Tag: news

While “Medicare-for-all” is set to become a 2020 Democratic talking point, support for the universal healthcare scheme crumbles when people are asked if they’d be willing to pay higher taxes or put up with delays in treatment to get it, according to the Associated Press.

According to a survey released Wednesday by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, initial support for the “Medicare-for-all” comes in at 56% – increasing to as much as 71% when people are told it would guarantee health insurance as a right, eliminate premiums and reduce out-of-pocket expenses. 

When told that it would increase taxes or lead to delays in service, however, support for the program dropped to 37% and 26% respectively.

“The issue that will really be fundamental would be the tax issue,” says Harvard professor Robert Blendon of the T.H. Chan School of Public Health in response to the poll. Blendon noted that single-payer programs in Vermont and Colorado failed due to concerns over tax increases required to fund them. 

There doesn’t seem to be much disagreement that a single-payer system would require tax increases, since the government would take over premiums now paid by employers and individuals as it replaces the private health insurance industry. The question is how much.

Several independent studies have estimated that government spending on health care would increase dramatically, in the range of about $25 trillion to $35 trillion or more over a 10-year period. But a recent estimate from the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst suggests that it could be much lower. –Associated Press

In the first year of the program, the government would need to come up with around $1.1 trillion to fund the program, even with significant cost savings. 

According to Mollyann Brodie who directed the Kaiser poll, the big swings in approval vs. disapproval suggest that the debate over “Medicare-for-all” will only heat up from here. “You immediately see that opinion is not set in stone on this issue,” she said. 

“Any public debate about ‘Medicare-for-all’ will be a divisive issue for the country at large,” added Brodie. 

The poll also reveals that most Democrats want House Democrats to focus on improving the Affordable Care Act (ACA, a.k.a. Obamacare).

Two other Democratic healthcare alternatives received widespread support according to the poll. 

Majorities across the political spectrum backed allowing people ages 50-64 to buy into Medicare, as well as allowing people who don’t have health insurance on the job to buy into their state’s Medicaid program.

Separately, another private survey out Wednesday finds the uninsured rate among US adults rose to 13.7% in the last three months of 2018. The Gallup National Health and Well-Being Index found an increase of 2.8 percentage points since 2016, the year Trump was elected promising to repeal “Obamacare.” That would translate to about 7 million more uninsured adults. –Associated Press

According to government surveys, the rate of uninsured has remained virtually unchanged under Trump.  

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2FVk2YZ Tyler Durden

Via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

“The world’s economy is growing more slowly than expected and risks are rising.”

– Christine Lagarde, IMF Managing Director

The recent market rally, which I had expected, has not surprisingly overshot many observers’ upside expectations.

A possible explanation for the market’s extreme moves in the last two months or so is likely market structure in which the dominant force in the market (passive investors) worship at the altar of price momentum and are increasingly agnostic to balance sheets, income statements and “intrinsic values.” Indeed, in a market dominated by ETFs and quant trading (structured to “buy higher and sell lower”) and in which there is nothing like price to improve sentiment — investors seem to be ignoring the market’s shaky fundamental foundation.

The three core reasons to be bullish (and my responses) seem to be:

1. A more dovish Federal Reserve – I continue to believe the Fed, facing a disappointing domestic economy, will cease rate hikes in 2019. While many see this as positive, I think it reflects slowing growth. And with federal funds at only about 2.5% there are few monetary tools to stimulate growth going forward.

2. Confidence with regard to global economic growth – This view is unjustified based on high frequency economic data in the U.S. and by weakening growth in Europe and China. (See the quote from IMF’s Lagarde above) Even if interest rates are not increased, I don’t see it as a factor that will even stabilize U.S. growth. My baseline expectation is for +1% to +2% first half U.S. growth and a negative print in this year’s second half based on restrictive Fed policy (Quantitative Tightening), untenable debt loads, the widening national debt, political turmoil and a lapping of fiscal stimulus. The chances of a rate cut are increasing for this year (See my 15 Surprises for 2019).

