In the News – Sunday Morning
Senator Grassley tweeting: “Five times now we hv granted extension for Dr Ford to decide if she wants to proceed w her desire stated one wk ago that she wants to tell senate her story Dr Ford if u changed ur mind say so so we can move on I want to hear ur testimony. Come to us or we to u,”
I like how tweeting brings out the intellect in people and especially our politicians. And Chuckie the tweeting senator does this on a public forum with Ford and Kavanaugh so everyone can read along with him.
In New Jersey’s 2019 ACA marketplace, fruits of reinsurance, individual mandate, and silver loading.
New Jersey’s Dept. of Banking and Insurance has posted individual market health plan prices for 2019. Thanks to the state’s new reinsurance program, state-based individual mandate, and silver loading (actively encouraged by DOBI), unsubsidized enrollees will see price drops from 2018. For the subsidized, it looks pretty much like status quo ante — although network changes and plan design changes could alter that picture.
As was the case last year, AmeriHealth has sewn up all the lowest price points. AmeriHealth and Oscar are offering discounted silver plans off-exchange — presumably because of silver loading (Cost Sharing Reduction, available only with silver plans and only on-exchange, is not priced into off-exchange silver). Horizon is not offering any off-exchange discounts, but it has dropped prices about 7% from last year. A few salient year-to-year comparisons below. Quoted premiums are for a 46 year-old — where they’re a clean 1.5 times the base rate posted by DOBI. Andrew Sprung at xpostfactoid
More states should follow New Jersey’s lead.
Further evidence that the tax cuts have not led to widespread bonuses, wage or compensation growth. Economics Policy Institute.
Newly released Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Employer Costs for Employee Compensation data allow us to examine nonproduction bonuses in the first two quarters of 2018 to assess the trends in bonuses in absolute dollars and as a share of compensation. The bottom line is that there has been very little increase in private sector compensation or W-2 wages since the end of 2017. The $0.03 per hour (inflation-adjusted) bump in bonuses between the fourth quarter of 2018 and the second quarter of 2018 is very small and not necessarily attributable to the tax cuts rather than employer efforts to recruit workers in a continued low unemployment environment.
“Saving the Planet Doesn’t Mean Killing Economic Growth”
Noah Smith: Hickel cites analyses by the United Nations Environment Program and others showing that even big improvements in resource efficiency, encouraged by very high carbon taxes, will be unable to halt overall resource use or global carbon emissions. But this evidence doesn’t support Hickel’s conclusions, which rely on several misconceptions about the nature and the importance of growth.
Hickel doesn’t seem to grasp the fact of most economic growth happening in countries that are relatively poor. From 2010 to 2015 as determined by estimates by the IMF emerging markets, developing countries were responsible for about 70 percent of global output and consumption growth and advanced economies were responsible for the rest. World Bank’s forecasts for 2017-2019 are similar.
China’s contribution to global growth will be double the U.S. growth and India’s will be larger than the whole of the entire euro zone. The same is true of greenhouse gas emissions. Since about 1990, emissions from the U.S. and EU have fallen, while emissions from developing countries such as (and especially) China and India have exploded.
In 2017, the International Energy Agency estimated that the growth in energy-related carbon emissions in China and the rest of developing Asia was more than five times the growth in the European Union while U.S. emissions declined.
If Hickel and others succeed in stopping economic growth in developing countries, it will not be rich countries bearing the brunt of the change. It will be poor and middle-income countries such as India and China. The desperately poor African countries will not a chance at increased prosperity.
$600,000 in Debt and the Crisis is Worsening “The student loan default rate more than doubled between 2003 and 2011, and 40 percent of borrowers are expected to fall behind on their loans by 2023.”
There is a long history of Congress favoring financial institutions with laws and regulation blocking students from debt relief. Yet, our president can bankruptcy relief multiple times without any court or law blocking him. For him it is business as usual, getting a new loan to buy property and increase profits, pay the old loan with then new loan, and declaring bankruptcy when costs exceed cash inflow. Students do not have the luxury of gaming the system.
With the cost of an education in this country is only rising, borrowing is unlikely to slow. State funding for public colleges fell by $9 billion between 2008 and 2017, and the gap has been filled with tuition hikes. For the first time, half of all states relied more heavily on tuition last year than on government appropriations to fund higher public education. Americans now spend an approximate $30,000 per student a year to gain a college education or twice as much as the average developed country.
The IBR and Repaye programs put in place by well-meaning advocates has been a failure due to a lack of understanding in how to manage it yearly and with some servicers such as Naviente deliberating misleading students into multiple postponements of loans instead of into the income-driven repayment plans. The plans cap monthly payments at a percentage of the borrower’s income. It is not the first-time commercial interests have lied to students and taken a predatory approach on student loans. Naviente is being sued by five states and the CFPB.
Indian sailor Abhilash Tomy injured on disabled yacht.
A multinational rescue effort is underway to try to reach an injured sailor whose yacht is disabled in the South Indian Ocean.
Abhilash Tomy, a 39-year-old Indian naval commander, was competing in the 2018 Golden Globe Race. The race is a nonstop, 30,000-mile solo yachting competition that bars the use of modern technology. To me, this sounds like a lot of fun and a lot of work. I always like to sail as the quiet of the water is soothing.
Abhilash Tomy boat the “Thuriya,” hit a storm in the South Indian Ocean. The 36-foot boat was one of several hit by 80 mph winds and 46-foot seas midway across the South Indian Ocean on Friday, day 82 days of the race. Thuriya’s mast was broken about 1,900 miles southwest of Perth, Australia and “at the extreme limit of immediate rescue range,” according to media statements.
Organizers became concerned after Tomy sent a text message reading: “ROLLED. DISMASTED. SEVERE BACK INJURY. CANNOT GET UP,” and then was unheard from for nearly 15 hours. In a later satellite text message, the sailor gave his location and wrote: “ACTIVATED EPIRB (Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon). CANT WALK. MIGHT NEED STRETCHER.”
What is the White House Deflecting from Now?
It is no secret one of the strategies used by the White House is to deflect attacks on their agenda by creating another emer . . . spectacle . . . gency when the news and the opposition gets close to defeating their plans. The attack on Rosenstein as led by the NYT is just too easy, convenient, and laughable (almost). The deflections have happened too many times already. Trump holds Fire
Continuing on this path; “Kavanaugh Accuser Agrees to Testify” I am sure Grassley and other members of the Senate, Hatch, Cornyn, Cruz, Hannity, and the tier two Senators such as Flake, etc. will make this debacle into another shameful attack on Ford, women, and the truth. What, no women on the Repub side? I am sure the 4 women on the Dem side can support Ford and strike back.