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Obamacare Goes Back on Trial: Supreme Court Agrees to Hear ACA Tax Subsidies Challenge

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed today to rule on
the Obamacare case King v. Burwell, which asks whether the
text of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act forbids the
granting of tax credits to individuals who purchased health
insurance on health care exchanges operated by the federal
government. The legal controversy arises from the fact that the
text of the 2010 health care law limits such tax credits to
individuals who purchased their insurance from an “exchange
established by a State.” Do those words cover the federally run and
established exchanges now operating in more than 30 states? We’ll
soon find out.

In its July 2014 ruling in favor of the Obama administration in
this case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit held that
while the text of the law appears to cut against the federal
government, the government’s interpretation was nonetheless
entitled to deference. “We cannot discern whether Congress intended
one way or another to make the tax credits available on
HHS-facilitated Exchanges. The relevant statutory sections appear
to conflict with one another, yielding different possible
interpretations,” the 4th Circuit argued. “Confronted with the
Act’s ambiguity, the IRS crafted a rule ensuring the credits’ broad
availability and furthering the goals of the law. In the face of
this permissible construction, we must defer to the IRS Rule.”

The big question now is whether the U.S. Supreme Court will also
defer to the I.R.S. rule, or whether this time around the Court
will deliver Obamacare a death blow.

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Obama’s Week Just Got Worse: Supreme Court To Rule On ObamaCare Subsidies

Getting ‘shellacked’ in the Midterms, coming 2nd to Putin as the world’s most powerful person, and now, as AP reports, The Supreme Court agrees to rule on insurance subsidies in a new challenge to ObamaCare. Simply put they will judge whether subsidies for middle- and lower-income people are legal…

As AP reports,

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a new challenge to President Barack Obama’s health care law.

The justices on Friday say they will decide whether the law authorizes subsidies that help millions of low- and middle-income people afford their health insurance premiums.

A federal appeals court upheld Internal Revenue Service regulations that allow health-insurance tax credits under the Affordable Care Act for consumers in all 50 states. Opponents argue that most of the subsidies are illegal.

The long-running political and legal campaign to overturn or limit the 2010 health overhaul will be making its second appearance at the Supreme Court.

The justices upheld the heart of the law in a 5-4 decision in 2012 in which Chief Justice John Roberts provided the decisive vote.

* * *

As Think Progress explains,

The Supreme Court announced on Friday that it would hear a lawsuit seeking to strip health care from millions of Americans.

The Affordable Care Act gives states a choice whether they will set up their own health exchange where consumers can buy health insurance or whether to allow the federal government to do so for them.

This lawsuit alleges that subsidies helping individuals buy health insurance are only available in exchanges run by a state, not by the feds.

If it succeeds, the likely result will be a “death spiral” where higher premiums cause healthy consumers to drop out of the insurance market, which will cause higher premiums, which will cause more consumers to drop their insurance.

Eventually, many states’ individual insurance markets are likely to collapse if this lawsuit prevails.

* * *

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Meet The (First) Seven Banks Who Rigged The FX Market

Several years ago, anyone who suggested there was a massive Libor manipulation conspiracy was branded as, what else, a tin-foil fringe lunatic: after all “how can so many people possibly collude in complete secrecy?” And then it was revealed that for years, there was a massive Libor manipulation conspiracy.

Now, even though it has been extensively leaked in advance, we are about to get the next market rigging “conspiracy theory” become fact, after countless traders working for major banks and conspiring in secret chatrooms such as “The Cartel” and the “Bandits” are about to cost their employers billions in settlement charges as regulators after regulator and country after country charges the world’s biggest, and most criminal banks, with billions for manipulating their currency for years.

As the WSJ reports, “Regulators in the U.S. and U.K. are nearing a deal with as many as seven large banks to resolve allegations of misconduct in the currencies market, with a settlement likely in the next two weeks, according to people familiar with the negotiations.

Regulators including the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority and the U.S.’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency are planning to impose a total of well over £1 billion ($1.58 billion) in penalties against the banks as part of a roughly 18-month investigation into potential manipulation of the foreign-exchange market, one person said.

The goal is to announce a settlement by the middle of next week, but the timing could slip into the following week, the person said. The list of banks could change, the person added.”

In other words, expect even more billions in “one-time, non-recurring” legal charges such as the following chart of Bank of America’s “one-time, non-recurring” legal charges demonstrates.

