Random Politics & Religion #26

*** right off with this garbage. Never said or implied anything like it. This was a medical decision that made its way to the courts. Nothing to do with scary socialized medicine so you can chill with the pants wetting. You're arguing entirely from emotion and don't know the basic facts of the case so no point in continuing with this.

So, ummm, ... how about them Seahawks King?

Frustrated by the failure of the Obamacare repeal in the Senate, President Trump on Saturday threatened to end federal subsidies for healthcare insurance — for Congress as well as the rest of the country.

“If a new HealthCare Bill is not approved quickly, BAILOUTS for Insurance Companies and BAILOUTS for Members of Congress will end very soon!” Trump tweeted, fuming about Congress’ failure to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which he said was “imploding.”

Such a move could cause havoc and much higher premiums in insurance markets, since many low- and moderate-income people depend on those subsidies to help cover the cost of their policies. Through a series of administrative maneuvers by Congress and the Obama administration, members and their staffs also benefit from those subsidies.

Targeting congressional healthcare might score Trump some populist points with his base, but it would likely come at a cost of poisoning his relationship with Congress. Just making the threat on Saturday highlights how far things have eroded between Trump and top GOP lawmakers. And it comes a day after Trump pushed out former Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, an establishment Republican who was the GOP congressional leadership's trusted liaison in the White House.

Trump's longstanding threat to let the health insurance plans fail would come with its own political price. The federal government sends about $600 million a month to insurance companies to help cover the cost, and Trump is threatening to cut that off to allow Obamacare markets to collapse.

His goal is to pressure Congress to send him a repeal bill, but so far the strategy has failed. The confidence Trump has expressed that if he followed through with the threat the fallout would land not on him but on Democrats, because they created Obamacare, is not widely shared in Washington.

I don't care about football/hockey/baseball or anything that doesn't directly involve the Spurs.

Football IS a religion in Texas.

While Cherche outright just doesn't care about anything but himself. His stance is obvious enough as it is. Also, hypocritical.

Better than supporting torture of a terminally ill child. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So, ummm, ... how about them Seahawks King?

Kinda confused as to why you would ask him about the Seahawks, who play in Seattle. Even if he doesn't watch football, that doesn't make any sense.

I don't care about football/hockey/baseball or anything that doesn't directly involve the Spurs. the KnicksLOL basketball.

Kinda confused as to why you would ask him about the Seahawks, who play in Seattle. Even if he doesn't watch football, that doesn't make any sense.

In a 2016 interview with CNN, Anthony Scaramucci — President Donald Trump's new White House communications director — said that Earth, as well as human history, is just 5,500 years old. But ample evidence exists to prove that the world has been around for much, much longer.

Scaramucci brought up Earth's age to note that scientists had been incorrect in the past, and thus might be wrong that human activity is primarily to blame for modern-day climate change.

"You're saying the scientific community knows, and I'm saying people have gotten things wrong throughout the 5,500-year history of our planet," Scaramucci said, according to an article in Forbes by geologist Trevor Nace. Scaramucci later said that human history is 5,500 years old, Nace wrote....

The only Texas football team I can name is the Cowboys and I know enough about football to know everyone hates the Cowboys.

So, you think it's better to pass off the bills to everyone instead? And not only pass off the bills, but make the bills much greater because you feel like causing more deaths to pass it on to those who actually work and pay for such services?

Seriously, do you think people were denied healthcare before ACA? Do you think hospitals turned away patients because their income bracket was lower than their own?

Are you that stupid, or did you have to work at the level of stupidity you portray?

Wisconsin is about to shell out as much as $3 billion for the privilege of luring Foxconn Technology Group. At $519 per citizen, it would have been cheaper to buy an iPhone for every man, woman and child in the midwestern state.

Let's be clear: The big winner isn't the taxpayer. It's Foxconn and its billionaire chairman Terry Gou. As I predicted several times, Foxconn would only come to the U.S. if and when his demands were met.

Meet them is exactly what Wisconsin did, with an offering of tax credits, training grants and infrastructure improvements. In return, Foxconn said it will invest $10 billion and create 3,000 jobs.

