For all those who believe Obama and Company are doing a fine job in bringing the country out of the recession and that everything will be better in the future:


Stansberry's Investment Advisory


It is absolutely worth the one hour that you'll spend with it. This organization is well respected and has a lot of research and references to backup its conclusions.

It really crystallizes the problem and highlights the fact that the government is hiding most of the problem behind meaningless statistics.

MTU..........this is for you!! Everybody should take a good hard look.

Mommy, I'm scared!

Dude, you actually read porter stanberrys BS..........................
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? ?
im finding it hard to believe you would waste any time with this---its what you always refired to as RWNJ'S

Let see if you can refute it...........rather than simply malign the source.

BC,

Don't have the time to spend viewing this today. Perhaps Monday.
Alas, I thought this thread was going to be about the NY Times article last Sunday on the rollout problems with Obamacare. Totally overlooked by all the budget bs this week. Forgive the brief hijack.


From the Start, Signs of Trouble at Health Portal

In March, Henry Chao, the chief digital architect for the Obama administration’s new online insurance marketplace, told industry executives that he was deeply worried about the Web site’s debut. “Let’s just make sure it’s not a third-world experience,” he told them......

....Confidential progress reports from the Health and Human Services Department show that senior officials repeatedly expressed doubts that the computer systems for the federal exchange would be ready on time, blaming delayed regulations, a lack of resources and other factors.

Deadline after deadline was missed. The biggest contractor, CGI Federal, was awarded its $94 million contract in December 2011. But the government was so slow in issuing specifications that the firm did not start writing software code until this spring, according to people familiar with the process. As late as the last week of September, officials were still changing features of the Web site, HealthCare.gov, and debating whether consumers should be required to register and create password-protected accounts before they could shop for health plans.

One highly unusual decision, reached early in the project, proved critical: the Medicare and Medicaid agency assumed the role of project quarterback, responsible for making sure each separately designed database and piece of software worked with the others, instead of assigning that task to a lead contractor.

Some people intimately involved in the project seriously doubted that the agency had the in-house capability to handle such a mammoth technical task of software engineering while simultaneously supervising 55 contractors. An internal government progress report in September 2011 identified a lack of employees “to manage the multiple activities and contractors happening concurrently” as a “major risk” to the whole project................

The Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress, warned in June that many challenges had to be overcome before the Oct. 1 rollout. (mentioned in an earlier thread)

“So much testing of the new system was so far behind schedule, I was not confident it would work well,” Richard S. Foster, who retired in January as chief actuary of the Medicare program, said in an interview last week.

But Mr. Chao’s superiors at the Department of Health and Human Services told him, in effect, that failure was not an option, according to people who have spoken with him. Nor was rolling out the system in stages or on a smaller scale, as companies like Google typically do so that problems can more easily and quietly be fixed. Former government officials say the White House, which was calling the shots, feared that any backtracking would further embolden Republican critics who were trying to repeal the health care law.........


It must be true & prescient. After all, I read it in the Times.


Time to think of a drop dead date?

...."But given that they didn’t even announce that they were taking the system down for more fixes this weekend, I’m also guessing that it’s pretty bad. Bad enough that it’s time to start talking about a drop-dead date: At what point do we admit that the system just isn’t working well enough, roll it back and delay the whole thing for a year?

Yes, I know what I’m suggesting is a major, horrible task. And I’m aware that since I opposed the law in the first place, people will take my suggestion with a huge grain of salt. Fair enough, but hear me out.

If the exchanges don’t get fixed soon, they could destroy Obamacare -- and possibly, the rest of the private insurance market. The reason that the exchanges were so important was that they were needed to attract young, healthy people into the insurance system. The worry was that if insurance is hard to buy -- if you have to do your own comparison shopping and then call the insurance company, and fax in some paperwork and two years of tax returns -- that the young and the healthy simply won’t do it. Sick people and old people who were getting huge subsidies -- and maybe the ability to buy insurance on the private market for the first time in a long while -- would overcome any obstacles, because if you’re spending $15,000 a year on health care, it’s worth a lot of your time to make sure that you have insurance. But if your biggest annual health-care expense is contact lens solution, you may just decide to skip it and pay the fine.