So which banks were on the other side of your money-losing FX trades over the past decade. The answer:

Barclays PLC
HSBC Holdings PLC
Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC
UBS AG
Citigroup
J.P. Morgan Chase
Bank of America Corp. Bank of America

i.e., the world’s Too Big To Prosecute institutions: the banks that the US Department of “Justice” would not pursue due to fears of systemic impact.

And, of course, since the banks are in control of the very regulators and enforcers who are supposed to police them (see Taibbi’s latest for further proof), this happened: While the initial focus of the investigation was on the potential manipulation of a specific foreign-exchange benchmark, the coming settlements are likely to involve banks admitting misconduct in a narrower area, according to the people familiar with the settlement talks.

Some numbers:

The U.K.’s portion of the foreign-exchange penalties is expected to be between £200 million to £300 million per bank, for a total of roughly £1.2 billion, one person said. That would represent by far the FCA’s biggest-ever haul in any investigation.

It also means that since legal settlements are the highest IRRing investment for the banking cartel, the profits over time from rigging FX have been between 10 and 50 times higher.

The best news, however, is that not a single banker will go to prison that millions of FX traders will soon be due their pro rata portion of the settlement: it should amount to a little over a dollar.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1vVcaqO Tyler Durden

Peter Suderman Reviews Interstellar

I liked this one, despite its
flaws:

How to describe “Interstellar?”

Is it a chilly hard sci-fi adventure in the tradition of “2001:
A Space Odyssey?” A metaphysical space opera that frequently
embraces go-for-broke sentimentality? A technically proficient,
crowd-pleasing blockbuster in the tradition of James Cameron and
Steven Spielberg?

The best answer to all of the above is yes.

But mostly “Interstellar” is a Christopher
Nolan movie. Like “Memento,” “The Prestige” and “Inception,”
it’s a complex puzzle-box narrative about the nature of time and
identity with a grand scope, sweeping visuals, and lots and lots of
heady dialogue. All of the tics and tendencies that made Mr.
Nolan’s previous films thrilling and awe-inspiring are present and
magnified, as are those that were frustrating.

It’s a bigger, bolder and more captivating movie than
anything Mr. Nolan has made before, and also a more
flawed one.

Mr. Nolan’s Batman trilogy imagined the superhero as a lone
crusader out to save the crumbling city of Gotham. “Interstellar”
takes that basic idea and expands it to a planetary scale: It’s not
a city that’s dying, but the entire Earth.

In the near future, dust storms have ravaged the planet, and a
blight is slowly strangling the ability to grow food. Invention and
innovation are discouraged as frivolous, and schools teach the moon
landing as a hoax.

It’s a sci-fi riff on economic malaise and great stagnation —
with the power of human will and ingenuity offering the only
possible salvation.

Read the whole review in The Washington
Times.

One thing I didn’t really address at length in my review is how
much Interstellar plays like a sharp retort to 2001: A
Space Odyssey.

The movie is very much a riff on the same ideas, and it
references Stanley Kubrick’s film repeatedly in both its story and
its visuals. It’s clearly a movie that Christopher Nolan respects
quite a bit. But it’s also one that he seems to have some
fundamental disagreements with in terms of outlook.

Kubrick’s movie was chilly and removed, a technically brilliant
vision of humanity’s cosmic helplessness. It was a movie that
downplayed human relationships (think of the sequence at the
beginning when a disinterested father calls his daughter on her
birthday), and emphasized humanity’s inability to master its own
fate. Our technology turns on us. Our ability to understand the
universe eventually reaches its limit. It’s a movie about how small
humans are, and how little they can accomplish.

Nolan’s film is cold at times, especially in the way it treats
its space vistas, and it’s technically brilliant in its own way,
relying heavily on models and location shooting instead of computer
animation. But Interstellar is also unabashedly
sentimental (sometimes overly so), especially with regards to
parent-child relationships, and it ends on a note of triumphant
humanism. 2001 is the better movie, but there’s quite a
bit to like about Interstellar’s determined
optimism.

Read Kurt Loder’s review for Reason here.

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Dallas Cop Allegedly Threatens to Kill His Children, Arrested on Misdemeanor Harassment Charge, Placed on Paid Leave

Last Friday detectives from the Child Abuse Squad
of the Dallas Police Department arrested Officer Casarae Womble of
the Metro Task Force, on a charge of misdemeanor
harassment, and was placed on paid administrative leave pending
an “administrative investigation” by the Internal Affairs Division,
according to a Dallas police spokesperson.

