By Stephen Stirling | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on December 13, 2016 at 8:36 AM, updated December 13, 2016 at 3:06 PM
The struggles of Atlantic City are well documented.
Casino closures. The threat of bankruptcy. The recent state takeover.
But while much has been made about the pain being felt by the city and its most famous commercial tenants, new data show its residents likely feel the sting more than most.
Veteran financial guru Larry Kudlow, who served as the Donald Trump campaign’s senior economic adviser, predicts to Newsmax TV thatPresident-elect Donald Trump is assembling the type of cabinet “to end the White House war against business that we’ve experienced under the Obama administration.”
“There has been a war against business from day one and that is going to end,” Kudlow told Steve Malzberg on “America Talks Live.”
“I think Trump’s Cabinet picks have been very good and very skillful,” said Kudlow, a Newsmax Finance Insider, radio talk-show host and CNBC senior contributor.
December 8, 201612:02 AM ET
Heard on Morning Edition
One of the fundamental ways scientists measure the well-being of a nation is tracking the rate at which its citizens die and how long they can be expected to live.
So the news out of the federal government Thursday is disturbing: The overall U.S. death rate has increased for the first time in a decade, according to an analysis of the latest data. And that led to a drop in overall life expectancy for the first time since 1993, particularly among people younger than 65.
“This is a big deal,” says Philip Morgan, a demographer at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill who was not involved in the new analysis.
“There’s not a better indicator of well-being than life expectancy,” he says. “The fact that it’s leveling off in the U.S. is a striking finding.”
Now, there’s a chance that the latest data, from 2015, could be just a one-time blip. In fact, a preliminary analysis from the first two quarters of 2016 suggests that may be the case, says Robert Anderson, chief of the mortality statistics branch at the National Center for Health Statistics, which released the new report.
BY ALAN M. COLLINGE – 05/13/16 07:00 AM EDT
When he announced his candidacy in 2007, Barack Obama looked like he could be the one to finally stand up to the student lending system. He was one of only two members on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) committee not to have taken money from the Sallie Mae PAC. In this position he was privy to HELP Committee and other reports detailing a broad swath of illegal and deceptive activities by the lenders, the universities, and even the Department of Education.
His rhetoric about making college “affordable” sounded great. The deletion of most every standard consumer protection (like bankruptcy and statutes of limitations) from student loans had caused a hyper-inflationary market, and a systemically predatory lending system that was lives and livelihoods of millions of people. The nation’s student loan debt had skyrocketed to $450 billion, and the Department of Education had actually begun turning a profit on defaults.
So when Obama was elected, largely due to overwhelming support from young people, it was assumed that he would make things right. But he did nothing to bring back any standard consumer protections. His administration did nothing to curb the predatory collection powers of the student lending system. College prices increased faster than previously, and today the average undergraduate is now leaving school with $35,000 in debt, up from about $17,000 when Obama announced.
By the time Obama leaves office next year, the nation will have added $1 Trillion to its student debt tab.
What the Obama administration did do was great for the federal government, not the students. Obama federalized the system to where the government now profitsimmensely from both interest on loans it makes directly to students, and defaults. To say that the federal government now sits atop the most predatory lending system in our nation’s history is not an understatement.
by Jim Clifton
Here’s something that many Americans — including some of the smartest and most educated among us — don’t know: The official unemployment rate, as reported by the U.S. Department of Labor, is extremely misleading.
Right now, we’re hearing much celebrating from the media, the White House and Wall Street about how unemployment is “down” to 5.6%. The cheerleading for this number is deafening. The media loves a comeback story, the White House wants to score political points and Wall Street would like you to stay in the market.
None of them will tell you this: If you, a family member or anyone is unemployed and has subsequently given up on finding a job — if you are so hopelessly out of work that you’ve stopped looking over the past four weeks — the Department of Labor doesn’t count you as unemployed. That’s right. While you are as unemployed as one can possibly be, and tragically may never find work again, you are not counted in the figure we see relentlessly in the news — currently 5.6%. Right now, as many as 30 million Americans are either out of work or severely underemployed. Trust me, the vast majority of them aren’t throwing parties to toast “falling” unemployment.
