So tell me again, Senator Cruz, why the President is the cause of health care cost increases!

 

     After listening to various persons, close and strangers alike, complaining about health care cost figures I decided to do something silly. I actually researched historical health care costs in an attempt to determine what impact the ACA was really having on the average person. I did this because listening to the Cruzes, Limbaughs, and Rubios has yielded little substantive data, but scads of innuendo, predictions, wild ass guesses etc.

     The paragraph below comes from an article written in 2008. (Pre-Obama, for those of you who wondered why I chose that date). What the paragraph doesn't do is mention the historical average of 5% to 8% increase and give a figure for the single employee in 2008. I will extrapolate to 2008 and 2012, since I have that kind of time. When I have done so, it should become apparent that what is being thrust upon this President as the blame for health care costs is largely unfounded and simply another "blame the Black guy" ploy of the Tea Partiers.

      Here, following, is the paragraph. Note: this addresses employee contributions, and assumes some employer input. This implies real individual cost plans could be even higher for the non-employer plan 

"The amount that a worker or employee contributes to the cost of health care continues to increase each year as premiums rise. In 2004, the average employee contributed a little more than $300 a month of the annual cost for single coverage and $800 a month for family coverage. By 2008, the costs of coverage for a family of four cost more than $1,000 a month or almost $13,000 a year."

Now for the math. Assuming a conservative estimate, splitting the difference between 5% and 8%, -  a  6.5% annual price increase,  costs break down as follows (monthly single employee):   2004 - $300,  2006 - $340, 2008 - $385, 2010 - $437, 2012 - $496. Using the high end estimate of 8% annual increase, the figure for 2012 is a lofty $555 monthly! This particular figure is interesting, because a person known to me was complaining about being single, not covered by an employer provided plan, and being quoted a price of in the high $400 per month range.  Using my figures, which I assure you are accurate, that is in the ballpark of what health care would cost this person if there were no ACA or President Obama! The point is, this is irrespective of any government influence.

Obviously, I rounded the figures, but just as obviously, (since these costs are based on 2008 before the ACA) the increase in health care costs being attributed to the Affordable Care Act would have, in fact, reached the same level simply due to the annual percentage increase of the past several decades!  

      Why don't CEOs and business leaders get as excited about the ACA as workers? It’s simple, really. In 1978, average worker to CEO compensation ratio was about 30:1 As a  simple example - a worker earning $20,000 annually might work for a corporation whose CEO was compensated  $600,000. Seems like a big gap? You ain't seen nuthin' yet! Consider 2012, where the ratio was in the area of 272:1.  Let’s assume a family of four has two parents working, each earning what the Government considers the poverty level wage for a family of four ($23,021) . In other words they make double the poverty wage, or $46,042 annually . If the CEO of either of their companies is average, he is making  $6.2 million or so in the same year!  Do we think he or she has health care insurance concerns?  

     If your personal income grows at the rate of 8% per annum, good for you; for many (like teachers) it doesn't. For the working poor, it is waaay lower. As someone who negotiated benefits for a large (>19,000 member)  group for about a decade, I was, and am, well aware of the historical increase in health care costs. We were lucky, in that management used the same plan, so we were “in it together”, yet almost every year there were top to bottom arguments over increased deductibles, copays, etc. This was in a situation where basic health care plan costs for the employee were covered as part of compensation. 

     I feel for the single individual who has health issues and needs coverage , even if just for catastrophic events. But, based on my experience, this is little different now than it was ten years ago, except someone has finally tried to rein in the excesses of the insurance industry, who NEVER take a loss. Whereas we used to get angry and blame insurers, the Cruzes and others now would have us get angry and blame the President.

And the flood continues

Another Politifact “Pants on Fire” moment showing the far right bullshit storm rages on. I shall continue posting these as long as the Tea Partiers and their acolytes continue telling lies which they know are lies. We’re not talking about misunderstanding here; these are deliberate false statements in the Palin, Perry, Bachmann, Limbaugh, Coulter, Beck style. The story follows, verbatim

“This post on the Facebook page of HealthCare.gov, detailing a man's struggles with big fines for not buying insurance, went viral.

Shortly after the the Obamacare insurance marketplace launched on Oct. 1, users of social media experienced a burst of complaints on Twitter and Facebook, ranging from technical glitches to substantive concerns.

