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When Barack Obama, floundering in the endless humiliation from the disastrous rollout of Obamacare, gave the country’s insurance  companies the “put option” to reject the one-year “cancellation” extension fix stemming from the whole “if you like your plan, you can keep it, period” fiasco, he committed a cardinal sin – he lost control of the situation, because from that point onward the decision was no longer in his court. Furthermore, due to the syndicate nature of insurance companies and state insurance commissioners implementing Obamacare, suddenly the decision was subject to game theoretical facets including cooperation and defection, or rather just defection since at this point the biggest spoils would go to whoever had the initial leverage or rather, defiance of the president. Sure enough, California just flopped on Obama’s most recent flip when the state, moments ago, rejected Obama’s proposed fix to allow legacy plans to survive for one additional year.

• CALIFORNIA REJECTS OBAMA’S INSURANCE CANCELLATION FIX
• CALIFORNIA REJECTS 1-YEAR EXTENSION OF CANCELED INSURANCE PLANS

More from Bloomberg:

California officials implementing President Barack Obama’s health-care overhaul rejected a one- year extension of insurance plans that are to be canceled under the law.

 

The president has urged states to give people with substandard medical plans an additional year to meet the law’s requirements after hundreds of thousands  received cancellation notices and were told new policies to meet minimum rules for coverage would cost more. “That’s making the best of not-great options, but I think it’s the best option and then we can focus in the coming months on the enrollment we need,” Peter V. Lee, the executive director of Covered California, the health exchange, said today at a meeting in Sacramento.

 

California’s decision is critical to the roll-out of Obamacare nationwide. The most populous U.S. state, which received almost $1 billion in federal grants to implement the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, led the U.S. in signups last month. The law requires all Americans to be covered next year or pay a penalty.

 

It’s up to state regulators and insurance companies to decide whether to delay the cancellations, which conflicted with Obama’s promise that consumers who liked their existing plans could keep them.

 

The exchange said 79,891 Californians had selected a health plan through Covered California as of Nov. 19. Enrollment began Oct. 1.

And from AP:

The board overseeing California’s health insurance exchange has voted to stick with its current approach of phasing out by year’s end health insurance policies that do not meet current benefit requirements. The Covered California Board of Directors voted 5-0 on Thursday to hold steady on its current approach, defying President Barack Obama’s recent flip on one crucial aspect of the Affordable Care Act.

 

The state insurance commissioner had said that 1.1 million Californians are receiving notices that their current individual health insurance policies will be discontinued in 2014 because they do not meet the benefit requirements of the federal health care overhaul.

 

That has angered some policy holders, many of whom will see their monthly premiums and deductibles rise sharply with the new plans being offered. It also flies in the face of promises Obama made repeatedly when he said people who liked their current health insurance policies could keep them under his health insurance reforms.

 

The president has since backtracked and has asked states to allow insurance companies to extend those older policies.

 

But many insurance companies oppose that, saying doing so would undermine the new markets being set up under Obama’s law. They also said they did not have enough time to rebuild policies they already had discontinued.

And while Calirofnia’s decision certainly makes sense financially for the insolvent state (if not any other more prudent states), it merely adds to Obama’s political crucifixion as now it will appear as if he has lost all control over not just the website enrollment process, but also the entire onboarding process and is unable to even keep beneficiary states under control.

Welcome to socialist central planning 101 – where everything that can go wrong, sooner or later does.

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/Q4YK1Itn2Xo/story01.htm Tyler Durden

When Barack Obama, floundering in the endless humiliation from the disastrous rollout of Obamacare, gave the country’s insurance  companies the “put option” to reject the one-year “cancellation” extension fix stemming from the whole “if you like your plan, you can keep it, period” fiasco, he committed a cardinal sin – he lost control of the situation, because from that point onward the decision was no longer in his court. Furthermore, due to the syndicate nature of insurance companies and state insurance commissioners implementing Obamacare, suddenly the decision was subject to game theoretical facets including cooperation and defection, or rather just defection since at this point the biggest spoils would go to whoever had the initial leverage or rather, defiance of the president. Sure enough, California just flopped on Obama’s most recent flip when the state, moments ago, rejected Obama’s proposed fix to allow legacy plans to survive for one additional year.

• CALIFORNIA REJECTS OBAMA’S INSURANCE CANCELLATION FIX
• CALIFORNIA REJECTS 1-YEAR EXTENSION OF CANCELED INSURANCE PLANS

More from Bloomberg:

California officials implementing President Barack Obama’s health-care overhaul rejected a one- year extension of insurance plans that are to be canceled under the law.