There’s another reason why the official rate is misleading. Say you’re an out-of-work engineer or healthcare worker or construction worker or retail manager: If you perform a minimum of one hour of work in a week and are paid at least $20 — maybe someone pays you to mow their lawn — you’re not officially counted as unemployed in the much-reported 5.6%. Few Americans know this.
https://www.gallup.com/opinion/chairman/181469/big-lie-unemployment.aspx
By Anjalee Khemlani, November 23, 2016 at 10:53 AM
Rutgers University’s Certified Health Care Manager program starts in February. – (NJBIZ FILE PHOTO)
Though the future of the Affordable Care Act is currently unknown following the presidential election, Rutgers University is staying the course in the rollout of a Certified Health Care Manager program — which the university is touting as the first of its kind in the country.
The 30-module course, which will only span three semesters for those interested, is geared to train health care managers to understand the ACA, as well as other changing trends in health care administration.
BY RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Premiums will go up sharply next year under President Barack Obama’s health care law, and many consumers will be down to just one insurer, the administration confirmed Monday. That’s sure to stoke another “Obamacare” controversy days before a presidential election.
Before taxpayer-provided subsidies, premiums for a midlevel benchmark plan will increase an average of 25 percent across the 39 states served by the federally run online market, according to a report from the Department of Health and Human Services. Some states will see much bigger jumps, others less.
Moreover, about 1 in 5 consumers will only have plans from a single insurer to pick from, after major national carriers such as UnitedHealth Group, Humana and Aetna scaled back their roles.
“Consumers will be faced this year with not only big premium increases but also with a declining number of insurers participating, and that will lead to a tumultuous open enrollment period,” said Larry Levitt, who tracks the health care law for the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation.
Republicans pounced on the numbers as a warning that insurance markets created by the 2010 health overhaul are teetering toward a “death spiral.” Sign-up season starts Nov. 1, about a week before national elections in which the GOP remains committed to a full repeal.
“It’s over for Obamacare,” Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said at a campaign rally Monday evening in Tampa, Florida.
October 14, 2016 — 5:00 AM EDT
A growing number of people in Obamacare are finding out their health insurance plans will disappear from the program next year, forcing them to find new coverage even as options shrink and prices rise.
At least 1.4 million people in 32 states will lose the Obamacare plan they have now, according to state officials contacted by Bloomberg. That’s largely caused by Aetna Inc., UnitedHealth Group Inc. and some state or regional insurers quitting the law’s marketsfor individual coverage.
Sign-ups for Obamacare coverage begin next month. Fallout from the quitting insurers has emerged as the latest threat to the law, which is also a major focal point in the U.S. presidential election. While it’s not clear what all the consequences of the departing insurers will be, interviews with regulators and insurance customers suggest that plans will be fewer and more expensive, and may not include the same doctors and hospitals.
It may also mean that instead of growing in 2017, Obamacare could shrink. As of March 31, the law covered 11.1 million people; an Oct. 13 S&P Global Ratings report predicted that enrollment next year will range from an 8 percent decline to a 4 percent gain.
BY KATE IRBY
With costly healthcare, a stereotype of obesity and a culture of creatively fatty foods, “healthy” probably isn’t the first word that comes to mind when you think of the United States.
But according to the Legatum Prosperity Index’s findings for 2015, the U.S. is the healthiest country in the world. However, when it comes to freedom, an ideal most Americans pride themselves on, the U.S. falls to 15.
So what’s the country with the most personal freedom? Canada, followed by New Zealand, Norway, Luxembourg and Iceland.
Read more here: https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/world/article105618381.html#storylink=cpy
By ROBERT PEAROCT. 2, 2016
WASHINGTON — The fierce struggle to enact and carry out the Affordable Care Act was supposed to put an end to 75 years of fighting for a health care system to insure all Americans. Instead, the law’s troubles could make it just a way station on the road to another, more stable health care system, the shape of which could be determined on Election Day.
Seeing a lack of competition in many of the health law’s online insurance marketplaces, Hillary Clinton, President Obama and much of theDemocratic Party are calling for more government, not less.
The departing president, the woman who seeks to replace him and nearly one-third of the Senate have endorsed a new government-sponsored health plan, the so-called public option, to give consumers an additional choice. A significant number of Democrats, for whom Senator Bernie Sanders spoke in the primaries, favor a single-payer arrangement, which could take the form of Medicare for all.
