Gore, no thanks, the other option again the other side of the same coin. Not a fan of either choice, all politicians in D & R same lack of moral fiber in public and private lives. Gore was right there along with old Mr. Bill "Son of Hope - Hope you aren't an American worker about to get screwed by NAFTA and Alan Greenspan" Clinton. The same Bill Clinton now representing foreign nations and making millions while his "wife" works as Secy. of State (damn you ethics and conflicts of interest, real and apparent). Gore did nothing to stop it. Gore's father set him up, like Murdoch set his son up for life of $ and privilege, like Bush did for his sons, Senator Buffett set his son up, Joe Kennedy/rum runner/inside trader/American ambassor to the UK that had to be recalled for his appeasement stance set up his clan, etc. All the same private club and, as old George Carlin said, we ain't in it. Not pulling a partisan thing here, just dislike them all and don't trust any one of them, especially when there are millions of people that didn't earn any Nobel Prizes or press coverage who literally die fighting corruption, abuses, sacrifice themselves to stop their family, relatives, etc. from getting raped and murdered daily in S. America, Africa, Asia, and elsewhere. Gore's living the highlife like the rest of the 1% while thinking he knows how the "common man/woman" lives. Nope.

We would be better off as a Nation if we randomly selected a citizen from the populace and made him serve in Congress. That would ensure we educated our populace in classic liberal arts like Jefferson, etc. wanted (science, math, history, and other subjects) because anyone could be eligible for service. That would prevent grooming or buying candidates like we have nowadays. It would ensure a caring and educated and involved populace. And no serving citizen could be richer during or after his limited service and would be accountable to fellow citizens and the govt. And if the "elite" don't listen to the populace soon, Cincinnatus and others will speak as if they are alive and well.

-Kurtz

The CRS link you cited appears to be broken. No need to post this, but I'd be grateful if you posted the report.

thanks

I don't think one can negotiate with MDs. We have a corporate take over of health care services. I plan to detail this, but they are forcing patients to sign over to loan shark interest rates, plus turning over bills that aren't even late to bill collectors, ruining people's credit.

Pretty obscene with poor services, or fake billing and obviously a $10k bill @ 18% interest rates is an outright crime.

Some are pushing people into loan shark credit deals for medical services that are not even actually necessary, "sales" push.

The point of this entire exercise wasn't supposed to be about a tax and a penalty, it's supposed to be about getting everybody quality health care to stop the medical horror stories.

If you click on that link to the CRS analysis, there is a sliding and increasing scale on the penalties, which I agree, people will just pay that.

I think the Good news in associating this with a tax is for people to realize taxes are supposed to pay for public services, not go into some black hole somewhere and another point is this is why other nation's taxes are higher, those who have national, universal single payer health care systems.

In other words, those other countries shouldn't be looked at as "high taxes" but instead providing high quality health care at reasonable cost and that is what all of their citizens pay for, through taxes.

I pulled a CNN and did not read the entire opinion. Justice Ginsburg really pointing out what is implied in the above, these clauses Robert's claimed were "unconstitutional" are the very clauses which enabled social security, Medicare, Medicaid, so it seems the backdoor open to attack our existing social safety nets was laid.

From the Justice Ginsburg opinion:

The provision of health care is today a concern of na­ tional dimension, just as the provision of old-age and survivors’ benefits was in the 1930’s. In the Social Security Act, Congress installed a federal system to provide monthly benefits to retired wage earners and, eventually, to their survivors. Beyond question, Congress could have adopted a similar scheme for health care. Congress chose, instead, to preserve a central role for private insurers and state governments. According to THE CHIEF JUSTICE, the Commerce Clause does not permit that preservation. This rigid reading of the Clause makes scant sense and is stunningly retrogressive. Since 1937, our precedent has recognized Congress’ large authority to set the Nation’s course in the economic and social welfare realm.

We pointed to many times how much cheaper health care is in other nations and no, it is NOT because Americans are fat. It is because they do not have these for profit, private health care sector, making money off of the sick.

We're about more efficiency and reducing costs, universal U.S. citizen coverage.

The term "'alien' means any person not a citizen or national of the United States" as written in the U.S. Code. This isn't Bill Maher or Rosie's show or CNN, the law is written down and words have specific meanings. And that's what's used in immigration proceedings, for visas, etc., so talking about "outer space" and trying to be cute in a criminal court, with immigration judges, policy discussions with big boys and girls, US Attorneys, and border agents will, well, not get you very far. So, according to the law that Congress wrote and that is the law of the land, "aliens" aren't actually from "outer space," but something else. Your end of the lesson is done.

Firstly, aliens come from outterspace. Unless some of you talking about aliens living among us disguised as humans, which is a completely different topic probably for another blog Secondly, blaming immigrants for poor wages is a "supply-side" perspective. What our economy needs is greater aggregate demand, so we don't have to squabble over what's left of the job market. Lastly, the influx of undocumented immigrants is a product of the "free trade" agreements, like NAFTA. If we just deny jobs to those whom need them, we aren't solving the imbalance created by these failing policies.

There is no shortage, in fact we have a glut of PhDs in STEM. Corporate lobbyists spin out sponsored bogus papers, and I'm reasonably certain the press is paid for these "plant" stories. Notice how "the press" never amplifies the real studies coming out of Sloan (a highly respected research institution), or other real economists.

i.e. when Americans are squeezed out of graduate school in favor of foreigners, no surprise, the majority of research involve foreigners because Americans have been denied, or squeezed out financially, of those opportunities.

But bottom line, even the GAO has shown, there is no labor shortage and all one needs to do is look at BLS statistics, which includes H-1B, L-1, foreign guest workers to see the unemployment rates are double the norm.

The corporate lobbyists are on a roll, they have their demands in exchange for campaign cash and want their bought and paid for politicians to deliver on what they bought them off for in the first place.

The reason is Durable Goods advance report is very often revised and a second release is 6 days later, and much more accurate. While advanced durable goods shows a 1.1% increase, it's just a waste of time to feed the Wall Street buzz machine when odds are in 6 days this percentage will be revised.

So, folks reading our coverage on Durable goods, we will make a point to go into much more detail on the overall Manufacturers' Shipments, Inventories, and Orders Census report, which is released on July 3rd.