But  one post stood out.

Many readers sent us a Facebook post that went viral and has since been circulated by chain-email. It was originally posted on the Facebook page of Healthcare.gov, the federal government’s portal to the new insurance marketplace created under President Barack Obama’s health care law. The marketplace is designed to offer one-stop shopping for health insurance plans for Americans whose employers do not offer coverage.

The Facebook post claims to be from a man named Will Sheehan. (We couldn’t confirm his identity.)  The post says that he tried to sign up for Obamacare and then decided to not go along with it; he then said he received an email detailing fines he would face. 

Here’s the full text of the post:

"I actually made it through this morning at 8:00 A.M. I have a preexisting condition (Type 1 Diabetes) and my income base was 45K-55K annually I chose tier 2 ‘Silver Plan’ and my monthly premiums came out to $597.00 with $13,988 yearly deductible!!! There is NO POSSIBLE way that I can afford this so I ‘opt-out’ and chose to continue along with no insurance. I received an email tonight at 5:00 P.M. informing me that my fine would be $4,037 and could be attached to my yearly income tax return. Then you make it to the ‘REPERCUSSIONS PORTION’ for ‘non-payment’ of yearly fine. First, your drivers license will be suspended until paid, and if you go 24 consecutive months with ‘Non-Payment’ and you happen to be a home owner, you will have a federal tax lien placed on your home. You can agree to give your bank information so that they can easy ‘Automatically withdraw’ your ‘penalties’ weekly, bi-weekly or monthly! This by no means is ‘Free’ or even ‘Affordable’."

We will check a number of the post’s claims below.

 

• "There is NO POSSIBLE way that I can afford this so I ‘opt-out’ and chose to continue along with no insurance."

According to a spokesman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the agency that runs the marketplace, this is not how the system works: "There's no way for people to complete the online application and then affirmatively ‘opt out’ at the end. They would simply close the website or not enroll." in a plan

• "I received an email tonight at 5:00 P.M. informing me" about the fines I would face.

This is wrong on several levels. First, the system would not send any user an email if they failed to complete an application. Second, any fines would be calculated as part of the user’s overall income tax form 1040 -- they wouldn’t be sent as a bill. And third, any taxes would be owed by April 15, 2015 -- a year and a half from now. Someone being assessed a tax penalty by the Internal Revenue Service in early October doesn’t even make any sense, since the applicant has many weeks to find another insurance plan and avoid a penalty.

• "My fine would be $4,037."

This number is way out of line. Under the law, the penalty fee in 2014 is 1 percent of your yearly income or $95 per person for the year, whichever is higher. The fee increases every year. In 2016 it is 2.5 percent of income or $695 per person, whichever is higher. If we are to take this Facebook user’s claims at face value -- that his "income base was 45K-55K annually"-- and if he has no dependents, he would not have to pay any more than $550, by 2015. To pay a penalty of $4,037 in 2014, you would need to be making making more than $403,700 a year!

(my note here: if you are making even 25% of that ($100K) annually, what are you doing shopping for healthcare insurance on the website?)

• "Your driver’s license will be suspended until paid."

CMS told PolitiFact that nobody’s driver's license will be suspended as a noncompliance penalty under the Affordable Care Act. Nothing in the law mentions that as a penalty, and driver’s licenses are administered by state governments.

• "If you go 24 consecutive months with ‘Non-Payment’ and you happen to be a home owner, you will have a federal tax lien placed on your home."

A Treasury Department spokesperson confirmed that the law specifically bars the IRS from using their normal means of collecting unpaid taxes, including the use of liens and levy. 

According to the law, the government "shall not (i) file notice of lien with respect to any property of a taxpayer by reason of any failure to pay the penalty imposed by this section, or (ii) levy on any such property with respect to such failure.’’ Instead, the only thing the IRS can do to collect fines is to subtract it from any tax refund you qualify for. If you aren’t due a refund, all the IRS can do is send you a letter.

Another section of the health care law protects citizens from any other form of punishment.  "In the case of any failure by a taxpayer to timely pay any penalty (…) such taxpayer shall not be subject to any criminal prosecution or penalty," it says.

• "You can agree to give your bank information so that they can easy ‘Automatically withdraw’ your ‘penalties’ weekly, bi-weekly or monthly!"

