December 15, 2008
Is Mr Tom our white knight and the one who will bring about the government transformation of health care? Is Tom going to accomplish where the Clintons failed? So let's all ask ourselves, who is TOM?
In today's LA Times, Noam Levy, wrote a glowing article about how Tom is going to grab the bull by the horns, pull it to the ground and kill it - healthcare crisis solved before consumer even know it. Tom is going to make Arnold look like an ant.
Daschle has his own plan - LA TIMES - December 15, 2008
No more messing around. Fast action solves every problem. I thought we tried that in Iraq in 1991? I sure hope it is the "right" action. The Clintons tried it in 1992 and failed because they could NOT get the job done fast enough. The creation of the new healthcare Czar is complete. Fear not because Tom is here. Fear should be running through your veins as suggestions are circulating about the creation of a national board, not subject to congressional oversight, who would have the power to dictate what treatments you would receive and what fees would be paid to the person holding the knife. Wait just a minute, is this not they way insurance companies work and the new administration says they can make it work? It just looks like a shift in power and no change in the delivery of care. The current health and medical crisis has been caused by demand exceeding supply. Cost continue to rise in order to meet the increasing demand. The current and past cause for increasing demand is due to a society that has over consumed. Yes, our debt and health crisis are CONNECTED. Over consumption of unhealthy foods and lifestyles has created the health and medical crisis. Over consumption of consumer goods has created the debt crisis. HELLO, the CDC was quoted as saying 80-90% of all health care cost are related to poor lifestyle choices.
Well let's rewind to 1992. Yes, the first signs of the health crisis were showing. Also the first signs of our impending DEBT crisis were showing as annual savings continued to decline. Bill fixed the debt crisis by creating "paper" wealth in the stock market at the expense of the middle class. Todays BILLIONAIRS were the result to the fleesing of Americas middle class. The sad part of the story is fthe fact that American media so glorified these new ICONS of society, the American public never even knew what happened. Since then our country has experienced TWO BUBBLEs in 15 years. The Clintons won the white house and the First Lady had a masterful plan for the government to take over healthcare. All would have been fine except for a small band of RENEGAGE senators who were hell bent to stop the nationalization of healthcare. Yes, this small band INSISTED healthcare be directed by CONSUMERS. This group of senators insisted on the creation of MEDICAL SAVINGS ACCOUNTS and agreed that consumers needed to control the direction of healthcare and not the Federal government. In 1992 this group saw the connection between the consumers' fiscal responsibility, utilization and cost.
The ensuing bill was called the MEDICAL COST CONTAINMENT ACT 1992.
Medical Cost Containment Act 1992
This insightful bill was penned by SIX SENATORS - 4 Democrats and 2 Republican. Medical Savings accounts became a reality in 1997, but were burden with so many restrictions they were not effective. It was not until 2004 with the creation of Health Savings Accounts, Americans could begin to see the benefits of a health care system directed by the users themselves.
Americans need to be told the truth. The LA Times has failed again to tell the whole story. What is missing from today's article is the fact that TOM DASCHLE was one of the four democratic senators who authored the bill creating what is known today as the HEALTH SAVINGS ACCOUNT. Tom Daschle, John Breaux, Sam Nunn, David Boren, Dan Coats, Richard Lugar all joined together to insure Americans would have the freedom of choice.
Americans, the current DOUBLE crisis will not be solved until you look in the mirror and tell yourself "I am the cause and I am the cure". Once we do this, as a country, we can to ANYTHING.
Rob Stehlin
Founder Cashdoctor.com
Monday, December 15, 2008
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Hang on to your fanny packs - The Sam's are coming
Local Sam, State Sam and Uncle Sam are about to announce the next wave of bad news. Yes tax revenues are going to decline at all levels. Tax revenue is how the governments pay their bills. Every thing we do is TAXED. As Americans STOP doing, tax revenues go down.
