Ten Things to Expect from Obamacare in 2014

Posted on October 18, 2013 by MN Gordon

Ten Things to Expect from Obamacare in 2014
By Elizabeth Lee Vliet, M.D.

It’s been clear to anyone paying attention that the October “rollout” of Obamacare has been a turbulent, confusing disaster.  Sloppy IT systems and technological failures combined to cripple Obamacare’s sign-up systems.  Security flaws put Americans at risk for identity theft.

In an almost comical understatement, President Obama summarized these massive failures as “a few glitches.”  I think that Luke Chung, IT expert and president of database solutions firm FMS, explained the situation much more accurately:

“What should clearly be an enterprise quality, highly scalable software application felt like it wouldn’t pass a basic code review.  It appears the people who built the site don’t know what they’re doing, never used it and didn’t test it.” Continue reading →

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The New Era of Fed Activism

Posted on October 15, 2013 by MN Gordon

The basic characteristic of an overextended government is that its institutions are rotten.  Take the U.S. Post Office, for instance.  It lost $15.9 billion in 2012.  That’s over $43.5 million per day – flushed down the toilet – for an entire year.

It’s no wonder why the Postal Service recently defaulted on a 5.6 billion retiree health benefit payment.  The obvious options should be to reduce costs, privatize or close the Postal Service completely.  But for a rotten institution the obvious options are never acceptable.  Nor are they allowable.

In fact, the 220,000 member American Postal Workers Union wants to mutiny Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe for proposing ideas – like no Saturday delivery – to bring costs down.  Like the Ouroboros, the mythical serpent eating its own tail, the union would rather consume itself than accept a benefit cut or two.

It is this type of blockheaded thinking that got institutions like the Postal Service into the disagreeable place they currently find themselves to begin with.  Year after year, decade after decade, decision makers forgot to do one critically important thing.  They forgot to think. Continue reading →

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Janet Yellen’s Bad Idea

Posted on October 11, 2013 by MN Gordon

Yesterday something quite remarkable happened.  House Republicans and President Obama talked.  We don’t know what it was they talked about.  But, perhaps, it had something to do with raising the debt ceiling.

Wall Street was elated.  The DOW and the S&P 500 both jumped 2.18 percent.  What’s more, the NASDAQ ran up 2.26 percent.  Nonetheless, the day concluded without a deal.

There’s less than one week until the October 17 deadline to raise the debt ceiling.  What a delight it is to witness the final days before the greatest sovereign debt crackup the world’s ever known.  Not since Nero clipped coins in 64 A.D. and fiddled as Rome burned has there been such an intolerable collection of dingleberries in imperial office.

Everyone is counting on an 11th hour agreement to raise the debt ceiling…especially Wall Street.  Even so, we watch with wide eyes and a gawping jaw as the countdown draws near.  What if no grand bargain is reached and Treasury debt payments go into arrears?

Will the world financial system freeze up? Continue reading →

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How American Government’s Supposed to Work

Posted on October 8, 2013 by MN Gordon

It appears things are finally reversing course.  After years of expanding, the bull market in government may have finally hit an inflection point.  This is great news.  For a reduction in the size of government compared to the overall economy will be beneficial to everyone.

Short term adjustments and restructuring will have to occur if the shutdown continues long enough.  Federal workers will lose their jobs and will have to find new ones in the private sector.  We won’t pretend this will be easy.  Nor will we pretend it will be pain free.

Nonetheless, we’re confident many federal workers will soon find themselves in more engaging and useful endeavors.  Many of them are good, intelligent and enterprising individuals who happened to end up in a bad trade.  How were they to know that following 9/11 and the 2008 financial crisis the government would so grossly overstep their authority?  Right now could be their golden opportunity to get out with their dignity intact.

Take Lisa Braswell, for instance.  She’s was furloughed last Tuesday from her job as a management analyst at the National Institute of Health. Continue reading →

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