Posts from — December 2009

A year later and still merrily printing, printing, printing…

…more debt and more dollars. Just how much of each can be found every Thursday evening on the Fed's own Web site. Open up form H4.1 and prepare to be amazed. Since Labor Day, the Fed’s assets have zoomed to $2.31 trillion from $905.7 billion. And what is the significance of this stunning rate of asset growth? Simply this: The Fed pays for its assets with freshly made dollars. It conjures them into existence on a computer; “printing” is a figure of speech.

via The Problem With the Federal Reserve’s Money-Printing – WSJ.com.

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Would he [IPCC's Pachauri] use the bogus graph in his lecture? I had seen him do so when he received an honorary doctorate from the University of New South Wales. I watched and waited.

Sure enough, he used the bogus graph…

Pachauri then produced the now wearisome list of lies, fibs, fabrications and exaggerations that comprise the entire case for alarm about “global warming”. He delivered it in a tired, unenthusiastic voice, knowing that a growing majority of the world’s peoples – particularly in those countries where comment is free – no longer believe a word the IPCC says.

via Lord Monckton Reports on Pachauri’s Eye Opening Copenhagen Presentation « Patrick J. Buchanan.

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ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Pressure mounted on Thursday for Pakistan’s  President Asif Ali Zardari to resign after a court struck down an amnesty protecting him and other politicians from possible prosecution for corruption.

via Pressure mounts on Pakistan’s Zardari to quit | Reuters.

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Nothing is real in Copenhagen – not the temperature record, not the predictions, not the agenda, not the “solution”. -Andrew Bolt

President Chavez brought the house down.

When he said the process in Copenhagen was “not democratic, it is not inclusive, but isn’t that the reality of our world, the world is really and imperial dictatorship…down with imperial dictatorships” he got a rousing round of applause.

When he said there was a “silent and terrible ghost in the room” and that ghost was called capitalism, the applause was deafening.

But then he wound up to his grand conclusion – 20 minutes after his 5 minute speaking time was supposed to have ended and after quoting everyone from Karl Marx to Jesus Christ – “our revolution seeks to help all people… socialism, the other ghost that is probably wandering around this room, that’s the way to save the planet, capitalism is the road to hell… let’s fight against capitalism and make it obey us.” He won a standing ovation.

via Putting our economy in the hands of Chavez fans | Herald Sun Andrew Bolt Blog.

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President Barack Obama has signed into law a $1.1 trillion bill that increases the budgets in many areas of the government by about 10 percent, including health, law enforcement and veterans’ programs.

The bill lumps together six of the 12 annual appropriations bills for the 2010 budget year that began Oct. 1.

Most Republicans opposed the bill, citing runaway federal spending. They also pointed to an estimated $3.9 billion for more than 5,000 local projects sought by lawmakers from both parties.

via Obama signs $1.1 trillion spending bill into law – Yahoo! News.

Memo to Yahoo News: “local projects sought by lawmakers” are generally known as “earmarks.”

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[Alan] Greenspan backed a proposal by Democratic Senator Kent Conrad and Republican Senator Judd Gregg for an 18-member task force on deficit reduction.The commission would recommend possible spending cuts or tax hikes the Senate and House of Representatives would have to consider. A 60 percent super majority would be needed in each chamber for approval.

via Greenspan backs deficit-reduction commission – Yahoo! News.

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A new study by two York University researchers estimates the U.S. pharmaceutical industry spends almost twice as much on promotion as it does on research and development, contrary to the industry’s claim.

The researchers’ estimate is based on the systematic collection of data directly from the industry and doctors during 2004, which shows the U.S. pharmaceutical industry spent 24.4% of the sales dollar on promotion, versus 13.4% for research and development, as a percentage of US domestic sales of US$235.4 billion.

via Big Pharma Spends More On Advertising Than Research And Development, Study Finds.

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Shares of health insurers, which have been climbing for days as the public option looked less likely, rose again today. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Managed Health Care Index gained as much as 1.8 percent, led by Hartford, Connecticut-based Aetna Inc., which rose as much as 3.1 percent.

via Obama Says Senate on ‘Precipice’ of Health-Care Bill Update1 – Bloomberg.com.

The vaunted Healthcare Reform Bill is really nothing more than a Health Insurance Reform Bill, and the one thing it really does make sure of is that health insurance companies will get more customers, and most of them will be healthy ones, and thereby highly profitable one to boot.

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Bet you never heard of CareCore National. You will one day soon, when your doctor sends you for an MRI or recommends a course of radiation or chemotherapy for a cancer, and CareCore sends you a letter (on behalf of your friendly health  insurance company) refusing to allow you the health care service your doctor recommends.

Their slogan? Evidence Based Specialty Benefit Management.

In other words, Care Core National is in the business of denying coverage. Just read carefully the company’s own description of itself:

CareCore National, a specialty benefit management company, manages quality and utilization of outpatient diagnostic and cardiac imaging, cardiac implantable devices, oncology drugs and therapeutic agents, radiation therapy, sleep, pain and lab services. With a comprehensive and diverse portfolio of offerings, we provide seamless solutions to health plans that seek to manage these specialty health care segments more effectively. – from their company history webpage

And why do we know you’ll be hearing about them soon enough if you haven’t run up against them already? Because, to quote their own propaganda, they “currently manage more than 30 million lives. [Their] clients include some of America’s most well-known, trusted health plans.”

Soon, if they don’t already, they will “manage” your life too.

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…While White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the bankers agreed to take “second looks” at loans that had been denied, some executives cautioned that banks still needed to act judiciously.

“Not everyone is credit worthy in today’s world,” Robert Kelly, chairman and chief executive of Bank of New York Mellon said on CNBC after the meeting. The U.S. economy is recovering, he said, “but it’s really fragile.”

via Obama Says Banks Have Obligation to Aid in Recovery (Update3) – Bloomberg.com.

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