Don’t take online banking advice from a Facebook post. The Treasury Department warns citizens not to hand out bank information online.

 Our ruling

The Facebook post tells the story of a man who says he opted out of Obamacare soon after the marketplace was launched on Oct. 1, 2013, and was informed that he owed a fine of more than $4,000.”

 

The post includes many elements that make no sense or are flat-out wrong -- and can be easily debunked by reading the law or reliable summaries of it. We rate it Pants on Fire.

Even more bullshit, this time it's Ann Coulter

As long as we’re calling bullshit where appropriate, why leave out  Ann Coulter?  She (?) earns  the “Pants on Fire” rating from Politifact (conservative, remember?) for the following idiocy. Again we have a far rightist making statements that are blatantly false, which they know to be false, but say it anyway, in the belief that their sycophant followers are too stupid to think for themselves

Ann Coulter says no doctors who went to an American medical school will be accepting Obamacare

 Conservative commentator Ann Coulter is not known for mincing words, but a recent column prompted many PolitiFact readers to contact us, seeking a fact-check.

In the Oct. 9, 2013, column -- titled, "Democrats to America: We Own the Government!" -- Coulter pummels Democrats over provisions of President Barack Obama’s health care law.

We were most intrigued by one claim, since we hadn’t heard it before -- that "no doctors who went to an American medical school will be accepting Obamacare."

Really?

We tried to ask Coulter through her speaker’s bureau if she could provide any evidence for this, but we did not receive a reply. We are sure the claim wasn't intended as a joke, because it's included in a bullet-point list of straightforward criticisms of the law.

So let’s start by looking at the claim literally. Is there any provision of the Affordable Care Act that would prevent U.S.-trained doctors from accepting "Obamacare" patients -- that is, patients who secure insurance through the marketplaces that are a centerpiece of the law?

We feel comfortable, both from talking to experts and from our years of reporting on the law, that there is no such provision. If there were, it would probably be ripe for challenge on constitutional grounds.

In fact, when we asked experts for their reaction to this claim, their responses included words such as "outrageous," "ridiculous" and "ludicrous."

"Of course there's nothing in the law that would bar any doctor from seeing any patient," said Katherine Baicker, a health economist at the Harvard School of Public Health.

So, no dice on the literal reading of her claim.

Still, we wondered whether there was some other tiny, buried grain of truth in what Coulter claimed. Is the idea that American-trained doctors will be pickier about accepting insurance?

There is some evidence that medical practices are wary about taking patients from plans sold on the marketplace. In September, the Medical Group Management Association -- a trade group for medical-practice executives -- surveyed 1,000 physician groups that collectively employ 47,500 doctors.

The survey asked, among other things, "Does your practice plan to participate with any new health insurance products sold on an ACA exchange?" Only 29 percent of respondents gave a definitive "yes." That rate is twice as high as the share that that said "no" (14 percent) but less than those that were still weighing their options (40 percent).

The top reasons? A fear of bureaucratic regulations, low reimbursement rates and the need to collect payment from patients with higher deductibles.

However, it’s important to remember that this study is not evidence that can be used to support Coulter’s specific claim, because it says nothing about foreign-trained doctors.

In fact, the closer you look at the issue of foreign-trained doctors, the less plausible Coulter’s claim becomes.

According to a 2010 study by the American Medical Association, about 26 percent of physicians in the United States were trained in other countries. This number includes both foreign-born doctors who trained overseas and Americans who received their medical education in other countries.

But tough licensing requirements for foreign-trained doctors -- requirements that won’t be changed by The Affordable Care Act-- are keeping the number of foreign-trained physicians low. A key barrier is the need to obtain a residency in the United States, even if an applicant had practiced or had a residency overseas.

According to the New York Times, just 42 percent of foreign-trained immigrant physicians who applied for residencies through the leading matching service succeeded, compared to 94 percent of those who had trained in the United States.

With such high barriers to entry, it’s not credible that a flood of foreign-trained doctors will suddenly swoop in and, without the help of a single American-trained doctor, serve each one of the newly insured patients who bought policies on the new marketplaces.

"I haven't seen any study that would suggest that American-trained doctors would be disproportionately less likely to see the newly insured," Baicker said.