3. The improving prospects for a resolution of our trade dispute with China – Over to my right, Jim “El Capitan” Cramer makes the case (which now seems to have become consensus) that China’s economic weakness improves the chance of a negotiated trade compromise with China. This is something I strongly disagree with – as I wrote in mid-January, 2019 in “An Optimistic View of Trade Talks With China May Not Be Justified”:

“If you are going to take them on, now is the time to take them on.

That was a prevailing sentiment I got from a surprising number of people in the tech world who do not like President Trump but do endorse his policy to get China to play fair or risk the consequences of losing our market to sell its wares.

Given the timing — Sunday night we learned that China’s exports were down 4.4% in December while imports were off 7.6%, the worst since 2016, while the trade surplus with the U.S. hit a record in 2018 — I think this harsher-than-expected-view may be more realistic than most investors think…

I think it’s because China has never been more vulnerable and we have rarely been as strong as we are right now.”–Jim “El Capitan” Cramer, It is Now or Never to Push Change With China

That makes sense.

However, I don’t see the “other side’s” sense of urgency — even as China’s economy continues to disappoint. Stated simply, China thinks in a time frame of decades while President Trump thinks in a time frame of a tweet.

While a superficial agreement with China is always possible, I don’t see anything meaningful that addresses the core issues of intellectual property, technology exchange, etc.

As well, I suspect President Trump has his hands filled with other issues (the government shutdown and the border wall dispute, personal issues, etc.), and though in need of a win or a distraction, may find it difficult to focus on China.

My guess is that China guts out its economic weakness and little progress is made on trade between the two parties over the next few months. (This is a consistent view I have had).

Bottom Line

“You’ll be swell! You’ll be great!
Gonna have the whole world on the plate!
Starting here, starting now,
honey, everything’s coming up roses!”

– Ethel Merman, Everything’s Coming up Roses

The market’s market structure (and limited natural price discovery) means that equities will increasingly moves to extremes, in a new regime of volatility (which will likely continue until there is the next significant “Flash Crash”). And the list of possible outcomes (many of them adverse) has never been higher in an increasingly flat and interconnected world.

• Excessive pessimism and poor price action contributed to a Christmas Eve low which provided an opportunity to go long.

• Excessive optimism and good price action is now contributing to a late January high which might be providing an opportunity to sell stocks.

Sorry, Ethel, everything is not coming up roses.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2RLNHLi Tyler Durden

Four months after Syria and Russia agreed to call off its joint attack on HTS/al-Qaeda held Idlib province, opting amidst US threats to cut a ceasefire deal mediated with Turkey, Moscow now says Ankara has failed to live up to its end of the bargain, which included agreeing to clear Idlib of terrorists and extremist groups. This means a joint Syrian Army-Russia assault on Idlib could again be on the horizon, which was a major source of tension and threats with the United States previously in September. 

The collapse of the prior ‘deescalation’ agreement comes at a time when the White House has vowed to stick to the planned US pullout, however, this could be yet a another major development to complicate or delay any possible withdrawal timeline. FT described current Turkish-Russian talks in Moscow as follows:

Russia has accused Turkey of failing to live up to a promise to clear Syria’s Idlib of extremist militant groups and admitted that a landmark ceasefire agreement made last September had failed. Ahead of crunch talks between the leaders of the two countries in Moscow on Wednesday, Russia’s foreign ministry said the Islamist extremist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) had “full control” of Syria’s last remaining major opposition stronghold. The damning assessment came four months after Moscow agreed to postpone a planned military assault on the city in exchange for a promise from Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan to clear it of militants.

HTS is of course the rebranded coalition dominated by former Nusra Front militants, which is Syrian al-Qaeda. Russia has called the situation “rapidly deterioration” and this week pointed to growing numbers of ceasefire violations and incidents and threats against Russia’s Hmeimim airbase in Syria. Russia’s Foreign Ministry cited that “65 people have been killed and more than 200 injured in more than 1,000 recorded breaches of the agreement,” according to FT. This despite Erdogan previously agreeing to keep militants away from a 15km to 20km deep buffer zone established between HTS and pro-Damascus forces. 

