Oddly enough, I think Hoax and bbsam are correct but for different reasons.
On Hoax's position that Obamacare is dragging the economy, in the sector of small and medium business, I think he has a point and a very strong one. Now I don't think it's the only reason but it is a major concern. No one, even the politicians who wrote it fully understands it's impact and even it's proponents are asked, the most common response is "we'll find out in 2014'!" I often find that answer about like the Bushies who said, "you just have to trust us" when no WMD was being found and never has been regardless of the statist footstompers and statist bootlickers here who protest otherwise. But Hoax may run into a problem when he shifts to "BIG" business because in some sense they pushed for the whole thing to begin with. Between United Health and Atena along with the organization
PhRMA they pushed hard and came out big winners under Obamacare and far from a true socialized system, instead we got a cartel system of healthcare where big will get bigger and medium and small will over time get squeezed out. Not unlike what TARP and the supposed economic crisis did to banking where the little guys (mainstreet) are being squeezed out by the big guys (Wall Street). That good ole competitive
Laissez faire (do I repeat myself) free market again. "I want to open a business!" "Ok, we have a regulation for that to make sure you don't harm the public!" You need to look real damn hard and throw away the political loyalty crap and just see for once who "IN PUBLIC" is really being protected here!
But what is most interesting is how big business also wants this type of system and the idea that in time, healthcare costs for it's employees and retirees can be passed completely off to the taxpayer which again will cause a upward spike in profits and thus drive shareprice higher or as Robert Scheer in his book the Great American Stickup points out, "Rob Mainstreet to benefit Wall Street!" In 1993' when Hillary Clinton had her secret taskforce meeting of healthcare, the real question was, "Just who was in that room?" In 1997, a suit was filed to find out and Judge Lambert ruled to do that only to be overturned at the appeals court level. The process was so successful, Cheney did it with energy a few years later and come on, we all know who was in that room so do we really have to believe that Hillary was heading a secret meeting of the Communist Party USA? If this is the case, then why at the time did I watch on CNBC on Squawk Box where they interviewed the CEO of GM Jack Smith who spoke to my utter shock glowingly of Hillary and her efforts and went on to defend some type of national healthplan alongs the lines of what Hillary and crew were cooking up.
What really woke me up to how big business uses gov't for it's own socialism ends was when this CEO explained how this would boost profits and raise shareholder price because the cost burden for employees and retirees at GM would be shifted off the backs of GM and onto John and Sally taxpayer. Seems farfetched? Had I not seen and heard Smith with my own eyes and ears, I'd probably think it was farfetched too but at the same time from the standpoint of the health and wellbeing of GM, he did have a point, not that I agreed with it. But if you think that Smith's idea was some anamoly or that I dreamed the whole Squawk Box thingy, consider this point found
here:
US auto manufacturers want a national health-care plan, suggests Michael Stanton, president of the Association of International Automobile Manufacturers, with confidence.
What if we started our own shovel ready project and really started digging deeper, what might we find or better yet, was GM and the other auto makes in the room with Hillary's task force? Knowing just who was in that room is still just as important as knowing who was in the room with Cheney. Oh, and just imagine from a UPS perspective if the costs just of it's unionized employees and retirees were transferred off it's books and that money was now free to be added to the bottomline? Do you honestly think they've not thought of that too!
bbsam is also correct on tax policy as IMO one of the biggest mistakes of the current administration is to formulate a real plan, put it in place and stick to it. Whether it's raising taxes, lowering taxes or whatever, the current administration IMO just doesn't seemed focused on any single plan but is just firing the gun all over the place. A defined plan, even a bad one will at least give business something to focus on and draft their own business plans around. Business is not necessarily opposed to taxes in and of themselves but what they fear is being blindsided. Business passes all taxes off to the consumer anyway so taxes in and of themselves for business may or may not always be bad. Taxes on the consuming public may be another matter and mainly because they have no one to pass them off too but in the meantime, with less money in pocket, they are still suppose to keep the consumer economy going which is suppose to boost profits and thus raise shareprice? Just look at what happens when fuel prices spike so now just swap that market action and make it taxes instead and see what the effects are. Boo-Yah!
Main street has yet to learn that it's they who are hurt by taxation the most mostly because they still buy into the illusion that's what's good for Wall Street is good for Mainstreet. Ironic, that it was FDR, the man of the people, who took the progressive income tax which until 1942' had never been associated with a working man's wage, to finally break that nearly 30 year tradition and from that early Victory Tax Act, the flood gates were opened and Big Business and State began to pick the pocket of Main Street in double dipping fashion by first allowing big business to use the state to hide the true costs of it's final product output, using state privilege such as copyright, patent, etc. as a form of false property right, corp. status as a new found individual right (how long before corporations get the right to actually vote too?) various supports that boost profits and bottomlines and finally in the current malaise, shifting the tax burden onto main street either in the burden of upfront taxation, embedded and yet hidden taxation in purchased products or the worst of all forms, inflation and the creation of a now almost valueless currency that many foresee as doomed in the next 20 years as it looses it's reserve currency status.
But keep voting for those sock puppets and the part that TOS would seem to forget about the likes of Bachmann, these types of threads and this type of attacks although valid IMO, the PR in one sense actually help her. If the public is becoming more and more anti-establishment, anti-gov't and it is, establishment attacks on someone like Bachmann are actually of benefit to help her make her case.
I've no doubt she a mindless theocon whose more likely to start wars thinking she found the anti-christ and that by attacking it'll signal Jesus and his army to come galloping out of the clouds to bring his kingdom glory. That idea is a whole lot farther and wider than we realize and if you did, it'd just scare the
out of you unless you believe in such good news! Folks like Palin, Bachmann, Cain et al are nothing more than appeal devices to certain special interests clicks within the republican party and Jones had it right, Romney is the chosen one. Palin, Bachmann, Cain only serve to corral the wild horses within these special interest clicks and form some cult of personality and then at some later point, they will instruct their flocks to follow and support the party chosen one and most will. Romney is already in the "center" if you will and the rest will be fed the cock and bull storyline that Obama is a socialist, fear will take over from what little logic and reason might have been there to begin with and the lemming masses will follow Romney over the cliff just like Obama will lead his flock over the cliff too. And from the guts and gore at the cliff base, we'll come out with something call tyrann.... I mean gov't!
