance of renewables, even using Germany's high standard of adding 0.7 trillion kwh of clean energy per year, would take close to 150 years - by which time this planet would be on the verge of being another Venus. "
The same retreat from reality is evident in Warren's "plans" and defense of Medicare for all. She seems unable or unwilling to tell voters straight that the choice is one between more taxes or less health care.
Kate Bedingfield, a deputy campaign manager for Joe Biden summed up my own take on Warren's plan when she said:
“The mathematical gymnastics in this plan are all geared towards hiding a simple truth from voters: It’s impossible to pay for Medicare for all without middle-class tax increases,”
“The mathematical gymnastics in this plan are all geared towards hiding a simple truth from voters: It’s impossible to pay for Medicare for all without middle-class tax increases,”
If Warren fails to 'come clean' she may pay a huge price in the primaries if enough D voters get wise to her unworkable math and impossible dreams. In the meantime, progressive pundits on Left blogs also need to come clean after trying to assert Warren actually does have a plan ...but it will be "attacked" (and 'lied about') by those nasty, revolting scum from the medical insurance industry. See e.g.
No, it will also be firmly questioned by anyone with sense and an IQ over room temperature who grasps political reality and can do the math!
As an antidote to the preceding B.S. see the following spot-on take dealing with Warren's dishonest mumbo-jumbo:
No, it will also be firmly questioned by anyone with sense and an IQ over room temperature who grasps political reality and can do the math!
As an antidote to the preceding B.S. see the following spot-on take dealing with Warren's dishonest mumbo-jumbo:
Excerpt:
"The Massachusetts senator is adamant that her plan would not impose any taxes on the middle class. According to Tim Higginbotham, a Democratic Socialists of America organizer writing in Jacobin, her plan is “an impossible premise.”
Higginbotham believes Warren’s no-middle-class-taxes claim is dishonest: First, because any Medicare for All plan “will require some form of taxation, direct or indirect, on the broad ‘middle class.’” Second, because her premise ignores the possibility that even with a modest tax increase, Medicare for All will still provide overall health care cost savings in the long run for low- and middle-income families."
And:
Wednesday, October 16, 2019
Elizabeth Warren Displayed Unacceptable Cowardice By Not Admitting Higher Middle Class Taxes With 'Medicare for All'
"I still believe that the candidates with the biggest plans need to level with voters about how costly, painful and disruptive transformational changes are likely to be, at least in the short term. Take for instance the transformation of our health insurance system: Whether we are talking about Medicare for All or an expansion of Obamacare with a public option, there is a sticker price.
In other words, treat voters with respect by telling them the whole truth, warts and all, instead of simply dangling jewels in their faces." - Charles Blow, NY Times, 'Democrats, Dream Big But Tell The Whole Truth'.
Last night Sen. Elizabeth Warren pronounced:
"Medicare for all is the gold standard. We can pay for this and I laid out the basic principles. Cost are gonna go up for the wealthy, for the big corporations. They will not go up for middle class families,"
Fine, but TAXES WILL go up and she dodged the answer to that question asked by one moderator, NY Times National Editor Marc Lacy. What Warren ought to have said is that while middle class taxes WILL go up this will be more than offset by reduction in the costs derived from high monthly premiums, co-pays, drug costs. She didn't. She dreaded use of the T word. A lack of intestinal fortitude- or plain courage - to tell the truth about a policy position.
But at least Bernie Sanders was honest and forthright admitting:
"At the end of the day the overwhelming majority of people will save money on their health care bills. But I do think it is appropriate to acknowledge that taxes will go up."
To which Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a moderate Dem, replied: "At least Bernie’s being honest here."
So why wasn't Warren? Why was it so damned difficult to use the T word and admit that yes, taxes will increase but the benefits from lower medical costs will more than compensate for that. According to CBS correspondent Major Garrett this morning:
"She made a tactical decision she doesn't have to answer this tax question... She had every opportunity last night to just say what Bernie Sanders said, she didn't. She tactically decided this is not going to make or break her campaign."
However the voters, in the general election (if she gets that far), if not in the primary, could make the decision they need a more forthright, honest candidate (and President) than Elizabeth Warren.
Warren's deliberate tactic was also not a one off. Time after time last night, in response to questions on how to pay for her Medicare for All plan, Warren tried to dodge using the T-word: and imposing higher taxes on the middle class. As we watched I told Janice, if she'd just come clean like Bernie had she could avoid a lot of the challenges and implications that her math is skewed, or non-existent.