The Dallas Morning News reports the
details of the allegations:

Police said in court documents that Womble called the mother of
his child about their break-up and had a conversation that was
“quite heated.”

The woman, who was out of state for training but lives with
Womble, recorded the call using a cellphone app, police said.

Womble allegedly threatened to hit the woman at her “core.” He
then allegedly asked her, “what if you have to go to two
funerals?”

“Whose funerals?” the woman replied.

“You figure it out,” Womble said, according to the police
account. “I got two in my house right? I’ll hit you in the
core.”

Womble was released on $500 bond, the
base amount for a Class B Misdemeanor in Texas.

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It’s All Come Down To This

What really matters… “It’s time to be invested… the correction is over… we’ve got good jobs number [which was a miss], GDP is there [which is being revised lower each day], earnings are there [which have been revised drastically lower for the rest of 2014 and 2015]… and even if we do get a dip down, we’ve got Mr Bullard to come in and reassure the markets…”

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Feds Punish Princeton For Liking Due Process Too Much

Earlier this week, the U.S.
Department of Education
wrapped up its investigation of Princeton University’s sexual
harassment and assault policies. The findings were unsurprising,
though still striking: the government essentially accused the
university of violating federal anti-discrimination law by
extending too much due process to accused
students.

Princeton had been one of the last hold-outs on the standard of
proof in college rape trials. The university required adjudicators
to obtain “clear and convincing” proof that a student was guilty of
sexual assault before convicting him. That’s too tough, said DOE.
As
part of its settlement, Princeton is required to lower its
evidence standard to “a preponderance of the evidence,” which means
adjudicators must convict if they are 50.1 percent persuaded by the
accuser.

Princeton’s old policy was also criticized by DOE for allowing
accused students to appeal decisions, but not accusers. Both this
practice and the evidence standard were revised under Princeton’s
new, DOE-compliant policy.

Both of these are worrying changes for civil libertarians. Using
a low burden of proof in college rape trials is very problematic,
since adjudicators are poorly equipped to determine innocence or
guilt in the first place. They just don’t have the right training.
That’s part of the reason
28 Harvard University law professors have spoken out against
their own campus’s new, similarly unfair policy.

And wile DOE claims that Title IX of the Education Amendment of
1972 requires colleges to use the preponderance of evidence
standard, no court or Congress has ever weighed in on the matter.
As Joe Cohn of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education
told
InsideHigherEd:

While the Department of Education has the ability to determine
what exactly violates Title IX and potentially pull federal funding
from colleges who are in violation, preponderance of evidence has
not been codified by Congress. The Campus SaVE act does not dictate
what standard a college should use, only requiring that
institutions disclose what that standard is. Joe Cohn, legislation
and policy director at the Foundation for Individual Rights in
Education, said that the department is “on shaky ground when they
insist that preponderance of evidence is the only acceptable
standard of proof under Title IX,” because, legally, it is only the
current administration’s interpretation of the law.

“But it doesn’t matter if their interpretation is off by an inch
or a mile, because who is willing to be a test case on that,” Cohn
said. “With federal funding at stake, institutions are too afraid
to engage and criticize a regulating body. This type of chilling
atmosphere is not helpful to anyone. Nobody is willing to take a
stand.”

On the other side, Laura Dunn, executive director of victims’
advocacy center SurvJustice, hilariously told InsideHigherEd that
“ingrained male privilege” was the only reason for using a lower
evidence standard. Thankfully, the federal government is beating
that tendency out of colleges, she said:

“It’s mostly at these elite schools that we see a real
pushback,” Dunn said. “To put it bluntly, I think it’s arrogance
and ingrained male privilege, but I think they’re starting to get
the message.”

It’s very discouraging to see support for robust due process
written off as a symptom of male privilege. Of course, plenty of
women are concerned that these new policies, far from chipping away
at male privilege, unfairly punish men. (I
interviewed one of them for my August article on criminalizing
campus sex.)

