Author: admin

Obamacare’s rollout may be in limbo even though the official deadline has come and gone (despite a much touted 2 million visitors to healthcare.gov on Monday which probably means it should IPO immediately), but the real sticker shock of actual fees awaits. And even as most insurers are opting to keep the full impact of the higher cost hidden, instead adding them to the overhead premiums charged, one company, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama, has itemized the impact of the Unaffordable Care Act by adding a separate line itme for the “Affordable Care Act Fees and Taxes.” Here is how these add up according to a breakdown conducted by the Post.

The new taxes on one customer’s bill added up to $23.14 a month, or $277.68 annually, according to Kaiser Health News. It boosted the monthly premium from $322.26 to $345.40 for that individual.

 

The new taxes and fees include a 2 percent levy on every health plan, which is expected to net about $8 billion for the government in 2014 and increase to $14.3 billion in 2018.

 

There’s also a $2 fee per policy that goes into a new medical-research trust fund called the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute.

 

Americans also will pay hidden taxes, such as the 2.3 percent medical-device tax that will inflate the cost of items such as pacemakers, stents and prosthetic limbs.

 

Those with high out-of-pocket medical expenses also will get smaller income-tax deductions.

 

Americans are currently allowed to deduct expenses that exceed 7.5 percent of their annual income. The threshold jumps to 10 percent under ObamaCare, costing taxpayers about $15 billion over 10 years.

Then there is the new Medicare tax:

Under ObamaCare, individual tax filers earning more than $200,000 and families earning more than $250,000 will pay an added 0.9 percent Medicare surtax on top of the existing 1.45 percent Medicare payroll tax. They’ll also pay an extra 3.8 percent Medicare tax on unearned income, such as investment dividends, rental income and capital gains.

So will a big story for 2014 be Americans taking out student loans, already over $1 trillion and more than all US credit card debt, to pay for their health insurance? We hope to find out soon as the biggest capital misallocation in US history continues.

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/VvfRjocM3k0/story01.htm Tyler Durden

 

Albert Einstein said:

A foolish faith in authority is the worst enemy of the truth.

Indeed, scientists have shown that people will go to absurd lengths – and engage in mental gymnastics – in order to cling to their belief in what those in authority have said.

Part of the reason so many are so vulnerable to naive belief in authority is that we evolved in small tribes … and we assume that the super-elites are just like us.

In reality, there are millions of psychopaths in the world … and they are largely running D.C. and on Wall Street.

These people have no hesitation in lying to promote their goals.

The Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs told Morley Safer of 60 Minutes and CBS News:

Look, if you think any American official is going to tell you the truth, then you’re stupid. Did you hear that? — stupid.

And studies show that the super-rich lie, cheat and steal more than the rest of us.

Who’s to Blame … Big Government or Big Business?

Conservatives tend to believe that the captains of industry are virtuous and that the government can’t be trusted.

Liberals tend to believe that government servants are virtuous and that corporations can’t be trusted.

But the truth is that psychopaths are psychopaths … whether they’re in the private sector or government.

And there is no such thing as representative government or free market capitalism anymore. Big corporate money has coopted the government; and ill-guided politicians have destroyed the free market.

Corrupt government agencies and officials and corrupt corporations and executives have become intertwined in a malignant, symbiotic relationship.

And they’re trying to grab more and more power and wealth every day.

Big Business Has Turned Into a Criminal Syndicate

Big banks and giant oil companies have more or less become criminal enterprises.

And conservatives are not amused.

Government Has Gone Rogue

If the government were accountable, then government corruption, deceit and wrongdoing would be held to a modest level.

But the government is not accountable.

When bad government policy leads to bad results, the government manipulates the data … instead of changing policy.

Government pumps out massive amounts of propaganda through the mainstream and “gatekeeper” alternative media, movies, video games, and other venues.

The government has launched a war on journalism, and censors and manipulates social media. And see this.

The massive NSA is spying on all of us – including government officials, reporters, and everyone else – as a way to crush dissent.

And people who criticize government policy or government officials may literally be labeled terrorists.

No wonder the American public has lost faith in the 2 party system. And see this.

People of faith shouldn’t be fooled into blindly deferring to government authority.

Bonus:

• “You Can Opt Out From Facebook, But You Can’t Opt Out From The NSA” 

• Prime Minister: “A Lack Of Courage To Take On Vested Interests Are Pushing Us Inexorably Toward The Next Crash”

• Bloomberg: Trans Pacific Partnership Is “Corporatist Power Grab”, “As Democratic And Transparent As A One-Party State,” Shrouded In “Big Brother-Like Secrecy”

• Head of UN Mission Investigating Syrian Chemical Weapons Debunks One of America’s Main Arguments

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/G3AwDBbM4Hc/story01.htm George Washington

For the second time in 6 months, French joblessness has re-surged back towards record highs, dashing the hopes and dreams of a European recovery. The first time it was thousands of texts that didn’t get sent that implied joblessness dropped, this time, no excuse and we push back to within 2k of the all-time high unemployment in France. As Germany heads inexorably in the other direction, one can only hope the French President does not decide to take matters into his own hands and ‘draft’ the youth into employment.