Let's take a look at those figures: Wisconsin is paying as much as $1 million per job, which will carry an average salary of $54,000. The state's economic development corporation is selling the project to taxpayers with a claim that it will create 10,000 construction jobs for building the facility and another 6,000 indirect positions. It's expecting $3.3 million of investment per employee from the Taiwanese company.

Politicians, lobbyists and Foxconn can make the figures work by being generous with the facts. For example, if every one of those jobs came to fruition, they can claim 29,000 positions for $3 billion, or $103,000 per job. But that's not going to happen.

Foxconn has factories in China and another dozen countries globally, yet that stated $10 billion investment is more than the group's publicly traded flagship -- Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. -- has devoted to capital expenditure over the past five years combined.

Let's be clear: The big winner isn't the taxpayer. It's Foxconn and its billionaire chairman Terry Gou. As I predicted several times, Foxconn would only come to the U.S. if and when his demands were met.

Meet them is exactly what Wisconsin did, with an offering of tax credits, training grants and infrastructure improvements. In return, Foxconn said it will invest $10 billion and create 3,000 jobs.

Let's take a look at those figures: Wisconsin is paying as much as $1 million per job, which will carry an average salary of $54,000. The state's economic development corporation is selling the project to taxpayers with a claim that it will create 10,000 construction jobs for building the facility and another 6,000 indirect positions. It's expecting $3.3 million of investment per employee from the Taiwanese company.

Politicians, lobbyists and Foxconn can make the figures work by being generous with the facts. For example, if every one of those jobs came to fruition, they can claim 29,000 positions for $3 billion, or $103,000 per job. But that's not going to happen.

Foxconn has factories in China and another dozen countries globally, yet that stated $10 billion investment is more than the group's publicly traded flagship -- Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. -- has devoted to capital expenditure over the past five years combined.

Just this past year, Foxconn is reported to have pledged investments of $5 billion in India; $3.65 billion in Kunshan, China; and $8.8 billion in Guangzhou. It's too early to know if those sums will ever be spent, but including Wisconsin, the tally now stands at $27.5 billion of commitments. That's more than Hon Hai has spent in the last 23 years.

Terry Gou didn't get where he is today by blithely spending money on huge factories. Instead, he's learned to entice leaders into thinking big, and then letting them pay.

Wisconsin shows that Foxconn isn't building the American Dream -- America is building the Foxconn machine.

When people skip out on their hospital bills, who do you think is paying for it right now? Hospital has to get their money somewhere, so they charge other patients more to get more from the insurance company.

America and the Foxconn Dream
This package could buy an iPhone for everybody in the state.
Bloomberg
Orignal has neat graphs.

Meet them is exactly what Wisconsin did, with an offering of tax credits, training grants and infrastructure improvements. In return, Foxconn said it will invest $10 billion and create 3,000 jobs.

Chanti, that's really dishonest of you and the article. You should know better.

Back in January, Gou told the Nikkei Asian Review that Apple was going to partner with him on a North American plant to make LCD screens. Apple has never confirmed this. But let’s just pretend that this giant plant will staff up to capacity and start producing 90,000 sheets of LCD glass per month. As Culpan* reported in January, Foxconn’s monthly production would yield “72 million iPhone 7 Plus screens, or more than 868 million annually.” Apple sold about 210 million iPhones in all of 2016, so unless Apple is getting back into the teevee business, they could never possibly absorb Foxconn’s output.

In addition, about 60 percent of Apple's sales are outside the U.S., a figure that's growing. That means most of the screens produced in the U.S. would be shipped back overseas, a wonderful scenario for Trump's America but one not grounded in reality because raw displays are too fragile to ship, while fully or partially completed screens require a China-sized manufacturing infrastructure that's beyond the hopes even of the new president.

Wisconsin is now claiming the factory will be making glass for big screen televisions and large commercial displays. Too bad demand for television panels was down almost 4% last year!

Scaramucci the Merciless is OUT after less than a week! HAPPY DAY! Next up, Gen. Kelly'll get the axe!