Or worse, that she was deliberately being obfuscatory, even dishonest.
"Mayor Pete" Buttigieg was the first skeptic, a few minutes into the debate, after Mr. Lacy posed the question. He had been asked about Ms. Warren’s support for Medicare for All and her squishy responses to the question of whether middle-class taxes would rise under it. Buttigieg taunted, “This was the candidate with 'a plan for everything,'except this.”
Warren’s head shot skyward as if beseeching the Almighty for inspiration or deliverance, saying quietly. “We can pay for this,”
She kept repeating the mantra that “costs” would rise only for the wealthy and corporations but kept on declining to concede — as Bernie had — that middle-class taxes would go up.
Lack of courage, lack of candor. And not for the first time here with the Dems. After Bush Jr. left office in January, 2009, I screeched long and hard in many posts that it was idiocy to extend his tax cuts for the middle class as well as the wealthy, given all the needs that required income. See e.g.
Bush’s Revenge: Or how Zombie Tax cuts Will leave ...
The Dems never got the message, from me or many other wiser economic commenters - including Philip Stephens in The Financial Times. Instead they opted to keep that segment of cuts and digging deficit holes the Reeps would use to prevent increased funding of Medicare, Social Security.
She kept repeating the mantra that “costs” would rise only for the wealthy and corporations but kept on declining to concede — as Bernie had — that middle-class taxes would go up.
Lack of courage, lack of candor. And not for the first time here with the Dems. After Bush Jr. left office in January, 2009, I screeched long and hard in many posts that it was idiocy to extend his tax cuts for the middle class as well as the wealthy, given all the needs that required income. See e.g.
Bush’s Revenge: Or how Zombie Tax cuts Will leave ...
The Dems never got the message, from me or many other wiser economic commenters - including Philip Stephens in The Financial Times. Instead they opted to keep that segment of cuts and digging deficit holes the Reeps would use to prevent increased funding of Medicare, Social Security.
As I've shown with other large scale liberal Dem plans, such as the Green New Deal, the bugbear or deal breaker in all of them is the failure or avoidance to reckon in the math, E.g.
Applying Physics (And Some Math) To The Green Ne...
Where I pointed out that omitting nuclear energy from the mix would be a non-starter. As I put it, "Leave out nuclear and the time needed to get to a preponderance of renewables, even using Germany's high standard of adding 0.7 trillion kwh of clean energy per year, would take close to 150 years - by which time this planet would be on the verge of being another Venus. "
The same retreat from reality is evident in Warren's "plans" and defense of Medicare for all. She seems unable or unwilling to tell voters straight that the choice is one between more taxes or less health care. So if citizens think higher taxes (by 15 % even for "middle class") are the worst thing in their lives, what could happen? Well, what if they are laid up in a hospital bed with severe disability, pneumonia or prostate cancer? Is going bankrupt more to their liking? (Without Medicare I''d have had to cough up over $85,000 for two major prostate cancer treatments: high dose brachytherapy and focal cryotherapy,)
Again, for most Americans - who are tax hating Pollyannas- they are convinced they're never going to get to that extreme fate so they make the bet those dire medical disasters won't happen to them. Hence, why agree to pay higher taxes if the odds are so low in getting a medical calamity? But it's a terrible bet because any cancer, or serious accident can happen to any of us!
Make no mistake that 'Medicare for all' would be the for profit medical industry's biggest nightmare because they'd no longer be able to reap profits by invoking medical loss ratios - preventing sick people from getting care instead of delivering it. Hence, they and their political lackeys and extremists will be prepared to fight like junkyard dogs to prevent it, including the perverse use of propaganda.
In this regard, the citizen needs to inform himself as much as possible about what the real arguments are for and against 'Medicare for all'. And also ask himself if he is willing to pay significantly more in taxes to be assured of better access to health care and significantly lower medical costs. Elizabeth Warren's dodging of the issue doesn't help citizens in making a judicious decision.
See also:
Friday, September 13, 2019
It's Past Time For All The Dem "Minnows" (Vanity Candidates) To Exit The Debate Stage
"I predicted that either Corey, or Beto or Castro were going to do the John Kasich suicide pact. 'I'm just gonna go for the front runner and try and take him down'. That's the only way he could bring attention to himself." - Jason Johnson, on MSNBC Post Debate Analysis last night.
