Thursday, May 4, 2017

BloggeRhythms

Three consistently important topics are newsworthy once more today, the health care tax, the global-warming  farce and crude oil prices.

Regarding the Republican health care plan and how preexisting conditions will be addressed, Rush as always, brought the issue into a simple and realistic focus. Saying that we’re “not really talking about insurance here.“    

“When you get down to it, we’re told that the argument here is about health insurance and the costs, the deductibles and the premiums and the copays, but that’s not it. Health care long ago ceased to have anything to do with insurance. And when you’re talking about preexisting conditions, we’re not talking insurance.”

Rush contends that if you know what insurance is, referring to the business plan or model and the definition of what the insurance business is, “then you would know automatically and instinctively that people with preexisting conditions cannot possibly be insured. In a real world, it isn’t possible. That makes insurance essentially welfare.”

Rush believes that the “old argument” and “dirty little secret,”  is that health care in this country has “slowly evolved to an entitlement program that nobody wants to admit is an entitlement program so we all fall for the idea that what we’re buying here is insurance. We’re not. We’re buying a welfare plan but having to pay a little bit for it. That’s called our insurance premium. But we’re not buying insurance. We’re buying into an entitlement. Once the government got involved in this, there’s no way we’re buying insurance.” 

To illustrate his point, Rush provided the following comparison: “If you have a house but you don’t have any insurance on it, A, you might be in violation of the law, you probably couldn’t get a mortgage. But let’s say that you’re a shifty guy and you’re able to buy a house with no homeowners insurance. And one day you’re on your way home and your home is on fire, you can see the smoke, you can see the flames before you get to the driveway. 

“You pull in the driveway, oh, my God, the fire department’s not here yet, who do you call? Your insurance agent and ask for homeowners insurance? No, because you know why? Because you know you’d be laughed at. You know there’s no way you can buy insurance at that point. Nobody will sell it to you. It’s not the purpose of insurance. Insurance is insuring against the odds something’s gonna happen to you. It’s based on mathematics and actuarial tables, and it’s a real live business.” 

Rush then contends that government involvement in health care traces back to the sixties with Medicare and Medicaid where you can find “Democrat politicians salivating over their dreams of what the health care system could become, and it’s basically become that. More and more government involvement. ‘Cause it offers you so much opportunity to control people in practically every aspect of their lives. If you hold the keys to their wellness — if you can succeed in driving the cost of wellness — past the point people can afford it and you’re the only place they can go to get treated for sick, then they own you, or you will own them.” 

In the same show a caller offered an insightful thought about how Trump strategizes and sets priorities like any astute businessman would. Focusing on achieving what’s needed most at any particular time, instead of adhering to a timetable set by others having their own agenda.   
  
CALLER: “I called in because I wanted to say that I think Trump is being Trump. He’s a very practical businessman, and he’s going to… In other words, as I told Snerdley, if he had a list of 20 things that he wanted, he might settle for 12 or 15 or whatever, and figure he’s got another shot at them on the next go round to come up with the other things. And I just think that he’s taking his pragmatic style of doing business to governing the country now, and trying not so much to work with Democrats per se but rather to figuring out —” 

RUSH: “Look, you’re not the first to tell me this. We’ve got a lot of people in the construction business, other businesses that Trump’s been in who have said that this is the way he operates. That he’s not one big bite of the apple kind of guy, take as many bites as you need whenever you need them to get what you want done. And you’re not governed by a timeline but rather when is the best opportunity to move and do something. So we’ll see. I hope you’re right.” 

What’s important here, is that Rush has been quite frustrated lately, believing that Trump’s falling far short in promise-fulfillment. However, by his show of understanding 
of Trump’s pragmatism and hope that the caller’s analysis is correct, Rush may finally be ready to provide needed slack. Whereas Trump doesn’t think in the same box as the political hacks Rush is used to.    

Moving on to another subject, James Delingpole writes @breitbart.com about one of the world’s top physicists saying the “evidence for man-made climate change is so flimsy that you might just as well believe in magic.” 

Richard Lindzen, Alfred P Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, “has long expressed doubts about the “science” behind anthropogenic global warming theory.” 

“Now, in probably his most comprehensive and devastating assault yet on the Climate Industrial Complex, Lindzen shreds every one of the fake-science arguments used by the environmentalists to justify their hugely expensive “global warming” scare story.” 

While the article is quite long, providing significant detail supporting Professor Lindzen’s conclusions, the following section applies basic, indisputable, logic condensing much of his argument.  

“First, warmth is not necessarily bad or worrying thing:
“It begins with the ridiculous presumption that any warming whatsoever (and, for that matter, any increase in CO2) is bad, and proof of worse to come. We know that neither of these presumptions is true. People retire to the Sun Belt rather than to the arctic. CO2 is pumped into greenhouses to enhance plant growth.
“Second, it doesn’t – as some idiots believe – mean that global warming hasn’t paused for the last twenty years.
“Of course, if 1998 was the hottest year on record, all the subsequent years will also be among the hottest years on record. None of this contradicts the fact that the warming (ie, the increase of temperature) has ceased.
And it’s the third point that is not only most certainly true, but has also been mentioned here in many other cases in the past. 

“Third, the differences in temperature are so small as to be almost unmeasurable and are open to all manner of fraudulent adjustments by politically motivated climate gatekeepers.” 

Although somewhat gross, a reader posted a comment reflective of most others following the article:  

PigressivesSuck wrote: “Why pay attention to a physicist like this guy when we have celebtards from Hollywood to tell us what to think? 

And then, a Reuters article @cnbc.com explained the sudden drop in the price of crude, attributable to advances on the supply side. 

While global crude inventories have begun to erode, fast-growing production outside the OPEC deal “to remove 1.8 million bpd in supply from the market, have severely tested investors' faith in the ability of the world's largest exporters to tackle the glut.” 

“The break below $50 a barrel will likely prove temporary given that OPEC is widely expected to extend its supply deal at its meeting on May 25 beyond the June expiry date, but analysts say more price weakness cannot be ruled out.” 

Commerzbank analyst Eugen Weinberg said: “I wouldn't be surprised to see a (price) recovery ... before the meeting. It's likely to bring prices yet again to $50. Still, the damage is there and I wouldn't be surprised to see lower levels this summer after the meeting," 

What’s also mentioned, but not emphasized is another major factor for the future: "At some point, the market should recognize OPEC isn't the most important player in the market any more. That is non-OPEC, and, above all, U.S. shale." 

“U.S. data showed crude inventories fell 930,000 barrels in the week to April 28, against analysts' expectations for a decrease of 2.3 million barrels. Stocks have steadily declined for the last four weeks, but at 527.8 million barrels they are just 7 million barrels off a record high.” 

So, here we have another case where while the MSM wastes its efforts on trying to create a case that the new POTUS colluded with Russians to gain the presidency, by easing drilling in the U.S., he’s fulfilling another campaign promise. Which is why voters will most likely vote him in again next time around, when lower gas prices relieve significant and unnecessary stress from their budgets. 

That’s it for today folks. 

Adios

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