And even if there were such evidence, "disproportionate is a far cry from ‘none,’ " said Gail Wilensky, the former head of Medicare and Medicaid under President George H.W. Bush. "There is no limit to the nonsense that some are saying. This borders on the absurd." (my note: this last from a Bush staffer!)

Our ruling

Coulter said that "no doctors who went to an American medical school will be accepting Obamacare." Nothing in the law bars American-trained physicians from treating newly insured people under Obamacare. It’s a ridiculous claim -- one with a whiff of xenophobia -- that merits a Pants on Fire.

And the lies, and the lying liars who tell them roll on. Dwight Eisenhower and Theodore Roosevelt would roll over in their graves. Knowing what their party has become!

The marathon of lies continues

Yet one more example of outright lies spread by those on the right re: "Obamacare"
This is Politifacts' (conservative fact checker, remember) analysis of a Republican Congressman's (Jeb Hsarling, R - Texas) litany of lies contained in a speech made October 1, 2013:
The quotes are what he said, VERBATIM. What follows in each paragraph is analysis of the claim by this conservative thruth seeker.

I post this because some who have engaged in this debate have made similar claims, basing their distaste for the law in some regard on these and similar totally fraudulent claims:

Will members of Congress be "the only people in America to get subsidies in the Obamacare exchanges"?
Hardly -- the tax credits commonly known as subsidies under Obamacare were being put into place starting Oct. 1, the same day the shutdown began. Anyone within a specified income range who purchases insurance on the Obamacare marketplace will be eligible for subsidies in the form of tax credits. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that by 2017, about 24 million Americans will be buying insurance on the Obamacare marketplaces, many of them with federal subsidies. Only time will tell how many Americans eventually sign up, but it’s almost certainly going to be more than the roughly 30,000 people who work in the legislative branch.

Will Members of Congress even get "subsidies"? (He claimed they would)

Not really. All lawmakers and many staffers won’t qualify for the subsidies we discussed above because their income is too high. Instead, what lawmakers and staff will qualify for is better described as employer cost-sharing -- an allotment of money that works exactly the same way as it does for the majority of Americans who get employer-based health care, and that long predated the beginning of the Obamacare exchanges. For Americans who have employer-sponsored health insurance, the employer pays a share of the premiums. In this case, that "employer" is the federal government.

Is this a "sweetheart deal"? (He called it that)

Quite the opposite. Under the law as enacted, lawmakers and congressional aides are actually treated more harshly than any other American.
Obama and his allies created a system in which most Americans -- at least three quarters -- who have insurance will remain on their existing plans and see few if any disruptions. The marketplaces were created for Americans who lacked insurance entirely or had to buy insurance on their own, without employer assistance.
By contrast, the law revokes the longstanding congressional health insurance arrangement and forces them into a new system, something not done for any other class of employee.

Even the National Review, the conservative magazine that is none too fond of Obamacare, recently wrote that the provision treats lawmakers and staff "particularly badly." The situation "isn’t a ‘special handout’ for congressional employees. … People who happen to be paid by the federal treasury don’t deserve to have the entire value of their existing coverage stripped away, as almost no Americans will experience."
An added irony is that the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program is widely considered a key model for the exchanges themselves. Under the program, federal employees under the age of 65 can choose among a variety of health insurance offerings, just as people will be able to do under the exchanges. In 2003, the conservative Heritage Foundation published a paper touting the program as a model for market-based health care reform.
In short, the ability for congressional employees to keep their employer cost-share merely returns them to the already harsh provision that severs them from their existing health care plan. . We don’t think this qualifies as a "sweetheart deal."

More of the same

This was posted to Facebook in response to a dear relative who was victimized by her employer, as many have been, by having her hours cut to just below the minumum number weekly to qualify for employer provided health care insurance. She blames this on the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care plan and alludes to other "flaws" without any specifics. This is far from a new phenomena, as Walmart figured out over ten years ago that it was cheaper to hire more workers for fewer hours and deny benefits. Now a wave of the same stuff is happening, this time because corporations see the opportunity to cut costs and blame it on the President and the Affordable Care Act.