Turkey for its part has predictably laid blame on Assad, saying Damascus had for years purposefully facilitated the resettling of al-Qaeda terrorists in the northwest Syrian province. Russian spokesperson Maria Zakharova described that the Idlib ceasefire zone had “essentially been taken under the full control of militants from the al-Nusra alliance, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, through the ousting of moderate armed opposition units.”

Last September as Syrian Army forces began to mobilized for a planned major attack on what even the United States has acknowledged as the last major al-Qaeda stronghold in Syria, US officials played the chemical weapons card, warning that if there was so much as an accusation of banned weapons usage on the part of the Syrian-Russian coalition that Washington would intervene. The Turkey deal subsequently took shape when Erdogan and Putin aggreed that a temporary ceasefire between the countries would “avert a major humanitarian crisis” — especially given that some 3 million civilians live amidst al-Qaeda and extremist groups.

Likely hawks within the Trump administration will seize on this now “collapsed” deal, as well as last week’s ISIS suicide attack on a US patrol in Manbij, which killed 4 Americans, to argue the Pentagon must stay the course and maintain a muscular presence in order to prevent any future “massacre” of civilians and fighters in Idlib.

Should Turkish officials depart Moscow without salvaging any part of the ceasefire, and if Syrian Army shelling and preparations for an assault resume, the Syrian proxy war will turn red hot once again, opening the possibility of yet more US intervention, instead of the planned draw down.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2Tchtpm Tyler Durden

Authored by Nick Cunningham via Oilprice.com,

The shale tidal wave may finally be starting to ebb…

The largest oilfield services company in the world says that shale drilling activity is slowing, creating an uncertain outlook for 2019.

The recent volatility in oil prices has created “less visibility and more uncertainty” on spending by shale companies in 2019, Schlumberger’s CEO Paal Kibsgaard said on an earnings call on January 18.

Shale drillers are “generally taking a more conservative approach to the start of the year, again delaying the broad based recovery in the E&P spend that we expected only three months ago,” he said.

Kibsgaard said that spending from the shale industry could be flat or down this year relative to 2018. That could translate into lower drilling activity, while E&Ps focus on drawing down the enormous backlog of drilled but uncompleted wells (DUCs). Companies working through DUCs could keep production aloft even as drilling slows, but output would likely fall relative to 2018, while decelerating further in 2020.

Schlumberger’s chief executive also warned that the shale industry could see other problems going forward that could be even more significant. Shale drilling suffers from a precipitous decline in output soon after a well is completed. After an initial burst in output, wells see a rapid decline in production. This is not news; it has characterized shale drilling for years.

But this dynamic appears to be a growing problem, one that could soon catch up with the industry.

“It is also worth noting that with the continued growth in U.S. shale production, an increasing percentage of the new wells drilled are being consumed to offset the steep decline from the existing production base,” Kibsgaard told shareholders and analysts on Schlumberger’s earnings call.

“The third party analysis shows that in 2018, this number was 54% of total CapEx and is expected to increase to 75% in 2021, clearly demonstrating the unavoidable treadmill effect of shale oil production.” 

Beyond that, well interference is also a mounting problem. Drilling wells too close to one another can cannibalize production, raising costs and leading to less overall output. That becomes a larger problem over time after companies pick over the best acreage. Additionally, the length of laterals and the use of frac sand and other proppants have reached the limits of what they can achieve.

“We could be facing a more moderate growth in U.S. shale production in the coming years than what the most optimistic views have been suggesting,” Kibsgaard warned.

That echoes the problems of shale gas giant EQT. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month that even as EQT was breaking new frontiers in terms of the length of the shale wells the company was drilling, the economics proved highly disappointing. Last April, one shale gas well EQT drilled exceeded 18,000 feet, and EQT thought it could drill horizontal wells approaching 20,000 feet. “The decision to drill some of the longest horizontal wells ever in shale rocks turned into a costly misstep costing hundreds of millions of dollars,” the Wall Street Journal reported. EQT’s CEO said later in the year that its wells were encountering problems when they exceeded 15,000 feet.

