Why aren’t you guys getting it? This isn’t a mistake or a “problem”. This was done by design. This is the first step to those elements being canceled just like other aspects were canceled. The newly strengthened politico-insurer complex (by way of the individual mandate) cannot have any sort of competition (lower cost health care) to interfere with their plans (exorbitant compensation through profiteering and the concomitant increased political donations). They probably rightfully assume that most people don’t even know those elements are supposed to be in the ACA and so aren’t expecting them. Most people are too busy dreading the mandate and expecting premium increases for the plans they already have or are expecting turbulent yet somewhat positive change in the initial year. They aren’t really expecting it to work off the bat so most people are already braced for messiness but aren’t prepared to notice missiing elements. So, when they announce sometime in 2014 that those parts are being canceled, the only people who will get upset will be people here and other left wing blogs who care about these issues. It will take a few years of disaster to make others focus not just on the failure that Obamacare will be by that point but on the broken promises that were supposed to be its key selling points and best hues of lipstick for this stinking pig. But in the meantime, that politico-insurer complex will be reinforced, reinvigorated, and even more removed from the concerns of the newly indentured American people.

Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) are almost always a rip-off of the taxpayer. They are always sold to the taxpayer as a money saving idea but always turn out to be more expensive than the previous publicly funded solution. See Britain’s healthcare experience with PPP. Also look at Chicago’s parking meter fiasco. Businesses love PPP because they always end up making much more money and it’s a much more certain revenue stream for them. I believe on of Dennis Kucinich’s first acts as a public servant was to prevent the sale of Cleveland’s power authority to PPPs. That’s ended up saving that city tens of millions of dollars ($195 million according to Wikipedia) while other city’s have been broken by the constant increases in prices of electricity in their privatized systems.

This should tell you more than anything that there is another financial collapse coming and the powers that be are terrified.

Goldman never stopped doing this. Zero Hedge comments on their duplicitous behavior regularly, particularly with reference to buy/sell recommendations they give their clients that they then bet against and end up winning. One Goldman employee in particular, Tom Stolper, is one they love pointing to as evidence of this in that every single one of his recommendations to clients for the past 4 years has been a loser for the client. Goldman merely does the opposite of whatever that guy tells the clients and ends up winning every time.

No truer words have been spoken, my friend.

The Republicans have no reason to agree to anything until after January 1st. They do not want to have to say that they voted for a tax increase so they’d rather wait until the tax rates go up and then vote for the bill that will allow tax rates for incomes under $250,000 to be “cut”. They really have no leverage in these negotiations, so the emphasis is on mitigation

I think you’re missing the subtext of what DeMint is saying. He’s not saying they’ll vote for the Senate bill. By invoking the claim that taxes will go up on everyone he’s telegraphing to those paying attention that there will be no deal until after the New Year. Hence, the Bush tax cuts expire and go up on everyone until a bill is passed that lowers them on those with incomes less than $250,000. That way Republicans get to claim that they never voted for a tax increase. The only thing they’re crying uncle to is their fealty to Grover.

This is all perfectly understandable. The entire system is careening towards apocalyptic disaster. It’s why Bernanke instituted QE Infinity in September. The Powers that Be in the Shadow Banking system are deleveraging their fake assets now before the imminent collapse to come, forcing Bernanke to continue to push more new money into the system to keep the entire financial system from collapsing right now. But once the market participants realize that QE Infinity has crossed from diminishing returns to negative returns, the markets will collapse just like 2008 only much larger. However, those same Powers that Be will have the money to buy everyone else’s hard assets for pennies on the dollar. Why do you think all these people are heading for the exits? People like Geithner and Hillary. Do you think they want to be around once this apocalypse hits? Why do you think Obama signed the NDAA? Look at the links below, some of which are from 2 years ago and tell me if it isn’t eerily familiar? Especially that Oliver Wyman analysis. Good analysis in the links, but you’ll have to deal with their constant (and purposeful in my opinion) conflation of Keynesianism with Monetarism and Cronyism.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-09-23/fed-has-another-39-trillion-qe-go-least

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/chris-martenson-are-we-heading-another-2008

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/bagus-bernanke-rebuttal-redux

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/guest-post-federal-reserves-cargo-cult-magic-housing-will-lift-economy-again

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-11-02/reform-collapse-dysfunctional-status-quo

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-11-09/are-markets-and-macro-repeating-2008

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/chris-martenson-we-are-about-have-another-2008-style-crisis

http://www.oliverwyman.com/media/OW_EN_FS_Publ_2011_State_of_Financial_Services_2011_US_Web.pdf

Can you explain to me how Obama is going to justify cutting corporate tax rates when they pay nothing as it is and after the whole CRS supressed report brouhaha? I’m not doubting you at all, I’m just incredulous that he’s still pushing for something that can be empirically proved to be worthless and offering up our Social Security to do it! How exactly does he think that is a winning proposition for Democratic constituencies? It’s like he has no idea what sells in his own party.

I think Obama is just eager to relive Dubya’s mistake when he got his 2nd term. His presidency was basically over 6 months after re-election for trying to mess with Social Security. Just think how terrible 2008 would have been had the elderly been forced to have those god awful private accounts?