The tax decline was first seen in the housing market with declining property taxes as property values declined. The next is sales taxes. No spending – no tax and we do not tax basic food. Road taxes will decline as we drive less and are the price of fuel declines. (some taxes on fuel are a % and some are per gal). Phone taxes will decrease as many Americans are forced to cancel cell phone service. Every government agency in the USA is going to see tax revenues decline.
So how are governments going to pay for expanded services? They aren’t. Government obligations, past, present and future are BANKRUPT. Americans wake up and provide for yourself because there will be no government program to take care of you when you need it.
The tax decline was first seen in the housing market with declining property taxes as property values declined. The next is sales taxes. No spending – no tax and we do not tax basic food. Road taxes will decline as we drive less and are the price of fuel declines. (some taxes on fuel are a % and some are per gal). Phone taxes will decrease as many Americans are forced to cancel cell phone service. Every government agency in the USA is going to see tax revenues decline.
So how are governments going to pay for expanded services? They aren’t. Government obligations, past, present and future are BANKRUPT. Americans wake up and provide for yourself because there will be no government program to take care of you when you need it.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
The Secret is in the PLAN
I just do not get it. America has the smartest minds in the word and where are the ideas?
I have heard and seen the Pickens Plan. I have heard how it is being funded T Boone Pickens personally. I have heard that it will take additional investors down the road. I have heard Pickens will profit from its success and pay personally if it fails. I have heard that this is not a fix all, but a good starting point to energy independence.
Rewind, some 200 years ago to the industrial revolution. The two major drivers behind this revolution and the resulting global expansion was CHEAP ENERGY and LOGISTICS. The advent of coal and our ability to deliver it in large quantities longer and longer distances secured the foundation of the industrial revolution. In the next century OIL replaced the dirty coal, more cumberson coal, as the CHEAP ENERGY source to continue the revolution. Today we are faced with another search for CHEAP ENERGY as OIL has not become the dirty coal of the past. With out cheap energy we will not exist as we do today.
CASHDOCTOR SOLUTION - Americans create and personally fund 20 Picken Plans. YES, the Cashdoctor wants to see the FORBES Plan, the GATES Plan, the BUFFET PLAN, the GOOGLE GUYS (Page & Brin) Plan, The JOBS Plan, The ADELSON Plan, The ELLISON Plan, The KERKORIAN Plan, The DELL Plan, The KOCH Plan, The ALLEN Plan, The WALTON Plan, BALLMER Plan, The JOHNSON Plan, The ICHAN Plan, The TAYLOR Plan, The BREN Plan, The BLOOMBERG Plan, The COX Plan, The KAISER Plan, The MARS Plan (if you can think of more - do it).
Yes, we have the most creative minds and the most money in all the world. We now need to create the BIGGEST X PRIZE ever with a nation to benefit. I challenge these WELL FUNDED, great minds to a mass all their knowledge and put their money up to solve our nations dependence on foreign oil. I encourage 20 different directions and solutions. RULES - must start with your own money, must be renewable, can be of benefit (profit) to the person, but must also have long term benefit to the population of the USA.
Now you have it, the solution to our ENERGY crisis in ONE PAGE. Heck all you have to do is put all of these egos into one rooms AND nature will do the rest. America it is up to us to get the ball rolling. . I need everyone to pen a letter to the above asking them to assemble their advisers, put up their money and come up with a plan. In your letter commit your support to their effort in your local community.
P.S. I will be posting sample letters and addresses in the coming weeks as they become available
I have heard and seen the Pickens Plan. I have heard how it is being funded T Boone Pickens personally. I have heard that it will take additional investors down the road. I have heard Pickens will profit from its success and pay personally if it fails. I have heard that this is not a fix all, but a good starting point to energy independence.