In other words, even as shale oil and gas drillers boast of their ability to achieve ever-increasing gains by drilling longer laterals, using more sand, packing wells into tighter distances – there are signs that these “efficiency gains” are maxing out.

Schlumberger still sees a rebound in drilling over the course of 2019, but in the short run, the fall in oil prices is taking a toll. Baker Hughes reported a massive decline in the active rig count last week, with 21 oil rigs vanishing from American oil fields along with four natural gas rigs. That puts the U.S. oil rig count at its lowest point in eight months. There is typically a lag between major movements in crude prices and a response in the rig count. But a few months on from the collapse of oil prices, we are finally starting to see the effects. Last week’s decline of 21 rigs is the largest one-week drop in nearly three years. “Clearly the slump in the WTI price to $42 per barrel at year’s end made shale oil producers more cautious,” Commerzbank said in a note on Monday.

Looking at the latest oil production forecasts, there is also an expected slowdown in output on the way. The EIA said in its latest Short-Term Energy Outlook that U.S. oil production growth would slow to 1.1 million barrels per day (mb/d) this year, down from a surge of 1.6 mb/d in 2018. By next year, production growth will slow further to a 0.8 mb/d expansion.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2U7d5YE Tyler Durden

Covington Catholic High School student Nick Sandmann refused to apologize for standing his ground as a native american “Vietnam veteran” approached him banging a drum. 

“I mean, in hindsight, I wish we could’ve walked away and avoided the whole thing. But I can’t say that I’m sorry for listening to him and standing there,” Sandmann told “NBC Today” co-host Savannah Guthrie in an interview which has received harsh criticism from both the left and the right. 

“As far as standing there, I had every right to do so. My position is that I was not disrespectful to Mr. Phillips. I respect him. I’d like to talk to him…But I can’t say that I’m sorry for listening to him and standing there.” Nick Sandmann on if he owes anyone an apology pic.twitter.com/iiVqPtltjf

— TODAY (@TODAYshow) January 23, 2019

Wednesday’s interview evoked strong reactions – with liberals condemning NBC for interviewing Sandmann, and conservatives knocking the network for asking loaded questions. 

Do you think Pepe the Frog is available for Thursday’s show? Can Dylann Roof do a segment from prison? Heart-to-heart with some Fentanyl traffickers?

— Eric Garland (@ericgarland) January 22, 2019

This is a despicable & leading question.

TODAY SHOW: “You’re wrong. Why don’t you see your faults? Apologize.”

Nick: “Um, I just stood there.”

God Bless this kid for standing his ground against the SJW outrage mob that is the establishment media https://t.co/lyslqAsjpC

— Benny (@bennyjohnson) January 22, 2019

Why is Guthrie putting words in his mouth?

Listen to how she emphasizes “your own fault”

This is not the right way to treat a child. Shame on NBC https://t.co/P5VN6XoFm7

— Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) January 23, 2019

The Native American “Vietnam Vet” Nathan Phillips, meanwhile, has been outed for never serving in Vietnam despite repeatedly claiming to have done so, in a case of stolen valor. 

Skeptics of Phillips’ claim were vindicated following a correction in the Washington Post that reads: “Earlier versions of this story incorrectly said that Native American activist Nathan Phillips fought in the Vietnam War. Phillips said he served in the U.S. Marines but was never deployed to Vietnam.”

Nathan Phillips ‘war hero’ narrative is crumbling.

From WaPo: “Correction:…Phillips served in the U.S. Marines from 1972 to 1976 but was never deployed to Vietnam.”https://t.co/pDOOnuyCKq

— John Cardillo (@johncardillo) January 22, 2019

According to retired Navy Seal Don Shipley – whose YouTube channel is devoted to exposing stolen valor, Phillips’ records reveal that he was a refrigerator technician who went AWOL several times, and who was never deployed outside of the United States. 

