Up in My Grill: 4th of July Rap (featuring Remy)
"Ain't no party like a nanny state party." Continue reading →
58,000 Californians Will Lose Health Care Insurance in 2014.
"Two insurance companies have announced that they will no longer offer health care insurance to individuals in California next year. They will sell policies only to group insurance policies. Obama promised this: 'If you like your health insurance, keep it.' He and Pelosi forget this: 'Of course, your existing company may decide not to sell it to you after we’re finished with the health insurance system.' Nobody says that companies have to sell policies that are money-losers. So, the way for companies to protect themselves against rising claims is to pull out of the market. If other firms think they want the risk, they can keep selling these individual policies." Continue reading →
Tobacco Speakeasy: Prohibition Lite Is Making RYO Cigarettes All the Rage
"A month ago, I was sitting with some college students for lunch. After we ate, two of them took out loose-leaf tobacco and rolling papers, with filters and all. They started rolling cigarettes at the table. In some way, it looked more like poverty than a charming anachronism. Puzzled, I asked why they were doing this. The answer was what I feared: Thanks to taxes, no student can really afford pre-rolled cigarettes anymore. You can avoid those taxes by rolling your own for a fraction of the price. And so it has come to be. Students are equipping dorm rooms with rolling machines. Kids carry pouches and filters. It strikes me as very strange, like a reversal of time." Continue reading →
Gold at a huge premium as Indian imports dry up; survival of small jewellers at stake
"India's gold imports in June are estimated to have fallen drastically to 35-40 tonne, less than a quarter of what the purchases in May were because of state restrictions, triggering a sharp rise in premiums in the local market and raising a question mark on the survival of small jewellers. The acquisition cost of the yellow metal has shot up as bullion dealers are now charging a premium of up to Rs 350 per 10 grams over and above the metal's international price, up from only Rs 40 two weeks ago. The premium, along with the increase in landed price of gold because of the rupee's depreciation, has denied Indian buyers the benefit of the fall in international prices last month." Continue reading →
The Flashpoints of Revolution Here at Home
"During the Great Recession, 60% of the job losses occurred in the middle-income ranks. Yet, 60% of the jobs that have returned have come in the low-income ranks. Worse, the labor participation rate of America’s youth – those aged 16 to 24 – is at its lowest level since, at least, the 1970s. Obama’s America, thus, is breeding economic desperation as middle-income families struggle to reclaim a lifestyle they once knew and as easily agitated youth with little to lose find that America has too few jobs for them. That is a flashpoint. So, too, is the systemic and expanding welfare mentality that has infected our government and too many of our people." Continue reading →
Could the U.S. delay Obamacare’s mandate for individuals, too?
"President Barack Obama can expect mounting pressure to make new concessions on healthcare reform, especially the requirement that all Americans obtain insurance, after delaying penalties for businesses for the first year of his plan. The individual mandate, which the U.S. Supreme Court upheld as constitutional a year ago, is the government’s only lever to compel young healthy people to sign up for federally subsidized coverage in new online health insurance marketplaces that are slated to begin enrolling new beneficiaries on October 1. If too few younger adults enroll, insurance costs could soar and jeopardize the entire reform effort." Continue reading →
ECB Suspends Cyprus Government Bonds as Collateral
"Cyprus’s local-currency issuer rating was lowered to restricted default by Fitch Ratings yesterday after the nation completed an exchange of government bonds for longer-dated securities. The bond exchange is part of commitments under a 10 billion-euro ($13 billion) bailout that saved Cyprus’s financial sector from collapse in March. Under the rescue program, deposits above 100,000 euros are taxed after an initial plan with a levy on deposits of less than 100,000 euros was rejected by parliament. Banks using such bonds to obtain funding will have to tap their national central banks’ Emergency Liquidity Assistance programs." Continue reading →
What Real Independence Looks Like
"With confiscatory taxation at all levels, the gutting of the Bill of Rights through the so-called Patriot Act, the NDAA, secret courts, executive orders, indefinite detention, the need to be in compliance with an ever growing stack of regulations, edicts, and laws, the militarization of the police, the use of the IRS as a political weapon, assassination of US citizens without due process, indirect capital controls through FATCA, NSA warrantless spying, worldwide perpetual warfare with an undefined enemy... If history is any guide, it is not going to be pretty and I strongly recommend seeking an insurance policy before it's too late. Internationalization is that insurance policy." Continue reading →
What Level of Taxation Is Too Much?
"It was reported that more than 8,000 French households had tax bills that exceeded 100% of their income in 2012. This occurred due to a so-called 'one-off levy' imposed by the socialist president in an attempt to 'offset' previous tax breaks. Ouch. Contrast France with these 18 countries that have no personal income tax. When it comes to confiscating wealth, desperate governments know no limit – other than 'what they can get away with.' In other words, it is only pragmatic to assume that anything within a desperate government's immediate reach becomes fair game." Continue reading →
US institutions to expats: ‘Take your retirement account elsewhere – now’
"First American expatriates were told that their bank accounts weren’t welcome because of the growing hassles and expense banks have to deal with when they have American citizens as clients. Now, Americans’ tax-deferred retirement accounts – many of which were set up decades ago, and never touched since – are also increasingly unwanted by US financial institutions, unless these accounts are of significant size. The reason, according to a US-based adviser, is because the companies have become increasingly concerned about 'know your customer (KYC) rules' that were first introduced in the US in 2003." Continue reading →
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