Rewind, some 200 years ago to the industrial revolution. The two major drivers behind this revolution and the resulting global expansion was CHEAP ENERGY and LOGISTICS. The advent of coal and our ability to deliver it in large quantities longer and longer distances secured the foundation of the industrial revolution. In the next century OIL replaced the dirty coal, more cumberson coal, as the CHEAP ENERGY source to continue the revolution. Today we are faced with another search for CHEAP ENERGY as OIL has not become the dirty coal of the past. With out cheap energy we will not exist as we do today.
CASHDOCTOR SOLUTION - Americans create and personally fund 20 Picken Plans. YES, the Cashdoctor wants to see the FORBES Plan, the GATES Plan, the BUFFET PLAN, the GOOGLE GUYS (Page & Brin) Plan, The JOBS Plan, The ADELSON Plan, The ELLISON Plan, The KERKORIAN Plan, The DELL Plan, The KOCH Plan, The ALLEN Plan, The WALTON Plan, BALLMER Plan, The JOHNSON Plan, The ICHAN Plan, The TAYLOR Plan, The BREN Plan, The BLOOMBERG Plan, The COX Plan, The KAISER Plan, The MARS Plan (if you can think of more - do it).
Yes, we have the most creative minds and the most money in all the world. We now need to create the BIGGEST X PRIZE ever with a nation to benefit. I challenge these WELL FUNDED, great minds to a mass all their knowledge and put their money up to solve our nations dependence on foreign oil. I encourage 20 different directions and solutions. RULES - must start with your own money, must be renewable, can be of benefit (profit) to the person, but must also have long term benefit to the population of the USA.
Now you have it, the solution to our ENERGY crisis in ONE PAGE. Heck all you have to do is put all of these egos into one rooms AND nature will do the rest. America it is up to us to get the ball rolling. . I need everyone to pen a letter to the above asking them to assemble their advisers, put up their money and come up with a plan. In your letter commit your support to their effort in your local community.
P.S. I will be posting sample letters and addresses in the coming weeks as they become available
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
HELLO - CDS trouble started under the CLINTON ADMINSTRATION
Good morning readers, In my reading this morning, I found this very interesting article regarding Credit Debit Swaps (CDS). In the article you will find the origin dates back to 2000. How can anyone say our current crisis is the result of the Bush administration. Both the mortgage and the CREDIT crisis has its origins in the Clinton administration. It was the Bush administration that just sat there and WATCHED. They did not start the crisis, they just did not do anything MATERIAL about it.
We must regulate this form or gambling or REMOVE IT TOTALLY from existence. Transparency MUST EXIST in all areas in order for capitalize to function and for it to be equal to all. The failure of our economy and health is due to a lack of transparency.
Americans be prepared to STAND up and fight for your rights.
Cashdoctor Rob
Dinallo Testifies On Swaps Oversight
BY MATT BRADY
Washington Bureau -- NU Online News Service, Oct. 14, 2008, 3:14 p.m. EDT
New York State Insurance Superintendent Eric Dinallo spoke at a hearing here today about coming up with a “holistic” approach to regulating the credit default swaps market.
A credit default swap is an over-the-counter contract that gives the buyer the right to collect a payment from the seller if a borrower defaults on the terms of a bond, note or other debt security.
Dinallo told members of the Senate Agriculture Committee that credit default swaps can be divided into two categories.
The first category includes transactions in which the holder of an obligation, such as a bond, “swaps” the risk of default with another party for a fee.
That type of transaction resembles an insurance transaction, Dinallo said.
The second category of credit default swaps includes “naked credit defaults swaps,” Dinallo said.
When parties set up a naked credit default swap, neither party owns the bond, note or other obligation linked to the swap, Dinallo said.
In effect, Dinallo said, a naked credit default swap is a bet on whether the issuer of the obligation will default.
Dinallo noted that the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, passed in 2000, created a “safe harbor” for credit default swaps.
The CFMA safe harbor preempted state laws that would have barred credit default swaps and exempted credit default swaps from regulation by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Dinallo testified.