Shipley adds that Phillips never served as a “recon ranger” as he has previously claimed. 

As the Gateway Pundit’s Cassandra Fairbanks notes, Phillips raised over $6,000 for a documentary about his life in which he claimed to be a Vietnam Veteran. 

Meanwhile, the memes are flowing:

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2ATvzVB Tyler Durden

After a brief lull when it looked like national media jobs might actually be growing thanks largely to the “Trump bump” in advertising revenue and the largesse of billionaire benefactors (see the Washington Post and LA Times), it looks like the American national media is back in job-shedding mode.

But the latest media organization to announce mass layoffs might not be what you would expect (*cough* BuzzFeed *cough*): On Wednesday afternoon, Verizon Media Group (which was briefly known as Oath) – which houses Yahoo’s former media division (including Yahoo Finance) – announced that it would slash 7% of its total headcount, equivalent to some 800 jobs, according to CNBC. 

The layoffs come after the division has consistently underperformed, and follow company-wide buyouts in December.

“Our goal is to create the best experiences for our consumers and the best platforms for our customers,” a Verizon spokesperson told CNBC. “Today marks a strategic step toward better execution of our plans for growth and innovation into the future.”

In an email to staff announcing the cuts, Verizon Media CEO Guru Gowrappan appeared to mimic the same tired “pivot to video” that has been tried unsuccessfully by many other media organizations.

* * *

To: allemployees@oath.com
Subject: Team Update
Team –
Last quarter, our leadership team worked to create the strategy that will propel Verizon Media. We honestly assessed where we are and outlined ambitious but achievable goals that poise us for growth. We shared it broadly with you, and together committed to deliver on our OKRs with meticulous planning, collaboration and rigorous execution.
As hard as it may have felt at times, we’ve made some great strides to serve our customers globally – from consolidating ad platforms, to expanding the Microsoft partnership, growing live programming and content offerings for our Supers, and prioritizing and launching 8 new or substantially updated products at Build It 2018.
In Q1, we’ll have 3 priority areas: first, grow our member-centric ecosystem with must-have mobile and video products and stem desktop declines; second, increase usage and spends flowing through B2B platforms; third, expand our video supply and overall distribution through partnerships. As we work to deliver on both short-term objectives to stabilize our business, we are also focused on long-term strategies that will accelerate distribution, growth and innovation as part of Verizon.
This week, we will make changes that will impact around 7% of our global workforce across the organization, as well as certain brands and products. These were difficult decisions, and we will ensure that our colleagues are treated with respect and fairness, and given the support they need. Resources and other career support will be provided to help our team members navigate the transition.
In addition, we’ve completed an exhaustive review to prioritize the programs that are currently in our portfolio – consumer products, ad products, platform features, partnerships and data centers.
While every business unit has to manage their P&L, these decisions are being made to streamline resources and invest in opportunities that will help us grow. You all know by now that I deeply believe in an owner mindset and focus as a key ingredient for success – going deep on fewer, key things that will have the greatest impact on our customers and business, and doing them exceptionally well.
I want to be clear that we will continue to scale, launch new products and innovate. We are an important part of Verizon and the $7+ billion in revenue we generate through our member-centric ecosystem puts us among the top tech/media companies in the world. Now is the time to go on the offensive, go deep on our big priorities and do everything we can to advance the business. We will talk more about this and answer questions Friday at Open House.
Our world continues to evolve at a faster pace, and we need to leap ahead of consumer trends. We are reimagining our future, and building new products that will become invaluable to consumers today and in the years to come. That’s the spirit of our company and the spirit we all embody as its Builders.
Best,
Guru

* * *

Notably, the mass layoffs at Verizon come shortly after Mic, the millennial-focused media website, abruptly laid off nearly its entire staff.

The cuts come after Hans Vestberg, Verizon’s CEO, said the carrier would focus on its network rather than buying media content, according to WSJ.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2FLmbam Tyler Durden