Donald J. Trump and Republicans in Congress would go in the direction of less government, reducing federal regulation and requirements so insurance would cost less and no-frills options could proliferate. Mr. Trump would, for example, encourage greater use of health savings accounts, allow insurance policies to be purchased across state lines and let people take tax deductions for insurance premium payments.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/03/us/politics/obama-health-care-act.html?_r=0
September 28, 2016, 02:54 pm
By Katie Bo Williams and Cristina Marcos
Congress voted Wednesday to override President Obama for the first time in his eight-year tenure, as the House followed the Senate in rejecting a veto of legislation allowing families of terrorist victims to sue Saudi Arabia.
The House easily cleared the two-thirds threshold to push back against the veto. The final tally was 348-77, with 18 Republicans and 59 Democrats voting no.
The Senate voted 97-1 in favor of the override earlier in the day, with only Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) voting to sustain the president’s veto.
“We can no longer allow those who injure and kill Americans to hide behind legal loopholes denying justice to the victims of terror,” said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte(R-Va.).
The White House immediately slammed lawmakers following the Senate vote.
https://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/house/298315-house-overrides-obamas-9-11-bill-veto
This will give you chills.
Daniel Lattier | September 27, 2016
Philosopher George Santayana’s line has become cliché, but it’s so damn true: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Well, perhaps if more Americans today read Plato (like they used to), then our country wouldn’t be repeating the same mistakes he warned us about 2,400 years ago.
In Book VIII of his Republic, Plato uses a fictitious conversation between his teacher Socrates and Adeimantus to explain howdemocracies—when they become too radical—devolve into tyrannies.
I have included M. James Ziccardi’s apt summary of this conversation below. The parallels between the “tyranny” Plato describes and America today are chilling:
https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/blog/wow-platos-tyranny-sounds-exactly-america-today
TARA NURIN | SEPTEMBER 27, 2016
Amid growing recognition that some students are going hungry, Rutgers-New Brunswick is the latest university in New Jersey to open a food pantry
Ramen noodles. Priced around 13 cents a bag, they’ve been a staple of college life for decades, helping the archetypal “starving student” afford tuition, housing, books, and the occasional beer. But the typical shrug in reaction to this paradigm is giving way to real concern as institutions of higher learning realize that hunger on campus is a serious problem that’s hurting students’ ability to learn.
This summer, Rutgers University-New Brunswick became the latest of at least five New Jersey colleges and universities — and more than 300 nationally — to install a free food pantry on campus. So far, about 30 students have taken advantage of Rutgers’ non-perishable goods. But the need is far greater.
Palantir Technologies co-founder Peter Thiel is evidently paying the price for backing Republican nominee Donald Trump, as the Obama administration has slapped his company with a frivolous lawsuit alleging “racial discrimination” against Asians.
The lawsuit, filed and announced Monday by the Department of Labor, threatens the complete cancellation of every contract Palantir has with the federal government — a penalty worth $340 million, the lawsuit claims, which would end the company.
The claims in the lawsuit are laughable. The Obama administration alleges that Palantir discriminated against Asians. But it has to admit that Palantir, in fact, hired many Asians — 11 out of 25 software engineers, for example. The government does not even bother to claim that Palantir deliberately excluded Asians. Rather, it argues that since only 44% of Palantir’s software engineers are Asian, but 85% of the applicant pool was Asian, Palantir must, statistically, have discriminated against Asians.
President Obama vetoes bipartisan bill that would let families of 9/11 victims sue the government of Saudi Arabia, setting up a showdown with Congress where lawmakers on both sides of the aisle aim to override the president’s decision.
By Jordan Fabian – 09/23/16 04:26 PM EDT
President Obama on Friday vetoed legislation that would allow families of 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia in U.S courts, setting up a high-stakes showdown with Congress.
Obama’s move opens up the possibility that lawmakers could override his veto for the first time with a two-thirds vote in both chambers.
Republican and Democratic leaders have said they are committed to holding an override vote, and the bill’s drafters say they have the support to force the bill to become law.
The Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA) unanimously passed through both chambers by voice vote.
But the timing of the president’s veto is designed to erode congressional support for the bill and put off a politically damaging override vote until after the November elections.
Obama waited until the very end of the 10-day period he had to issue a veto, hoping to buy time to lobby members of Congress against the measure.
White House officials also hope congressional leaders will leave Washington to hit the campaign trail before trying for an override, kicking a vote to the lame-duck session after the election.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/296862-obama-vetoes-9-11-bill