Also in 2000, someone asked the New York Department of Insurance a “very carefully crafted question” about whether the department would treat naked credit default swaps as insurance contracts.
“Clearly, the question was framed to ask only about naked credit default swaps with no proof of loss,” Dinallo said. “Under the facts we were given, the swap was not ‘a contract of insurance’ because the buyer had no material interest and the filing of a claim does not require a loss. But the entities involved were careful not to ask about covered credit default swaps. Nonetheless, the market took the department’s opinion on a subset of credit default swaps as a ruling on all swaps and, to be fair, the department did nothing to the contrary.”
The CFMA safe harbor provision and the swaps market participants’ reading of the New York department guidance let the credit default swaps market go unregulated by state insurance regulators or by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, lawmakers and witnesses said at the hearing.
Because credit default swaps are not traded on “open, transparent exchanges…it is literally impossible to know whether swaps are being traded at fair value or whether institutions trading them are becoming over leveraged or dangerously overextended,” said Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, the chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee.
Current estimates suggest that the credit defaults swaps market has a total face value of about $62 trillion, which is about the same as the world’s 2008 gross domestic product.
Hearing participants talked about the idea of creating an exchange or clearinghouse to get a hold on the market.
Some witnesses said there are legitimate reasons to set up “naked swaps.” Those witnesses objected to the idea of banning naked swaps outright.
Richard Lindsey, president of the Callcott Group L.L.C., New York, responded to Harkin’s characterization of swaps as “casino capitalism” by contending that swaps have some similarities to futures contracts.
“While credit derivatives are often pejoratively described in the media as a ‘bet,’ it is important to realize that one could equally describe all investments as ‘bets,’” Lindsey said.
Dinallo testified that naked swaps can help companies hedge against exposures that are not directly related to their own operations.
A company could, for example, use credit default swaps to protect against the risk of a downturn affecting a large customer’s ability to pay its bills, Dinallo testified.
Lindsey said the best solution for ensuring that credit default swaps are conducted responsibly is to make sure that the executives at the companies involved know what they are doing.
At a company involved with credit default swaps, “each individual has a duty to probe, to challenge and to ensure that he or she has confidence in and understands the answers,” Lindsey said.
We must regulate this form or gambling or REMOVE IT TOTALLY from existence. Transparency MUST EXIST in all areas in order for capitalize to function and for it to be equal to all. The failure of our economy and health is due to a lack of transparency.
Americans be prepared to STAND up and fight for your rights.
Cashdoctor Rob
Dinallo Testifies On Swaps Oversight
BY MATT BRADY
Washington Bureau -- NU Online News Service, Oct. 14, 2008, 3:14 p.m. EDT
New York State Insurance Superintendent Eric Dinallo spoke at a hearing here today about coming up with a “holistic” approach to regulating the credit default swaps market.
A credit default swap is an over-the-counter contract that gives the buyer the right to collect a payment from the seller if a borrower defaults on the terms of a bond, note or other debt security.
Dinallo told members of the Senate Agriculture Committee that credit default swaps can be divided into two categories.
The first category includes transactions in which the holder of an obligation, such as a bond, “swaps” the risk of default with another party for a fee.
That type of transaction resembles an insurance transaction, Dinallo said.
The second category of credit default swaps includes “naked credit defaults swaps,” Dinallo said.
When parties set up a naked credit default swap, neither party owns the bond, note or other obligation linked to the swap, Dinallo said.
In effect, Dinallo said, a naked credit default swap is a bet on whether the issuer of the obligation will default.
Dinallo noted that the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, passed in 2000, created a “safe harbor” for credit default swaps.
The CFMA safe harbor preempted state laws that would have barred credit default swaps and exempted credit default swaps from regulation by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Dinallo testified.
Also in 2000, someone asked the New York Department of Insurance a “very carefully crafted question” about whether the department would treat naked credit default swaps as insurance contracts.