"It was just a stupid thing to do. Democrats want to be united this time, and don't want their differences exploited by the Republicans. Everybody's a pundit now and when they watch they're going to be asking 'Are Republicans going to turn this into a talking point?' If you do go that route you electrocute yourself." - Jonathan Alter, on MSNBC Post Debate Analysis last night.
"This is why these presidential debates are becoming unwatchable. It just reminds everybody of what they cannot stand about Washington. Scoring points against each other, poking at each other..." - Pete Buttigeig last night in the ABC debate.
"I think Secretary Castro who likes to talk about learning from history, clearly didn't learn from the first two debates. Taking personal, cheap shots at Vice President Biden actually doesn't work out that well particularly for the candidate who takes such shots. Especially since Castro's claims were factually inaccurate. Many reporters covering the debate have already pointed out that what Castro said simply was not true."- Anita Dunn, political commentator, on MSNBC last night
It is more than past time for all the Democratic candidate minnows - not serious contenders - to get out of the public eye and especially cease the rhetorical bomb throwing and spilling their bile in the debates. What stood out last night was Julian Castro's desperate ploy using ageism to try to take down Joe Biden . The debate point was whether people who can't afford health care would be automatically enrolled in Biden's health plan and not have to "buy in". Biden clearly stated "They do not have to buy in", but Castro tried to portray him as having the classic "senior" moment, e.g.
"Are you forgetting what you said two minutes ago? You forgetting already what you said two minutes ago? I can't believe that you said two minutes ago that they had to buy in and now you're saying they don't have to buy in. You're forgetting that."
In fact, Biden wasn't forgetting a damned thing. He said they did not have to buy in and Castro merely used the opportunity as a "Hey, look at me!" moment. Basically, to use the parlance of commentator Jason Johnson, resurrecting Repub John Kasich's own suicide pact idiom. As Jonathan Alter and other commentators have noted it was a patently stupid move, and likely even cost Castro a VP spot. It was a desperation move to try to get attention like Kamala Harris tried to pull on Biden using the school busing issue two months ago. Now, look what's happened to all the losers who tried to tar Biden, including Eric Swallwell and Kamala Harris. They are tanking as 1 percent poller Castro now will (well, even more than he is).
Below are a few brutal facts for any political observers out there, or viewers, readers who have a serious interest in the Democratic primary and future candidate:
1) ALL the primary candidates and indeed all who would be the elected president in the 2020 general election are septuagenarians. That list includes: Biden, Sanders, Warren, and Trump. Like it or not those will be your choices, so get over the fetishism for some young Turk or stud, or pining for a "young blood" to save the nation's bacon.. Ain't gonna happen, no more than aliens landing in the middle of the White House lawn. So you're stuck with oldies. Deal with it. (But don't use that as an excuse not to vote!)
2) Like Joe Biden or hate him, his consistent 20 plus percent polling is based on very firm African-American support, up to 48 %. Unless other candidates come close to that command there is no way they will compete with Biden for the primary, and offer any competition to Trump in the general.
3) The outlier candidates (Marianne Williamson, Michael Bennett, Tim Ryan, John Hickenlooper, Julian Castro et al) never really stood a chance against those with top name recognition.. All they did was clutter the debate stage, distort the debate format and distract viewers. Hence, their belief in the "Trump model" - that an outlier could get the presidency again - was misplaced..
The only three serious Dem candidates (i.e. who have any chance), according to the Real Clear Politics (and other) polling are Biden, Sanders and Warren. Harris - who took her cheap shot at Biden earlier - is now barely scratching at 7.2 % while the Dem trio are all at 20 percent plus. In other words, the other seven candidates are all minnows who stand no more chance of reaching the primary than I have of being elected Pope. Sorry, that's the reality, the way it is.
The irritating D- minnows have merely led their own vanity campaigns, and also - in multiple instances - provided fodder for Trump and the Republicans in attacking the main candidates and sowing divisions. Castro did it last night and in the first debate in Miami. There he pinned everyone down on border crossings - and we saw all those hands go up - and Republicans had wet dreams on how they could use the scene in ads. Castro is a minnow, and a toxic one at that, who needs to recognize - like the other minnows - that his 15- plus minutes of fame are up.