The administration estimates that it needs 2.7 million young healthy people on the exchange, out of the 7 million total expected to apply in the first year. If the pool is too skewed -- if it’s mostly old and sick people on the exchanges -- then insurers will lose money, and next year, they’ll sharply increase premiums. The healthiest people will drop out, because insurance is no longer such a good deal for them. Rinse and repeat and you have effectively destroyed the market for individual insurance policies. It’s called the “death spiral,” and the exchanges, like the mandate, were designed to keep it from happening."

Obamacare Needs a Drop-Dead Date - Bloomberg

I used to get his newsletter , ( I didn't subscribe) it was always good for a laugh,

and very few sensable tips-now and then.

Its a fact that some are gonna get way more conservative as they get older, But what you would have rather happened nov 4th 2011,

Im seriously glad it didn't.

Listen to the presentation.

Then, try to refute it.

I did, and I cannot see any holes in his arguments. The only question is "when".

It is absolutely worth the time.

I got through most of it, but unfortunately had to let it run sort of in the background when he got around to the "what you should do" (aka sales pitch). I wish I could see that part again (doesn't seem to be a way to skip to it).

It is worth seeing. I tend to believe that it is happening( and this weeks kibuki helped it along) , particularly when you think about the massive FED intervention and what it would mean to the balance sheet to stop it and let interest rates rise (as much as I want that to happen at a micro level)

__________________
80 300SD (129k mi) 82 240D stick (193k mi)77 240D auto - stick to be (153k mi) 85 380SL (145k mi) 89 BMW 535i 82 Diesel Rabbit Pickup (374k mi) 91 Jetta IDI Diesel (155k mi) 81 VW Rabbit Convertible Diesel 70 Triumph Spitfire Mk III (63kmi)66 Triumph TR4a IRS (90k mi)67 Ford F-100 (??)

Since when do "liberals" run the government?

Since 2000 for sure.

remember, Subscribe Now!

http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2013/04/02/financial-publisher-who-defrauded-public-investors-is-back-with-another-ominous-video
But a legal disclaimer at the bottom of the page notes that the firm's work "may contain errors."

http://wafflesatnoon.com/2012/03/20/porter-stansberry-end-of-america-or-end-of-truth/

Dire Predictions from Stanberry . . . in 2003?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/924934/posts

I guess I don't what a "liberal" is.

I don't think that "liberal" is a useful noun. It does better as an adjective. It also helps to recognize that "liberal" has no fixed definition. The people who are considered liberal now would be considered conservative thirty years ago. In no way, shape, or form would I describe the people who have been running the government since 2000 as anything like liberal. They also aren't conservative because they abandoned time-tested ways of managing the government's finances.

I do not believe one needs to be a financial genius to figure out that the last 5 years have been devasting to the US. For example, this FY (2013), we paid $415,688,781,248.40 interest on our debts. This does not include the overhead costs to "manage" the public debt and interest. Government - Interest Expense on the Debt Outstanding Who knows how much we pay to manage our debts and interest, but I am guessing it's a lot.

The US will bring in around "Total federal tax revenues in fiscal year 2014 are projected to be $3 trillion" Where Does the Money Come From?

So, to compare the FY and "project" the last few months for the calender year to compare apples with apples so to speak ... and guess what, about 1/6th goes just to interest (500B/3T). That also gets rid of the months which overlap ... no double dipping for the liberals at heart.

Now, assuming interest rates cannot be maintained at near 0% forever -- who wants that investment -- and they jump to a meager 2.7% within the next few years ...the interest payments jump to almost 1 trillion a year. That's about 1/3rd of what we bring in. Yes, of course, our BO wants to seize the wealthy's income for his ingenius progressive social agenda which is nothing more than buying votes and to promote his views of justice or fairness. Take every penny BO. That will pay less than one year's worth of interest on the debt. But, once its gone, its gone. Who can he then chase for money ?

What happens when the interest on those debts jumps to around 3.7% ? Almost every penny we rake in will need to go to interest payments. That of course ASSUMES we will not spend one more cent on any government spending. It all goes to interest payments.

Do we or will we have any inflation, even when we print zillions of dollars ? How long will the US dollar be the world's reserve currency ? Better yet, will ObamaCare cost the taxpayers one penny ? I was told my insurance premiums will drop around $2,500. Guess what, they have not dropped. I am guessing "free" health care will cost something.

Will history be so kind to BO ? The media loves him, but will the historians ?