“Clearly, the question was framed to ask only about naked credit default swaps with no proof of loss,” Dinallo said. “Under the facts we were given, the swap was not ‘a contract of insurance’ because the buyer had no material interest and the filing of a claim does not require a loss. But the entities involved were careful not to ask about covered credit default swaps. Nonetheless, the market took the department’s opinion on a subset of credit default swaps as a ruling on all swaps and, to be fair, the department did nothing to the contrary.”
The CFMA safe harbor provision and the swaps market participants’ reading of the New York department guidance let the credit default swaps market go unregulated by state insurance regulators or by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, lawmakers and witnesses said at the hearing.
Because credit default swaps are not traded on “open, transparent exchanges…it is literally impossible to know whether swaps are being traded at fair value or whether institutions trading them are becoming over leveraged or dangerously overextended,” said Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, the chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee.
Current estimates suggest that the credit defaults swaps market has a total face value of about $62 trillion, which is about the same as the world’s 2008 gross domestic product.
Hearing participants talked about the idea of creating an exchange or clearinghouse to get a hold on the market.
Some witnesses said there are legitimate reasons to set up “naked swaps.” Those witnesses objected to the idea of banning naked swaps outright.
Richard Lindsey, president of the Callcott Group L.L.C., New York, responded to Harkin’s characterization of swaps as “casino capitalism” by contending that swaps have some similarities to futures contracts.
“While credit derivatives are often pejoratively described in the media as a ‘bet,’ it is important to realize that one could equally describe all investments as ‘bets,’” Lindsey said.
Dinallo testified that naked swaps can help companies hedge against exposures that are not directly related to their own operations.
A company could, for example, use credit default swaps to protect against the risk of a downturn affecting a large customer’s ability to pay its bills, Dinallo testified.
Lindsey said the best solution for ensuring that credit default swaps are conducted responsibly is to make sure that the executives at the companies involved know what they are doing.
At a company involved with credit default swaps, “each individual has a duty to probe, to challenge and to ensure that he or she has confidence in and understands the answers,” Lindsey said.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
It is the ECONOMY you idiot
I just do not get it! How world stock markets are celebrating the fact that we are going to HAVE MORE MONEY to loan to companies and individuals who cannot pay it back. Debt is what got us into to trouble in the first place. Yes – CREDIT CREATES DEBT. Companies need to make a profit. All of the companies we are trying to help have NOT MADE AN HONEST PROFIT FOR YEARS. The only way they could survice is via the creation and marketing of vehicles so complex no one knows how they work and what will happen is they FAIL. We all remember the Titanic was an UNSINKABLE SHIP. What good is a line of credit to create goods no one wants, needs or can afford to purchase. We are being HOOD WINKED AGAIN to go out and shop to save the world from global recession or more likely DEPRESSION. It will not work a second time. Global consumers have been tapped out, except for the Chinese consumer who has been insulated from our WARPED since of wealth we have created in the USA and Europe by artificially inflating the value of real estate in order for consumers to leverage in order to gain cash in order to purchase ICE CREAM. Chinese really have savings in CASH. Go figure, I guess they do not like ICE CREAM. Yes America is a economy where we make and sell ice cream to each other. (One needs to remember back 2 years ago when they said Americas manufacturing industry was a dying engine and we are a SERVICE AND FINANCIAL based economy. Wow, how wrong were they? I guess they were smoking some of their own weed.
I also do not see anyone predicting how the DIVERSION of 250 billion from the real estate and mortgage bail out (oh and $135 billion has to go to AIG = 385 FROM 770 all ready consumed) will affect home and land prices. Yes the banks were counting on the government using that money to buy BAD loans. Instead they get to sell their COMPANIES to the government instead of selling the government TOXIC loans at face value. Americans expecting a bailout of their toxic loan just GOT SCREWED. In the end there will be NO MONEY for JOE OR JANE.
