Category Archives: Socialism

The Ass With Ears And His Ali Baba Thieves

Barack Obama, Britain, Business, Europe, Healthcare, Socialism

“The Ass With Ears And His Ali Baba Thieves” is the current column, now on RT:

IdiotCare, aka ObamaCare, kicks in once a company is 50 people strong. In a word, as the business begins to grow. The costs imposed by the healthcare mandate compel small business to duck-and-dive so as to stay alive.

In a televised interview, Kari DePhillips, the co-owner of a small PR firm, explained how the health-care law would impact her fledgling enterprise, and what she was doing to stay in business. (Small business, incidentally, is already adept at negotiating the legislative impositions of affirmative-action laws.)

DePhillips, of The Content Factory, told Fox News’ Gerri Willis that she is “scrambling” to comply with the mandate, for she must provide employees with healthcare or face fines. For this plucky woman, the year 2012 will mark the first time the cost of healthcare per employee “broke the $10,000 mark”! “Multiply that by 50,” and this entrepreneur is in hock to the tune of $500,000.

Unless she curtails her ambitions, those are the additional costs America’s Ass With Ears (Barack Obama) will be imposing on Mrs. DePhillips.

Suitably, hiring “fewer people or hiring in a different capacity” were two of the options explored on The Willis Report. The first alludes to part-time, “1099 contractors.”

Moving to the state of New Hampshire, as part of the “Free State Project”— and in the faint hope that the Granite State will nullify the Affordable Care Act—is another option DePhillips intended to explore.

Unmentioned was the incorporation option. Create a new business, at considerable costs, each time your company reaches 49. As this is hardly a viable option, it is best just to stay small.

“I’m a 1099er,” confirms a British reader. “My customers all split their businesses up years ago to stay under 50. Might’ve been the Family Leave Act along with a bunch of other legislation lumped in with it.”

Britain has morphed into a nation of sheep and shopkeepers, whose vaulting ambitions were on display during the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics. I am referring to the song, dance and Hosannas the host country gave to its National Health Service, or NHS.

Like the Europeans and the English, Americans will have to learn not to shoot for the sky. …

Read the complete column, “The Ass With Ears And His Ali Baba Thieves”, on RT.

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Doctors Dig In

Barack Obama, Healthcare, Regulation, Socialism

The bloggers at the Washington Post remind me of the pinheads behind the sort of “scientific” research that is often, small mercies, spoofed in the news. You know the kind. A controlled study found that men were more attracted to older women when the women were better looking than their younger counterparts. (Howard Stern before Sirius once read this “discovery” on air.)

The latest ObamaCare-related research revealed at WaPo concerns the unwillingness of doctors to be conscripted into the Gulag of ObamaCare.

The findings were published this afternoon in the journal Health Affairs. Accordingly, a state-by-state survey, looking at doctors’ willingness to accept Medicaid patients, found that “more than three in ten doctors – 31 percent – said no,” they would not be accepting new Medicaid patients.

The WaPo’s wide-eyed bloggers are shocked—shocked, I tell you—over this unintuitive outcome.

OMG.

That could mean that the states with the highest likelihood of expanding Medicaid might be those with the lower reimbursement rates – and fewer doctors willing to accept these patients by proxy.

Another Alice-in-Wonderland moment: California has a problem (really!!!). “1.8 million residents are expected to gain coverage – but fewer than 60 percent of providers accept new patients in the program.”

The WaPo’s brilliant conclusion: “Prior evidence suggests that physicians’ acceptance of Medicaid patients will increase as Medicaid payment rates increase.”

You don’t say!

WaPo, of course, is statism and cretinism personified. The solution to the lack of will to work for free: The money pot will provideth.

Not to worry. The Affordable Care Act provisions have it covered, the WaPo assures its readers. “The law increases Medicaid reimbursements for primary care doctors to match those of Medicare providers.”

As I said, it’s all in the money pot.

Since, of course, there is no bottomless money pot, interventionism invariably leads to socialization of the means of production. In the case of the physician caught in the maelstrom of ObamaCare, expect the doctor to be slowly conscripted in the service of those who claim his services for free.

UPDATED: USA, USA…

America, Human Accomplishment, Russia, Socialism, Sport

Not even the central planners that run the Olympics could suppress excellence and effort. (In its pursuit of egalitarianism, the Olympics rules committee decreed that “only two members of each team can advance to the all-around, meaning that even if one team is predominant above all others it can only have equal representation in the all-around at best.”)

Although America’s superb athletes may come short in many track and field events, our athletes have dominated the Olympics in the sports that count: gymnastics and swimming. (Who cares about ping-pong?) An American, Carmelita Jeter, became the second fastest woman in the world, winning silver in the 100 meter dash. The Jamaicans are unbeatable; gold medalist Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce a fierce runner.

I confess that the magnificent, down-to-earth Missy Franklin and team swim America charmed me more so than our bionic gymnasts. I am of the old-fashioned mindset that appreciates gymnastics when it balances the artistic and athletic elements. (The Russians still accomplish that, but they’ve lost their stamina.) Still, what amazing athletes these young women are and how impressive is each one’s quest for excellence. (Aly Raisman was my favorite.)

And what does one say about that meteor Michael Phelps? The way he brought home the 4×100-meter medley relay, tonight!!! Supernova.

Comedian Lily Tomlin once said that “98 percent of the adults in this country are decent, hard-working, honest Americans. It’s the other lousy 2 percent that get all the publicity. But then – we elected them.”

This lousy minority is the inescapable obsession of the weekly columnist. That’s why it’s so nice, for two weeks every two years – to shunt the kleptocracy to the sidelines, revealing it as the freak show it truly is.

For once, we can look to the unabashed individualism instantiated in the eager young faces, the lithe, lean bodies, the unabashed pursuit of victory.

Go USA. And well done.

UPDATE (Aug. 5): I’m awe struck. So should you be. What a strong, strategic marathon Ethiopia’s Tiki Gelana ran. She set “an Olympic record while winning the event in 2:23:07, fending off Kenya’s Priscah Jeptoo by five seconds.” Anyone who races through a marathon is my hero. That race is mind over matter. I was pleased to see Tatyana Petrova Arkhipova of Russia, who came third in 2:23:29, doggedly hold on to her position in the leading pack.

The Facts of Society Vs. The Facts of Socialism

Barack Obama, Individualism Vs. Collectivism, Socialism, Sport

How they try! The “media mafia” is struggling to mitigate the words that’ll be “Obama’s political epitaph”: “You didn’t do that.”

No sooner is someone found to have alluded to the obvious facts of society—that with exceptions, individuals achieve with the support and mentoring of those who care about their endeavor—than he is said to be like Obama.

Thus PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) is up the creak without a paddle, conflating Romeny’s words at “the 2002 Winter Olympics opening ceremonies in Salt Lake City,” with Obama’s “You didn’t do that” comments.

ROMNEY:

“You Olympians, however, know that you didn’t get here solely on your own power,” he said. “For most of you, loving parents, sisters or brothers encouraged your hopes. Coaches guided, communities built venues and organized competitions. All Olympians stand on the shoulders of those who lifted them.”
Sound familiar? It’s a bit like the “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that” line by President Obama in Roanoke, Va., earlier this month.

OBAMA in “context” and unplugged:

“…you didn’t get there on your own.
You didn’t get there on your own.
If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that.
Somebody else made that happen.”