 

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/FTxAGS2g-3U/story01.htm Tyler Durden

As US and European stocks glide effortlessly higher, even the most ardent of US bulls has begun to realize things are getting out of hand. In order to keep his AUM flowing (and afford the next yacht), the friendly local asset gatherer will offer insights like… “there is value overseas” or “Europe is cheap” in hopes that his audience is none the wise as to the true state of affairs elsewhere in the world, let alone in the US. The truth, the gap between US and European earnings has never been wider and with 3 (or 4) false dawns already, European earnings (supposedly the true mother’s milk of the stock market) continue to fall – as the strong ‘whatever-it-takes’ EUR does nothing but stymie their recovery.

 

 

S&P 500 earnings are 14% above their 2007 peak while euro-area profits are 53% below their all-time high in March 2008 (of course, this is not firm EBITDA but earnings per share – which is a mirage of low-credit-cost buyback-driven float shrink in some nations of the world… but still)

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/rDGRm3YLSY0/story01.htm Tyler Durden

by Keith Weiner

 

There are two reasons why people buy gold and silver. The first is that they’re the monetary metals. Many people don’t want more than a certain exposure to the risks of the banking system. They hold dollars for liquidity and beyond that exchange them for metallic money. This money is not for trading.

The second is to trade or, more specifically, to speculate. They buy with the expectation of a rising price. The gold price, measured in dollars, is really just the inverse of the dollar price measured in gold. As the Fed abuses its credit, the quality of its liability falls. This liability—the dollar—has been falling in quality and price for 100 years. Measured in gold, the dollar is now just under 26mg. Or, measured in silver, it’s around 1.6 grams. Most people look at the inverse, the dollar prices of the metals, currently around $1200 and $19.50.

It makes for a great speculation, that the dollar will continue to fall. At least, it did until 2011. The gold price peaked in 2011 at $1900, and has since dropped 37%. The silver price dropped 60%.

One speculation strategy is to buy when something is going up. Today, there is clearly no upward momentum in gold and silver. The other approach is to try to buy when there’s blood in the streets, as the old trader’s saying goes. OK, but is there blood in the gold and silver streets?

I write the Monetary Metals Supply and Demand Report, a free weekly letter that provides data and analysis of the constantly changing fundamentals of the gold and silver markets. The data shows that gold is significantly scarcer to the market than silver; gold has a small backwardation and silver does not.

For months, I have discussed my hunch that there just has not been the final capitulation in silver as in gold. I have seen the comments on my own and other articles, and in other online forums.

I couldn’t prove it, but it kept nagging at me. Then I put together this graph of inventory held in the two big Exchange Traded Funds: GLD and SLV.

 

Tonnes of Metal Held by the ETFs, Jan 2009 through Dec 2013

The picture in gold is what you’d expect. Gold metal begins to move out of the GLD inventories around the start of this year, and it has been almost a straight move down. There is no sign yet of a bottom. Gold inventory is down 40% from its peak one year ago.

Silver violently diverged. As one might expect, silver held by SLV peaked on April 25, 2011, the day the price peaked. Metal began moving out of the ETF the next day. The level quickly dropped by 14%, but then stopped falling. Then, at the end of 2012, inventory began to rise. Though the silver price is down 60%, silver holdings are down only 9%.

The reason for metal to flow in or out of an ETF is counterintuitive. It has nothing to do with price moves. The flow of metal depends entirely on the spread between the prices of the ETF and the metal itself. Arbitrageurs buy metal and sell new shares, whenever the share price is above the metal price. They sell metal and buy back shares when the share price is lower.

The graph shows a one-way flow of gold out of GLD. This means that the price of GLD shares has consistently sagged below the price of gold. This corresponds to negative sentiment regarding this metal. By contrast, more metal has flowing into SLV than out.

In general, I caution against just this sort of analysis. It is easy to focus on a highly visible corner of the market and ignore numerous low-profile corners. Both gold and silver have vast inventories; there is no such thing as a
shortage or a glut. Metal can move from one corner to the other without necessarily impacting price or anything else.

But in this case, the reason to study this chart is to understand sentiment among speculators. I suggest that sentiment in silver has not made its nadir, and that silver speculators yet cling to hope against hope that its price will shoot to the moon.

The irony is that my statement is controversial and contra the accepted wisdom in the silver community. If speculators had turned truly pessimistic about silver, then my statement would be uncontroversial, but advising people to buy silver would spark controversy.

One can never be certain about sentiment changes, but it’s a strong possibility that silver speculator pessimism rises to match that in gold. If this happens, the silver price could drop several more dollars. This is a time to be cautious with silver, though I never advise naked shorting a monetary metal.

 

(C) 2013 Monetary Metals

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/e_r849xUEEk/story01.htm Monetary Metals