     Dear ***** - The businesses cutting hours is not a fault of the plan,. It's been going on for decades, this is just another example of why trusting corporations to do the right thing is a fool's task. If they can save money and blame someone else, the temptation is simply irresistable! If you even tried to tell business who they had to hire and for how many hours, that would be even worse. Other than that, what specifically is wrong? I ask because a recent informal poll showed that while many said they didn't like "Obamacare", they thought the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" was a great idea.  They are one and the same thing! My point being that some of the most vocal critics, whose voices are heard all over media and the press, have three things in common: 1 - they hate anything that threatens profits of insurance corporations, who pour literally billions in lobbying fees into their coffers, 2 - The vast majority of them already have high end healthcare insurance and are above the issue, and 3 - they really hate the President for reasons having little to do with healthcare and far more to do with race.

     Think about all the predictions made after the first Obama election - "He'll take our guns" for a start. Ignorant folks blame the man for what Congress does in some cases, and in others they blame him for shit they make up. I'll give several  examples and than let this alone. First: The Tea Partiers at one point circulated e-mails about all real estate transactions being taxed as part of the ACA. The law actually only calls for a small tax on PROFITS in excess of $350 K. Most of the idiots forwarding said e-mail can't count that high. Second, the same douchebags circulated all sorts of rumors, which people we both know passed along and still do, that the Obama administration started a free cellphone program to buy votes. In truth, the bill creating the partial subsidy for cell phone communication was passed and signed under the previous (Bush) administration.   Finally, these same people continue to harp on what they see as the President (not the Congress, mind you, the President) increasing welfare and giving away more money to "the undeserving" than ever before. Again, liars abound. Welfare as a percentage of GDP is actually lower than in the previous administration. The problem I have is when imbeciles like Sarah Palin use words like "death panels" (which don't and never will exist, and have never even been mentioned except by shitheads like her) ordinary people listen and assume she knows something they don't. As one of Michelle Bachmann's staffers who quit her campaign in disgust admitted, Bachmann, Palin and some others , Ted Cruz included, have no problem with saying things they know not to be true, because some idiots will believe it. This guy left Bachmann because they'd tell her what she was going to say was untrue, she would acknowledge that fact, and say it anyway.

      That is the disinformation machine we deal with in politics today. When you go to Politifact.org and look at their fact check (remember they are run by a conservative newspaper in Tampa) about 80% of the public political statements rated "Pants on Fire" (their polite term for absolute bullshit with no shred of proof)  are from the far right - 80%!!! 

Realty vs perception: a primer on wealth

     Others have shared this already, but this is noteworthy in that  it's difficult to overstate its  relevance to today's perceived vs real economic situation. When a Mitt Romney (a "1 percenter”) chastises a critic of corporate wealth  by saying "Do you know what corporations are? Corporations are people, my friend," we need to remember that the 'corporation as person' construct is an artifice created to limit risk while maximizing the upside for investors. And, yes, I am invested in financial instruments that take advantage of that, but as one of the shrinking middle class, I really have little or no say in how those corporations operate. If every individual investor appeared at an annual stockholders' meeting and voted their shares, they would still be powerless to counter any proposal made by the board and supported by the large, and in many cases corporate,  investors who hold majorities. Watch the video. You may have to return to the blog page afterward:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=QPKKQnijnsM

Those who scream about creeping Socialism would do well to reflect on the total wealth  and income gap figures of the past 30 years and note that the opposite of what they claim is actually true. I call this Faux News Syndrome (FNS). The truly troubling aspect of this is that the real direction of the nation's financial reality is much more similar to (wait for it!) the post -Soviet oligarchy that is modern Russia. Take away the "Government Regulation" that has become the new curse word of the far right, and we're there - a free for all, "support the rights of the rich and ‘fuck the poor’ (thanks, Mel Brooks)" mentality, enforced as it is in Russia, by a refusal of government to act in the best interests of all its people. I'm not talking about free cell phones (a Bush era sop thrown to the poor and funded largely by taxing cell phone carriers, not an Obama initiative at all -  another FNS misconception), I'm talking about the fact that taxation should reflect a fair appraisal of the effort and ability of the earner, not simply the dollar amount involved. Most corporate CEOs, left to their own devices and  their own labor , would be hard pressed to generate the kind of obscene income figures reflected in modern corporate salary structures. In point of fact, in most modern corporations, the CEO could die in his office and as long as that fact remained undetected, no one would care. Karl Marx was a utopian who had a great deal wrong, but he was correct about one thing:   there is a value attached to the labor required to produce a product. By current standards, that fact is minimal in concern for most corporations. We need look no further than Nike to see the evidence.