That includes the irrepressible Beto O'Rourke who also is a bottom feeder with nothing to lose, so felt emboldened to yelp; "Hell yeah we're comin' for your AR-15s and AK-47s too!" Thereby scrambling a reasoned Democratic message on gun control, as Sen. Chris Coons pointed out in the wake of Beto's bark. Oh, and providing fresh fodder for RNC ads and adding fuel to an already hot fire stoked by the Foxites warning of "blood and civil war" if the Ds try to take their friggin' weapons away.
This is not to say Beto's passionate statement was 100% wrong, but just mis-timed, out of place. You don't belt out a full -throated gun seizure vow on a national debate stage in front of 14 million viewers when your party's trying to oust Trump. Especially given many of those watching are independents and look askance at any suggestion of government force to seize their guns. Suggest voluntary assault weapons' buybacks? Yeah sure! But not outright seizures, unless you want to toss red meat to the GOOps to use next year.
So we also need Beto to get out of the picture and leave the stage to the 'big boys' - the actual players polling at least in double digits.
Castro's antics as well as Beto's and Harris' (in the 1st debate) show why indeed these fulsome media encounters have merely become vanity exercises. They provide a disproportionate stage for those without a snowball's chance in hell to reach the primary, to pop off and toss rhetorical bombs in desperation. All to the detriment of the party- and the eventual Dem nominee.
It's a damned annoyance and I am certain wifey and yours truly aren't the only ones who believe so. We need the DNC to exact higher debate qualification thresholds to finally reduce the debate stage to the three prime contenders. This as opposed to being cluttered with the ego-besotted minnow pretenders. Pretenders whose only recourse is to now become 'bomb throwers' or Kasich suicide pact emulators - to the detriment of the front runners and the party.
Take the cue from John Hickenlooper, pack up your vanity bags and leave. Hasta la vista, minnows!
That's my 0.02 and I am sticking with it!
See also:
Wednesday, May 29, 2019
Mueller's 9 Minutes of Fame Punts The Ball To Congress As Trump & Co. Continue Spinning More Lies
Robert Mueller delivering his nine minute statement earlier today, which left most Americans seeking courage, unimpressed.
"Bob, your trail of bread crumbs just isn't good enough. We're just not that smart anymore! America is now an aging shortstop. You have to hit it right at us." Bill Maher on Real Time, Friday, April 26, on why Mueller's indirect, detached approach is useless
"If we had confidence that the President did not commit a crime, we would have said so." - Robert Mueller, earlier today.
Well, at least one major milestone was passed earlier today, we finally got to hear Mueller's voice live and in person. No filters. The problem is it was mostly pro forma and the message enunciated: "If you want to see what I found, read the report." Righto, like 100 million Americans will now rush to read it ASAP. Hell, I already published the 'juiciest' parts of Vol. II (with all the obstruction behavior involving WH Counsel Don McGhan that- propelled GOP Rep. Justin Amash to call for impeachment) and 42 have read it to date. Not an auspicious sign. On the upside, reading between the lines - or rather interpreting between Mueller's careful words- one beheld he wasn't letting Trump off the hook. Also, it was now time for House Dems & Pelosi to get some cojones and initiate impeachment inquiry - at least.
Bottom line: Mueller punted again but basically - in his Volume II - left the means to bring impeachment proceedings against the Vulgarian criminal fouling the highest office. On the other hand, he isn't keen for any more public appearances, basically averring if the House Dems subpoena him to testify all he will do is read what's already been published, nothing more. Well, hell, at least it will be kinda like a parent reading a bedtime story to his kid - when the kid wouldn't have opened the book on his own. It would be better than nothing, and hey, for each question Mueller could direct willing readers to the key parts of Volume I or II as he reads. It sure beats the Mr. Silent Sphinx Act we've beheld the past two years. At this point we will take anything, and so should Nancy Pelosi and the House Dems. Pelosi claims she's still seeking facts and evidence of obstruction, but what do you call Trump's universal blocking of all subpoenas - laughing them down, blowing them off - as he metaphorically pisses down the Dems' throats and laughs?
Finally launching an impeachment might even shut up Trump and his top sycophant ass licker, Sara Sanders, who predictably came out with their own forlorn lying spin and distortions, yapping crap like "case closed", and "it's time to move on." No, it's time for impeachment!