As for Princeton’s former policy of only allowing accused
students to appeal decisions, while that may seem unfair at first
glance, it actually makes sense. Hans Bader—a senior attorney at
the Competitive Enterprise Institute and former Office of Civil
Rights lawyer—pointed out to me that the American criminal justice
system typically permits only defendants to appeal verdicts. This
follows from the principle that accused persons should have every
opportunity to prove they are innocent, but once they are
found innocent, they can’t be retried.

“The Education Department’s claim that it violates Title IX to
allow the accused but not the accuser to appeal is hard to
reconcile with the fact that courts have never construed civil
rights laws to ban that,” Bader told Reason.

Unfortunately, no legal authority will ever have the chance to
examine DOE’s very due-process-unfriendly interpretation of the
law, because colleges are either too afraid of standing up to the
feds, or have an ever-weakening commitment to civil libertarian
values. Or both.

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If You Really Think It Matters Which Party Controls the Senate, Answer These Questions

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,

Please don't claim anything changes if one party or the other is in the majority. Anyone clinging to that fantasy is delusional.

If you really think it matters which political party controls the U.S. Senate, please answer these questions. Don't worry, they're not that difficult:

1. Will U.S. foreign policy in the Mideast change from being an incoherent pastiche of endless war and Imperial meddling? Please answer with a straight face. We all know the answer is that it doesn't matter who controls the Senate, Presidency or House of Representatives, nothing will change.

2. Will basic civil liberties be returned to the citizenry? You know, like the cops are no longer allowed to steal your cash when they stop you for a broken tail light and claim the cash was going to be used for a drug deal.

Or some limits on domestic spying by Central State agencies. You know, basic civil liberties as defined by the Bill of Rights and the U.S. constitution.

Don't make me laugh–you know darned well that it doesn't matter who controls the Senate, Presidency or House of Representatives, nothing will change.

3. Will the predatory, parasitic policies of the Federal Reserve that virtually everyone from the Wall Street Journal to what little remains of the authentic Left understands has greatly increased income and wealth inequality be reined in? Please don't claim either party has any will or interest in limiting the Fed's rapacious financialization. There is absolutely no evidence to support such a claim–it is pure wishful thinking.

4. Will the steaming pile of profiteering, corruption, waste, fraud and ineptitude that is Sickcare in the U.S. be truly reformed so its costs drop by 50% to match what every other developed democracy spends per person on universal healthcare? It doesn't matter if ObamaCare is repealed or not; that monstrosity was simply another layer of bureaucratic waste on an already hopelessly dysfunctional system.

If you answer "yes," please run a body scan on yourself to detect the biochips that were implanted while you voted Demopublican.

5. Will the influence of Big Money be well and truly banned from politics? If you answer yes, please pick up your tin-foil hat at the door.

6. Will the incentives in the Status Quo be reset to punish rapacious financialization and gaming the system and reward productive investment and labor? Before you answer, check out who's buttering the Senators' bread. Hint: Wall Street does not qualify as productive unless we're talking about the production of life-draining parasites. Virtually none of the vast armies of skimmers and scammers, from those pursuing bogus disability claims to lobbyist leeches, will suffer any consequence.

Moral hazard is the Status Quo's Prime Directive.

7. Will anything be done to dismantle the Neofeudal Debt-Serfdom known as student loans? You are delusional if you think either party has any interest in limiting the predation of an academic Upper Caste that came to do good and stayed to do well.

8. Will any prudent assessment be made of unaffordable weapons systems like the F-35 Lightning–$1.5 trillion and counting for aircraft that will soon be matched by drones that cost a fraction of the F-35's $200 million a piece price tag? No way–parts of those insanely costly jets are made in dozens of states, so the pork is well-distributed. Never mind the plane is lemon, built to fight the wars of the past. It's jobs, Baby–that's all that counts. Never mind the $1.5 trillion–we can always borrow another couple trillion–the Fed promised us.

Do you really think the Senate controlled by either party will ask why the F-35's price tag dropped to $120 million from $200 million? That's easy–the revised estimate left out the engine and avionics. They'll be added back in after the Senate approves open-ended funding.

If none of these key dynamics will change, you got nothing. Please don't claim anything changes if one party or the other is in the majority. Anyone clinging to that fantasy is delusional.

If you doubt this, please take the above quiz again.

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Ready to hit the eject button? Here are five places to start looking

November 7, 2014
Santiago, Chile

As we talked about yesterday, moving abroad isn’t as difficult as you think.