With a production labor cost of $2.75, Materials $9.00 and supplier's operating profit $1.75, and a $.50 shipping cost, Nike paid  (in 1996 dollars, cost is higher now, ratio is similar) $20 per pair for sneakers which they retailed for $70, after paying other costs (Research and development  a measly $0.25, promotion and advertising $4.00, and around $12 for admin and profit (a 60% increase in price to  retailers). After the retailer adds another $18.50 for rent, personnel pay and “other??” he tacks on another 25% profit and soaks a kid $70 for the shoes which have an actual cost of production (materials and labor) of around $11.00.It is also true, and  should be noted, that Nike spends nearly twice as much on promotion and advertising as it does on production workers' wages. In March 1996 for example, tennis star Andre Agassi was paid a reputed $140 million to promote Nike shoes and clothing.

Air Jordans are even worse, since Nike pays $16 to produce a pair, which they retail for $164 – a 90% profit. Of course, all this is cloaked in the increasingly threadbare guise of “Trickle down” economic theory, which in simplest terms is the idea that profits earned  at the top are filtered down through a theoretical pyramid of beneficiaries and everyone is a recipient of some of the largesse of the system. When such huge quantities are taken off the top for non-production or sales salaries, the trickle down theory is much more like “haves”  pissing on the “ have nots.”

 The video which I refer to doesn’t even suggest “leveling,” which is the charge many on the lunatic right hurl at social liberals and the current administration. What it does do, very vividly is show that the division of wealth in America is skewed far from what it was as recently as 30 years ago. What troubles me personally is one of the great mysteries of modern American politics, and that is, the continued adoration of many poor Americans, many of whom profess a Christian basis of action, of those in politics who serve only to further their position as darlings of the corporate state. Much of this split and widening gap between top and bottom began its rapid acceleration around 1976. That darling of conservatives, Ronald Reagan, and his acolyte, George H.W. Bush, ran on platforms of deregulation, claiming that “unnecessary government regulations” were slowing the economy. In reality, regulations such as the EPA, which Reagan hated even though Nixon created it, were forcing corporations to adhere to standards which caused expenditure of some of that profit margin which nourished non producers at the top.

 Much of the Republican choreographed “outrage” at the Affordable Care Act is very similar, in that many who will be essentially unaffected are protesting loudly. Many of these, like Senator Ted Cruz, have deep ties to the insurance industry and are beneficiaries of its support, overt and less visible. Cruz cares about several things, none of which is really the welfare of his constituency. 1: His wife is a major executive with one of the world’s largest insurers 2: Insurance companies are huge contributors to anyone who will act in a manner which protects their (historically huge) profits   3: The Tea Party is a very vocal group who would support Hitler if he opposed President Obama and they work (for Cruz) for free as long as he is their bitch. The troubling reality is that there are also protests from their relatively ignorant sycophants who will actually benefit from the ACA, but who have been convinced that it and the President are the “great Satan.”  The far right counts on the continued ignorance of the voting populace to support those politicians who purport to be advocates for the middle class, while in reality, they care about little but their own continued political welfare and the support of the corporate donors who spend billions (yes billions) in campaign contributions to those who advocate for their ever increasing stranglehold on the US economy.

For these frauds, the term “We the people” seems to have been corrupted to mean  been corrupted to mean “We the wealthy, and their toadies.”

The video shows what 90% of Americans believe is, and what should be the fair distribution of wealth. If the job of Congress is to represent the goals of the majority, but the reality is that many really represent  pronounced  favoritism for the top 1% , the model is horribly askew.  I have no easy answers to this problem, but the continued ability for hyper privileged families to endow their,  in many cases useless,  offspring with all the luxuries of the ultra rich  with none of the responsibilities is one clue to the nature of problem. Imagine if George W. Bush had been forced to get into Yale on his own with a 930 SAT score or had not been bailed out of failed business enterprises by Saudis with ties to the Bin Ladens.  (look it up!!!!)