 

The president has urged states to give people with substandard medical plans an additional year to meet the law’s requirements after hundreds of thousands  received cancellation notices and were told new policies to meet minimum rules for coverage would cost more. “That’s making the best of not-great options, but I think it’s the best option and then we can focus in the coming months on the enrollment we need,” Peter V. Lee, the executive director of Covered California, the health exchange, said today at a meeting in Sacramento.

 

California’s decision is critical to the roll-out of Obamacare nationwide. The most populous U.S. state, which received almost $1 billion in federal grants to implement the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, led the U.S. in signups last month. The law requires all Americans to be covered next year or pay a penalty.

 

It’s up to state regulators and insurance companies to decide whether to delay the cancellations, which conflicted with Obama’s promise that consumers who liked their existing plans could keep them.

 

The exchange said 79,891 Californians had selected a health plan through Covered California as of Nov. 19. Enrollment began Oct. 1.

And from AP:

The board overseeing California’s health insurance exchange has voted to stick with its current approach of phasing out by year’s end health insurance policies that do not meet current benefit requirements. The Covered California Board of Directors voted 5-0 on Thursday to hold steady on its current approach, defying President Barack Obama’s recent flip on one crucial aspect of the Affordable Care Act.

 

The state insurance commissioner had said that 1.1 million Californians are receiving notices that their current individual health insurance policies will be discontinued in 2014 because they do not meet the benefit requirements of the federal health care overhaul.

 

That has angered some policy holders, many of whom will see their monthly premiums and deductibles rise sharply with the new plans being offered. It also flies in the face of promises Obama made repeatedly when he said people who liked their current health insurance policies could keep them under his health insurance reforms.

 

The president has since backtracked and has asked states to allow insurance companies to extend those older policies.

 

But many insurance companies oppose that, saying doing so would undermine the new markets being set up under Obama’s law. They also said they did not have enough time to rebuild policies they already had discontinued.

And while Calirofnia’s decision certainly makes sense financially for the insolvent state (if not any other more prudent states), it merely adds to Obama’s political crucifixion as now it will appear as if he has lost all control over not just the website enrollment process, but also the entire onboarding process and is unable to even keep beneficiary states under control.

Welcome to socialist central planning 101 – where everything that can go wrong, sooner or later does.

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/Q4YK1Itn2Xo/story01.htm Tyler Durden

“All fixed”

 

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/Bh7Qyha9iz8/story01.htm Tyler Durden

“All fixed”

 

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/Bh7Qyha9iz8/story01.htm Tyler Durden

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France’s General de Gaulle once said that the only thing that would unite Europe would be China. At the time he was probably visionary in the knowledge that the Europeans would never unite. There was too much rivalry and there always has been. The British and the French have always been at odds and the French have always been jealously wary of the German’s capacity to work harder than they can and to show the full fruit of their industriousness. The Germans have always secretly known that they are the best and looked down upon the then agriculturally-oriented (and therefore worthless, in their eyes) countries like Italy, Spain and Portugal. He certainly got one other thing correct when he said that it would be the Chinese.

Europeans would only unite when the Chinese forced them to.

China has become not only demographically the leading country of the world, but they have become economically the country to invest in and commercially number one. That’s all cause for concern.

They have taken over from Japan as the Land of the Rising Sun. The sun set a long time ago on that Empire and we don’t even need to mention the failures of the US system that have resulted in its decline. The good thing about the Chinese is that they have no qualms about despising democracy and espousing dictatorship. The West just makes a show of brash support for the former and public outcry at the latter. Then, it does exactly as it chooses, flouting what itdictates to be democratic. The West dictates democracy while the Chinese plod on solemnly on their Long March towards success. China is already the number one trading nation of the world and has been since 2012.

Left in the Dark

The West will be left in the dark begging for the lights to come back on soon as they realize that China has not only become the world leader in yet something else, namely solar-panels, but also that the West has been pointing their own solar panels in the wrong direction now for years.

A new study that was carried out in the US has suddenly discovered that the solar panels that have been installed around the world and that all face South are in actual fact facing the wrong direction.

According to the study carried out by the Pecan Street Research Institute if the panels face West, they increase electricity production by 49% during peak demand.