Do not believe the short lived rally on Wall Street has anything to do with the economy. I never knew failure was rewarded with CASH. Secondly, as we NATIONALIZE our banking, insurance and mortgage markets, what will be left for hard working Americans who SAVE and control their spending?
The Titanic is sinking, every child, woman and man head for the life boats as the ship is about to sink. It is up to you to save you and your family.
I also do not see anyone predicting how the DIVERSION of 250 billion from the real estate and mortgage bail out (oh and $135 billion has to go to AIG = 385 FROM 770 all ready consumed) will affect home and land prices. Yes the banks were counting on the government using that money to buy BAD loans. Instead they get to sell their COMPANIES to the government instead of selling the government TOXIC loans at face value. Americans expecting a bailout of their toxic loan just GOT SCREWED. In the end there will be NO MONEY for JOE OR JANE.
Do not believe the short lived rally on Wall Street has anything to do with the economy. I never knew failure was rewarded with CASH. Secondly, as we NATIONALIZE our banking, insurance and mortgage markets, what will be left for hard working Americans who SAVE and control their spending?
The Titanic is sinking, every child, woman and man head for the life boats as the ship is about to sink. It is up to you to save you and your family.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Politicians priming the wrong end of the pump when it comes to Solar!
I just do not get it - politicians are just DUMB. Tax credits for the purchase of solar panels does not work. It has been around for years and has not created the DEMAND required to drive down the price of solar production. The number one problem is the same with health care, the consumer GETS PAID to spend and this is wrong. If politicians had ANY BRAINS, they would pay the consumer when they CONSERVE not spend.
THE SOLUTION IS EASY. SUBSIDIZE the sale of EXCESS electricity generated by consumer owned solar and wind generation. By paying the consumer ONLY WHEN THEY CONSERVE more than they produce by way of a FAT BONUS on each EXCESS KWH (you know the FAT BONUS that drives us everyday at work) will they ever get to a position where they have a positive account.
The Federal government should subsidise the sale by way of double or tripling the rate current electric companies are paying for surplus power (if they are paying at all). If a power company is willing to pay 4 cents for solar power, the Fed should pay 8 cents subsidy (on top of the 4 cents paid by the power company) to the CONSUMER to encourage them to produce more than they consume. If the consumer fails to design an EFFECIENT house or install more production capacity than they need, they get NOTHING and it cost the government nothing. If a consumer is SMART and builds a really effecient house, they can make money every day of the year.
We must stop promoting programs that do not PROMOTE conservation and effeciency. Consumers must have some skin in the game with the prospects of profiting day in and day out.
WASHINGTON wake up and get off your BUTTS, it is time you do something SMART. Subsidise the SALE OF electricity from individual power producers (IPP's) to local power companies
Cashdoctor Rob
THE SOLUTION IS EASY. SUBSIDIZE the sale of EXCESS electricity generated by consumer owned solar and wind generation. By paying the consumer ONLY WHEN THEY CONSERVE more than they produce by way of a FAT BONUS on each EXCESS KWH (you know the FAT BONUS that drives us everyday at work) will they ever get to a position where they have a positive account.
The Federal government should subsidise the sale by way of double or tripling the rate current electric companies are paying for surplus power (if they are paying at all). If a power company is willing to pay 4 cents for solar power, the Fed should pay 8 cents subsidy (on top of the 4 cents paid by the power company) to the CONSUMER to encourage them to produce more than they consume. If the consumer fails to design an EFFECIENT house or install more production capacity than they need, they get NOTHING and it cost the government nothing. If a consumer is SMART and builds a really effecient house, they can make money every day of the year.
We must stop promoting programs that do not PROMOTE conservation and effeciency. Consumers must have some skin in the game with the prospects of profiting day in and day out.
WASHINGTON wake up and get off your BUTTS, it is time you do something SMART. Subsidise the SALE OF electricity from individual power producers (IPP's) to local power companies
Cashdoctor Rob
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