Middle Class Dismissed

Restaurant Shift: Sorry, Just Part-Time

"Rod Carstensen, owner of 11 Del Taco restaurants around Denver, began in April converting his mostly full-time workforce into one comprising mostly part-time help to minimize his health-care costs. He estimates the costs could have climbed by as much as $400,000 a year without the change. Mr. Carstensen had 180 full-time and 40 part-time workers and is in the process of switching to 80 full-time and 320 part-time workers who clock no more than 28 hours per week. He is plowing ahead despite the Obama administration's reprieve, he said, because 'we need to get there anyway, and it will take until January 1, 2015, to make this transition.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingRestaurant Shift: Sorry, Just Part-Time

The Overworked and the Idle

"Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) unions who recently went on strike, paralyzing public transit for 6.5 million inhabitants of the San Francisco Bay Area, were apparently caught off guard by the public animosity to their demands for 23% raises on top of their 50%-above-market base salaries and unavailable-at-any-private-job benefits. Memo to BART union members: the overworked earn on average slightly over half ($47,000) of what you earn for 'driving' an automated train and staffing station offices ($80,000), and those who earn more than you in the private sector often work 50% more than your 37 hours a week in highly stressful jobs." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingThe Overworked and the Idle

Ohio Dept. Of Insurance: Obamacare To Increase Premiums By 88 Percent

"Last week, the Ohio Department of Insurance announced that, based on the rates submitted by insurers to date, the average individual-market health insurance premium in 2014 will come in around $420, 'representing an increase of 88 percent' relative to 2013. 'We have warned of these increases,' said Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor in a statement. 'Consumers will have fewer choices and pay much higher premiums for their health insurance starting in 2014.' According to actuarial firm Milliman, the two biggest drivers of the increase are (1) risk pool composition changes and (2) Obamacare’s required expansion of insurance benefits." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingOhio Dept. Of Insurance: Obamacare To Increase Premiums By 88 Percent

Marc Faber: Even QE99 won’t help US; India best in Asia

"Despite quantitative easing (QE) not really bearing any fruit for the common man, the Federal Reserve is likely to continue with it and go 'up to QE99,' says investment guru Marc Faber. He strongly feels easy money has not boosted employment for the ordinary people; instead it has given a philip to asset prices owned by very small portion of the population. Property prices over the last 12 months are up 35 percent, but all this has not helped the man on the street, he says." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingMarc Faber: Even QE99 won’t help US; India best in Asia

A Frontrunner for the 2013 Bureaucrat-of-the-Year Award?

"A former official of the Bay Area Rapid Transit raked in more than $333,000 last year without working a single day after she resigned under pressure in May 2011. Dorothy Dugger, the BART’s former general manager, quietly stayed on the payroll, burning off nearly 80 weeks of unused vacation time, drawing paychecks and full benefits for more than 19 months after she agreed to quit more than two years ago, San Jose Mercury News reported. The months of extra pay were in addition to the $920,000 Ms. Dugger was paid to leave after the BART’s board botched an effort to fire her by violating public meetings laws, San Jose Mercury News reported." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingA Frontrunner for the 2013 Bureaucrat-of-the-Year Award?

DOE Green Energy Loans: $11.45 million per job and a rounding error’s worth of averted carbon emissions.

"Green energy jobs and DOE loans are tallied under programs 1703 and 1705 on this list. Permanent jobs created: 2,298; Taxpayer financed loan guarantees: $26.33 billion. 19 of the projects cost more than $10 million per permanent job. Even if you use the Obama maldaministration’s accounting methods and include temporary employment, the totally idiotic 'jobs created/saved' category and include the 33,000 Ford Motor Company jobs 'saved', you get ~60,000 jobs at a cost of $34.5 billion –> $580,000 per job." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingDOE Green Energy Loans: $11.45 million per job and a rounding error’s worth of averted carbon emissions.

Ben Bernanke as Easter Bunny: Why the Fed Can’t Prevent the Coming Crash

"If you use a zero percent return, it's easy to figure out how much you need to save. If you want to work for 30 years, and live in retirement for 30 years, then you should save 50 percent. If you want to work for 40 years, and live in retirement for 10 years, you should save 25 percent. And so on. Over the last two decades or so, savings rates have ranged from single digits to slightly negative. In rough terms, zero percent. So as a nation, we have essentially no savings and face very low future returns. The inference is simple: We will need to increase savings drastically." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingBen Bernanke as Easter Bunny: Why the Fed Can’t Prevent the Coming Crash

Parents now face hard consequences for leaving kids in car

"By the time Christina Moon pulled up to her local J.C. Penney to make a return after a morning of errands, her 4-year-old daughter was engrossed in a film in the back of the family’s SUV. So when it came time to go inside the store, the girl protested. The mom has since been investigated by Child Protective Services and faces a $500 fine and 93 days in jail. Moon has pleaded guilty in the case, so she has to pay $2,000 in court costs in addition to any fine. Jail time is a possibility, though she is hoping she will get probation when she is sentenced on July 23." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingParents now face hard consequences for leaving kids in car

Your Personal Gold Standard

"There isn’t a central bank in the world that wants to go back to a gold standard. But that’s not the point. The point is whether they will have to. I always tell people who say we’re not on the gold standard that, in a way, we are. You can put yourself on a personal gold standard just by buying gold. In other words, if you think that the value of paper money will be in some jeopardy, or confidence in paper money may be lost, one way to protect yourself is by buying gold, and there’s nothing stopping you." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingYour Personal Gold Standard

The Fleeting Beauty of Bubbles and Bonds

"The political calculus is simple: the bottom half of households don't vote, don't contribute to political campaigns and don't have enough income to borrow huge sums of money to enrich the banks. They are thus non-entities in the fiscal-monetary project of maintaining the power structure of the Status Quo. All the Status Quo needs to do is borrow enough money to fund social programs that keep the masses passive and silent. Unfortunately for the Powers That Be, the cost of placating the rapidly increasing marginalized populace is rising much faster than tax revenues." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingThe Fleeting Beauty of Bubbles and Bonds