Mueller himself in his 9 minute spiel gave the usual reasons cited earlier for not going the whole hog and failing to issue and indictment: basically that DOJ policy (from the Office of Legal Counsel) "doesn't allow it". Which is bull pockey. It's only a guideline, a policy after all, not an iron clad law or rule. And we've seen in the past two months how Dotard has spit on norm after norm blocking subpoenas while congress is made to sit on its fingers fuming. The correct interpretation of Mueller's citation of limits in issuing an indictment is: "We found Trump guilty but the DOJ wouldn't allow us to say it."
Never mind. Dotard and his retinue of sycophants tried to spin this to mean "exoneration". The first tool they used was to interpret a partial affirmation as a total negation. Thus, Mueller admitted he found "insufficient evidence" to identify a conspiracy with the Russians (in Vol. I). But Trump, his malleable cow press secretary Huckleberry Sanders and others tried to portray that as meaning "nothing was found" and hence "exoneration". Nope, because insufficient evidence is not the same as zero evidence. One may have insufficient evidence a neighbor bludgeoned his wife with a hammer, as there are bloody fingerprints on it. But there is no confirming DNA evidence to match the suspect to the actual weapon and crime.
Mueller did (in Vol. 2) identify 10 incidents in which Trump attempted to obstruct justice, for example by firing the director of the FBI, though he stopped short of charging the Dotard with a crime. Never mind, because again by the OLC guidelines Mueller's hands were cuffed on the issue of finding crimes. (As already explained.) But again, he clearly left the process open for congress to pursue "high crimes and misdemeanors" under the Article I powers allotted to it.
Mueller himself fucked up badly during his soliloquy, asserting:
"A president cannot be charged with a federal crime while he is in office. That is unconstitutional."
No, it would not. As one legal specialist and former prosecutor noted on MSNBC, "there hasn't even been a court decision to render a verdict on constitutionality". Adding, he could find just as many to assert it was constitutional as not. In the end it is an OLC "guideline" that appears no where in the Constitution per se.
As MSNBC legal specialist Ari Melber and others put it (e.g. former DOJ spokes person Matt Miller) it wasn't a 100 % nothing burger. There were some actual ounces of 'meat' in the statement terms of Mueller saying (between the lines, as it were): "I could not deliver a criminal prosecution but congress can still act on its own".
Bingo! But most Americans - even with IQs in the normal range- might have missed that. As Bill Maher once put it in a New Rules segment (see top quote) on Real Time, Americans are like aging shortstops. They need the ball hit directly at their midsections to make the play. Or in this case, the connections. The perfect illustration was one of the Michigan voters highlighted at a recent question-answer session held by Justin Amash. This woman was astonished to learn- after Amash educated her- that Trump was NOT "exonerated" in the Mueller Report. She'd only heard that by having been isolated in the conserve media (i.e. FOX, Rush Limburger ) echo chamber the past 8 weeks.
At least a number of Senators - following Mueller's performance- have sounded the proper perspectives to counter the balderdash of Trump and his minions, e.g.
Julian Castro:
Mueller made clear this morning that his investigation now lays at the feet of Congress. No one is above the law—Congress should begin an impeachment inquiry.
May 29, 2019Elizabeth Warren:
Mueller leaves no doubt:
1) He didn't exonerate the president because there is evidence he committed crimes.
2) Justice Department policy prevented him from charging the president with any crimes
.
3) The Constitution leaves it up to Congress to act—and that's impeachment.
May 29, 20193) The Constitution leaves it up to Congress to act—and that's impeachment.
Kamala Harris:
What Robert Mueller basically did was return an impeachment referral. Now it is up to Congress to hold this president accountable.
We need to start impeachment proceedings. It's our constitutional obligation.
May 29, 2019We need to start impeachment proceedings. It's our constitutional obligation.
Again, I present the link to the full Mueller report which readers can access here:
www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf
Please read it yourselves to see why the above takes by the D-Senators are correct. If pressed for time, at least read my transcription of Vol. II to do with obstruction of justice involving Trump White House Counsel Don McGahn! (May 22 post).
Your country will thank you for it, and so will Democrats when they begin impeachment proceedings. (IF they do!) It will mean one less segment of citizens to have to educate. In any case, I am for the Jerrold Nadler and House Judiciary Committee bringing Mueller in to testify - even if it means only seeing and hearing him read sections of his own report.
Something is better than nothing!
See also:
And:
And:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)