One of the first polls of doctor’s offices dealing with ObamaCare patients. Tidbits:
“We are going to have to hire additional staff just to manage the insurance verification process.”
“Identification of ACA plans has been an administrative nightmare.”
“Patients have been very confused about benefits and their portion of the cost. Once the patients find out their deductible, they’ve cancelled appointments and procedures.”
ObamaCare is also sowing union/management discord and threatening to cause strikes across the nation.
Every time I hear someone say that feminism is about validating every choice a woman makes I have to fight back vomit.
Do people really think that a stay at home mom is really on equal footing with a woman who works and takes care of herself? There’s no way those two things are the same. It’s hard for me to believe it’s not just verbally placating these people so they don’t get in trouble with the mommy bloggers.
Having kids and getting married are considered life milestones. We have baby showers and wedding parties as if it’s a huge accomplishment and cause for celebration to be able to get knocked up or find someone to walk down the aisle with. These aren’t accomplishments, they are actually super easy tasks, literally anyone can do them. They are the most common thing, ever, in the history of the world. They are, by definition, average.
Amy Glass, come down and collect your coveted Trolly! (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Strangely enough, Israeli’s trust Netanyahu more than Obama. Funny how a mere 40+ years Palestinians breaking every agreement they’ve signed will sour people on the peace process…
Also receives a warm welcome coming home to Texas. “After two months in Washington, it’s great to be back in America.”
Young people in Japan just can’t be bothered to have relationships or children. I wonder if any Guardian readers noticed that the declining birth rates in such a society must inevitably doom their European-style cradle-to-grave welfare states…
A look at the strange goings-on of the Grambling football team. Honestly, unless the university is completely and utterly broke, it sounds like someone in the administration was embezzling funds and is now trying to cover their tracks…
Good evening. I’m not Chevy Chase, and you’re not either. (Unless the real Chevy Chase is reading this, in which case: 1. Loved you on the original SNL, and 2. Stop being such a total dick.)
Take a look at this update: “German Chancellor Angela Merkel has mooted the idea that Greece should hold a referendum on the euro alongside its second round of elections next month.” Well, no use even pretending that the Greeks have a say in their own future, is there?
How bad will the Euro-collapse be? “This type of shock could produce instability at least as extensive as the aftermath of the collapse of Lehman Brothers.”
Der Spiegel goes all Amityville Horror on Greece: GET OUT.
Speaking of prominent German media outlets slamming Greece (insert your own Cartman’s Mother joke here), can anyone tell me why the Greek finance ministry offices look like an episode of Hoarders? My German is a bit rusty to watch a 45 minute documentary, but what are in the garbage bags? Tax returns?
Spain’s housing bubble gets compared to Ireland’s housing bubble, including how it’s getting ready to drag down the banking sector. Actually, it also sounds an awful lot like Japan’s housing bubble. But Spain’s economy isn’t nearly as strong as Japan’s…
No matter what Greece does, “the country faces years of austerity after years of mismanagement, whatever the election result. Even at the height of the global financial crisis, it was obvious the museum-piece economies of Europe, weighed down by bulging public payrolls, entrenched welfare state systems and archaic work practices, faced greater upheavals and decades of poorer living standards than the US.”
I still think Monbiot is more loon than not, and Anthropogenic Global Warming more scam than threat (I think it possible that the earth has warmed slightly, but regard the case for this possible warming trend being man-made as far from proven). But at least some hardcore greens are beginning to realize that if you really want to reduce carbon emissions without wrecking the world economy, nuclear is the way to go.
On a related note, for my latest Japan update (including news on the Fukushima Daiichi reactors) go here.
Big-spending Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez recalled from office by an almost 9-1 ratio. Alvarez was a RINO that acted like a full-bore Democrat, hiking property taxes and giving big pay raises to unionized public employees. (hat tip: Dwight.)
In New York, unions protect state employees who sexually abuse the mentally handicapped, even when they know they’re guilty. “That’s our job.”
But I did think this bit caught in my spam filter over there was worth sharing: the text says “Please Donate To Japan’s Quake and Tsunami Victim’s,” but the link goes to “foxnews-boycott.com”.
It’s impossible to say definitively that a market has strayed into bubble territory until after the collapse. But prices rising out of the reach of average buyers is one indicator. Housing prices in the U.S. peaked at 6.4 times average annual earnings this decade. In Beijing, the figure is 22 times.
The figures get even worse when you consider that the “shadow market” (i.e., banks making “off book” loans) means the bubble is even worse than it seems:
Local governments and banks have set up off-balance sheet vehicles to conceal loans and keep the spending boom going. Fitch Ratings estimates that not only did banks exceed the central bank’s 7.5 trillion yuan ($1.1 trillion) cap on lending for this year, they made an additional three trillion yuan of these shadow loans.
Something that can’t go on forever won’t. That’s especially true of a housing boom in a country aging as rapidly as China (which Mark Steyn famously said “will get old before it gets rich”); and don’t forget that a rapidly aging populace was also a factor in Japan’s own “lost decade.”
The big question is whether China’s housing bubble or Europe’s Sovereign Debt Crisis pops first. The aftershocks of both will certainly be felt in our own economy…