Sure, it’s not always cookies and cupcakes, but the benefits and opportunities of living abroad are often unparalleled.

Only by moving abroad can you truly curtail how much you contribute to your corrupt, bankrupt home government.

And you just might find that in many cases you can live better, cheaper, and enjoy a far greater quality of life than what you could achieve back home.

It’s also important to recognize that there’s very little in this world that’s forever.

So even if it doesn’t work out, you can always head back home later— this time with some overseas experience under your belt, and perhaps even some new language skills.

But it begs the question—where to go? There’s literally an entire world of opportunity out there, but here are a few suggestions to get you looking:

Ireland

For English speakers, moving to Ireland gives you all the thrills of living in a foreign country without the stress of having to learn a foreign language.

The Irish are some of the warmest and friendliest people you’ll ever meet, with a vibrant and upbeat culture. Plus the country itself is really gorgeous. You’ll never look at the color green the same ever again.

Ireland also ranks 9^th on the Economic Freedom Index, making it a great place to set up your business in. Doing that can also qualify you for a residency visa itself. [Note to Premium Members: More on this in an upcoming Alert.]

Thailand

With its very laid-back and welcoming culture, as well as all the conveniences of modern life, Thailand is a very easy transition abroad, while at the same time being exotic and otherworldly.

If you’re into tropical beach lifestyle, you’ll love Phuket, which is very popular with expats and offers all sorts of amenities you’d require—excellent health care, international schools, modern shopping malls, a well-connected airport, first class dining etc.

Chiang Mai in the north offers a serene and even cheaper lifestyle amid burgeoning and lush nature and Thailand’s highest mountains. It’s a laid back city that is a major hub for young digital entrepreneurs, as well as retirees.

Estonia

This is an often-overlooked Baltic gem. With a high degree of economic freedom, quaint architecture and culture, low living costs, cheap real estate, great summer weather and ubiquitous knowledge of English, Estonia should be on your radar.

Estonia offers an attractive business residency visa, enabling you to live and move freely throughout much of the European continent (and escape the Estonian winters for a more pleasant Mediterranean climate).

Like its Baltic neighbors Latvia and Lithuania, Estonia is safe, modern, and technically advanced. And it doesn’t hurt that the people seem to all be exceptionally attractive.

Chile

If you’re looking for all the conveniences that you’re used to back home, Chile is a very easy transition. Familiar North American restaurant chains abound, as do huge and modern shopping malls.

Santiago offers all of the first world amenities that you’d expect, such as high quality medical care, private education, and privatized infrastructure.

The weather is excellent and the business climate is refreshingly less burdensome than in the West, yet replete with opportunity.

You also have the advantage of being in the center of South America’s burgeoning tech scene. Who knows, if your idea is good enough you might even get paid $40,000 to move here.

Ecuador

In a recent survey by InterNations, Ecuador turned out to be the top expat destination in 2014.

In particular it’s an increasingly popular retirement destination because of its high quality yet very affordable cost of living, cheap real estate prices, vibrant culture and good weather.

The official currency is the US dollar, which is a comfort to many people.

It’s also an incredibly diverse country, with beaches, mountains, big cities, rainforest and everything in between for you to choose from.

The world is a big place and these are just a few suggestions to get you started.

While it’s important to do your own due diligence based on your personal preferences, this process shouldn’t hinder you in any way in your desire to look for greener pastures.

Go and see for yourself and find out that the transition abroad really isn’t all that difficult.

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“It’s Different This Time” Japanese Stock Market Swing Is Fastest Ever

In the space of the last 3 weeks, Japanese stocks have swung from the most overbought in 18 months to the most oversold in 3 years to the most overbought in 18 months again. This is the fastest and most violent swing in TOPIX on record as ever-more-desperate hot money chases central bank actions around the world. As Bloomberg reports, “Japan is a very unnerving market because it behaves like an uneducated brat,” said Mikio Kumada, Hong Kong-based global strategist at LGT Capital Partners, which manages about $50 billion. Following the double-whammy of GPIF allocations and BoJ expansion, he warns “you don’t know what it’s going to do in the next moment and in many ways it’s unpredictable.”

The fastest swing on record in Japanese stocks…

Beware though:

“The main trades are coming from the short-term investors,” said Nomura Holdings Inc. senior strategist Hisao Matsuura.

“Volume is high because the short-term investors are trading on momentum.”

* * *

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