What is surprising is that nobody has ever carried out a study on the best direction to gain increases in electricity generation. People simply presumed that it was South that would give the best energy-supply levels.  The study showed the panels that faced South only generated a 54%-peak reduction (peak: 3pm to 7pm), while panels that faced Westwards were able to generate a 65%-peak reduction. The CEO of Pecan Street Research Brewster McCracken stated that “there was no other residential demand response tool generating 60% reductions.”

Europe and the West will be going back to lighting candles that they will probably end up buying also from the Chinese in the next few years. How is it conceivable to imagine that those that are paid to do research might not have actually carried out tests to see in which direction the solar panels should have been facing?

• By using solar panels the world could be powered with relatively little surface area covered today by their installation.
• It would take about the surface area of Spain to do so or just over 190, 000 square miles.
• Today however the US only generates 0.17% of its power from photovoltaic sources, generating 6.9 million megawatt-hours of electricity.
• Solar energy has increased in the USA and in 2007 it increased by 17%.
• There are some that believe that it could grow to an estimated 10% of energy needs of the USA within the next decade.
• The US accounts for 10% of the world’s market share of installations and its own electric capacity from solar power increased by 76% between 2011 and 2012.
• The Federal government believes that it is a viable source of energy and just powering the US would only use 0.5% of the available energy that the sun has, according to experts.
• There is a current investment of $968 million via federal subsidies to the solar-power industry in the US.

China is set to become the world’s leader in all renewable energy sources. Not only will they have the world economically-speaking but they will have the world in terms of controlling their energy supply.

• China plans to produce 21 gigawatts by 2015 from solar power.
• 80% of electricity comes from coal today in China and the recent problems with air pollution that have plagued major cities are set to be a thing of the past.
• China has become the world’s largest producer of solar panels in the world and they have managed to do so in just two years (with 30% of the solar-panel market today).
• Research (Harvard and Tsinghua Universities) shows that all electricity demand could be met by renewable sources within the next fifteen years for the country.

Let’s hope they manage to get the panels facing in the right direction!

 

Originally posted: Solar Panels: Back to the Dark Ages

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via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/zWPN0Fk9zBg/story01.htm Pivotfarm

David Einhorn begins his discussion on the market warning that “certain aspects of the market are very much in bubble,”  with investors “dismissing valuation metrics.” “The market is confused,” between useful products and real profit streams, he suggests for a number of headline-grabbing higly speculative names. More broadly, Einhorn believes real damage has been done by Fed policy, and is “not convinced if or when they will ever taper.” Crucially, he adds, we may see another rollover/recession and “the Fed will pour more fuel on the fire.” The cognitive bias he exposes is that most people believe the Fed policy is supporting the economy (in some way), whereas (as we noted here) there are real costs and as Einhorn notes “Fed policy is a headwind to the economy,” as he quantifies the hundreds of billions in lost interest income relative to wealth gains. Owning gold makes sense, he adds, “in case they lose control.”

 

“I’m not convinced when — or if they’ll ever taper,” he said. “I don’t know. We may go into the next crisis, the next depression/recession rollover, and the next move might be to pour more fuel on the fire. It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest.”

Einhorn’s broad market thoughts begin at 5:30,

 

And his gold comments begin at 10:30,

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/9Ep9fxC6idE/story01.htm Tyler Durden

David Einhorn begins his discussion on the market warning that “certain aspects of the market are very much in bubble,”  with investors “dismissing valuation metrics.” “The market is confused,” between useful products and real profit streams, he suggests for a number of headline-grabbing higly speculative names. More broadly, Einhorn believes real damage has been done by Fed policy, and is “not convinced if or when they will ever taper.” Crucially, he adds, we may see another rollover/recession and “the Fed will pour more fuel on the fire.” The cognitive bias he exposes is that most people believe the Fed policy is supporting the economy (in some way), whereas (as we noted here) there are real costs and as Einhorn notes “Fed policy is a headwind to the economy,” as he quantifies the hundreds of billions in lost interest income relative to wealth gains. Owning gold makes sense, he adds, “in case they lose control.”

 

“I’m not convinced when — or if they’ll ever taper,” he said. “I don’t know. We may go into the next crisis, the next depression/recession rollover, and the next move might be to pour more fuel on the fire. It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest.”

Einhorn’s broad market thoughts begin at 5:30,

 

And his gold comments begin at 10:30,

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/9Ep9fxC6idE/story01.htm Tyler Durden