The continued existence of “flat tax” movements is another. This lunacy suggests that a family with $30,000 annual income is just as fairly impacted as a family of $ 3,000000 by a flat 10% tax. After taxes the $30K family has lost $3,000, which leaves them with        $ 27K as an income for the year, while the top ender has paid $300,000 in tax, but has $2.7 million left. Who is more adversely impacted? It should be noted that there is an absence of lower income support for flat tax initiatives. An adjunct to this is the constant refusal of Republicans to raise taxes and the rabid support of persons who would be relatively unaffected by marginal tax rates caused by extending current brackets. Most Americans living today have no clue as to how low today’s tax brackets are compared to the Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson eras. Today (2013) the top bracket is 39.6% on incomes over $400,000 annually. Those who scream “foul” have apparently forgotten that in the heart of the Reagan years – 1986 – the top rate was 50% on incomes over $175,000, and had been there for the entire Reagan administration! Even that seems small compared to the 70% of 1979!

Let’s recap. 1) The public is largely ignorant regarding how historically low income taxes are today. 2) The public, or 90% of it, favors a radically smoother income distribution that exists, and believes it is better today than it actually is. 3) Tea Partiers and their ilk, are toadies for corporate interests and in few cases represent the true interests of their constituents. 4) Many Tea party initiatives are actually harmful and against the best interests of their support base. 5) Without continued government regulation, this situation will worsen rather than improve. And finally; 5) Waiting for most corporations to “do the right thing” on their own is akin to the definition of insanity –that is “Insanity is doing the exact same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

And I do believe that’s all I have to say about that!        

TV -2013 Fall Season

My Indonesian and Russian readers may well wish to skip this one, since there is little of relevance to you, because this article is about American TV.

    All right. As the new "season" (in quotes because the term has so many different meanings now) begins there are several observations I shall make, to which you may all feel free to call bullshit upon as the spirit moves you.

     First: Casting the superb Andre Braugher in "Brooklyn 99" is rather like surrounding Sir Laurence Olivier with the Keystone Kops. Braugher has great comedy chops, as amply evidenced in the great and underrated "Men of a Certain Age."  That show, however had great writing, a great supporting cast and NOT Andy Samberg! There was once a truly funny, well scripted  cop show called Barney Miller. This train wreck is the reverse in every way. Weak supporting cast, stupid premise, lousy writing, et al. In the real world, the character played (badly) by Samberg would have been rent into tiny pieces by his coworkers and fed to the fishes and the Braugher character would have eaten his gun.

     Second: Know that I love and admire everything about Michael J. Fox - except his new show. The writers apparently are of the same school as the writing staff of "Brooklyn 99" in their belief that every single line of dialogue has to be humorous. Discussing this debacle with several friends we discovered that we had all recorded it and that we all felt embarrassed to be watching by the halfway point and changed to another program. Fox is a brave man and a good actor who deserves better.

      Third: Just as the first two shows are pretentious and unbelievable, so is "Agents of Shield." - at least the unbelievable part. There is no pretense, however, since it is exactly and effectively  what it tries to be - a comic book  writ large on the small screen.  This format, complete with the occasional wink and a nudge to let you know they're in on the joke, has served Stan Lee and the Marvel dynasty well. It's fun, action filled, and the very last second spoilers at the end are a nice touch, ala The Avengers and Iron Man. You almost have to watch just to see who shows up. I'm waiting for Pepper Potts!  

In the category of  auspicious  start, James Spader and  "Blacklist" shows promise. "Ironside" shows promise as well. Most of the new half hour family sitcoms (shows centered around families, all dysfunctional in some way) seem desperately trying to be what Modern Family already is - hilarious with heart. Most, statistically will fail. "The Crazy Ones"  has a decent chance, since it would be foolish to count out Robin Williams.  Most of these shows are striving desperately for "quirky" not realizing that "The Big Bang Theory" owns the title and will for as long as Jim Sheldon is alive.  

    So much for new stuff (for this post).  Thank goodness Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu are back in "Elementary" and Mr. Reese, Finch and Carter are at it again in "Person of Interest."  Of course the topper is the return of "Blue Bloods" - the exact antithesis of “Brooklyn 99” - a cop show with heart, great cast, great writing and believable story lines. Tom Selleck  seems to have been born for the role of Frank Regan (or Jesse Stone).  I know of no other actor doing TV these days who seems so effortless and comfortable in the skin of his character.

Of course these are just my brain droppings, let me know if you agree or disagree.