[SK in CV]

[quote=livinincali][quote=FlyerInHi]Someone said earlier that linking employment to insurance is bad. I agree.

That the link discourages mobility in the economy, especially for people who have families and medical conditions.[/quote]

So you’d probably agree that defined benefit pension pensions do the same thing correct?[/quote]

I wouldn’t. The two have almost no similarity. You can separate from an employer and defined benefit pension plans remain intact (to the extent vested). Many allow for an immediate rollover to another plan. But they never disappear so long as the employer is following the law and funding the plan. Which means defined benefit plans are identical to defined contribution plans in that respect. Employer paid medical insurance disappears upon separation.

[SK in CV]

[quote=no_such_reality]
Not really, at 299% of FPL, you get a $986/month Tax credit, at 399%, you get $863/month credit, at 400% FPL, you get $0.

IOW, two 64 year olds making $62,039/year get a $863/month credit where as those same two at $62,040/yr, get $0/month credit.

The benefits taper much better in the 100% to 200% FPL range, but a quick cliff shows up at the higher ages for 400% and it’s a $5000-$7000/year difference.

The curve is basically designed so that 10% of your income is health care premiums and then hits a cliff at 400% FPL, where it can jump to 26% for a $1 income difference.[/quote]

There is that “drop off a cliff” thing at the 400% of FPL. They screwed up when they attempted to integrate it with the maximum % of income. It’s tapered below that level.

[SK in CV]

[quote=spdrun]The real question is “why was the Obamacare law written in such a fucking boneheadedly stupid fashion?”

Instead of making subsidies end at 400% of FPL, they should have gradually tapered subsidies to zero depending on family income, number of dependents, etc[/quote]

It is gradually tapered.

[SK in CV]

[quote=no_such_reality]
Too many companies are, IMHO, abusing exempt worker status where the workers really aren’t exempt and do not have the freedom to decide when and where to get there work done and the companies use it as a way to sidestep hiring and paying overtime. Uncompensated on call, weekend work, etc.

We’ve got too much mindset going into slogging 60 hour weeks instead of working smart.

And no worries, I realize that’s a borderline nut-job viewpoint. :-)[/quote]

Makes perfect sense and I don’t disagree. If you had said $75K a year, I think would have understood the issue you’re addressing. At $150K, I had no clue. I’m guessing there aren’t a lot of $150K (or even $100K) a year salaried employees that are being abused under the exemption.

[SK in CV]

[quote=no_such_reality]I also favor far more radical solutions such as changing the employment law so that if you make under $150K OR you do not have more than 3 direct report employees that you have hire/fire over you cannot be a salaried employee.

[/quote]

What is the point of this?

[SK in CV]

[quote=flu]

Oh please. It’s going to cut benefits. Retirees are going to pay more for the same level of coverage. It also shifts part of the burden onto taxpayers….

You either pay more for the same coverage, or you pay the same as before and get less coverage…. Same thing….

It’s starting with retirees. But I guarantee you this will be rolled out to all non-retirees to. Terrible ..Absolutely terrible….[/quote]

I rarely take the side of big employers, but if an employer’s cost for health care benefits go up, employees are getting a raise. If an employer passes on those higher health care costs to employees, that is not a cut in pay. In this case, the costs being paid by the former employer are not going down. The former employee is now burdened with (and conversely the benefits of) changes in health care costs.

One of the worst things that ever happened to employees in this country is linking insurance with employment. If this helps to de-link the two, that’s a good thing, not a bad thing. It will (and already has) help reduce the velocity of health care spending cost increases.

[SK in CV]

Your implication in your lead is wrong. This isn’t a cut to benefits. It’s a shift in coverage. Says right in the article “It does not reduce our costs.”. Large companies have been cutting retiree healthcare benefits for more than a decade. This move expands retirees choices. For most people, exchange rates will be lower than those available in the private market.

[SK in CV]

[quote=6packscaredy]in the real world, 30 mph invovles feeling like there is a lot of wind blowing at you. unless you have a tailwind, which never actually happens, as cuyclists invariably seem to be headed into the wind.[/quote]

Of course. Unless you’re riding with a 30 mph (or equal to or greater than whatever speed you are going) wind or more, the apparent wind will always be in your face.

[SK in CV]

[quote=all][quote=bearishgurl][quote=all][quote=bearishgurl]SK, I was referring to outlying areas. Carmel Valley is not really outlying, and, in any case, a portion of its MR bonds should now be ~10 years from maturity/retirement.[/quote]And no true Scotsman…[/quote]

What about the subdivisions which were built in Carmel Valley in the very early nineties??

[quote=all]Carmel Valley is not outlying, but the area right next to it is?[/quote]

Yes.

[/quote]

Carmel Mountain Ranch was built in very early nineties, it is in PUSD and there is MR. Santaluz is halfway between CMR and CV, about three miles from either. Another 3 miles from a business park that hosts Sony, Nokia, Broadcom, HP… Santaluz is an outlying area only if you are observing the world from a Tijuana suburb.

[/quote]

I would tend to agree. Carmel Valley is no more of an outlying (or at least as much of an outlying area) as Santa Luz. Escondido is more outlying, and if there have been MR abuses there, I haven’t heard much of them. Same with some of the other truly outlying areas that had major development over the last 15 years…San Marcos, Vista, Oceanside. Maybe there have been problems, but if so, they haven’t been near as public as the problems in the PUSD.

And I’m pretty sure there are some MR that are fully paid off in Carmel Valley.

The problem seems not to be the design of the MR laws, but rather abuse of the process. Should be a warning to us all, pay attention to the political process and get people elected who will make wise financial decisions and vote those who haven’t out of office.

[SK in CV]

[quote=CA renter]

I don’t fully trust anyone who is in power, nor those who want to be in power. They have every reason to lie to the masses, so everything they tell us should be researched and confirmed or denied. More than that, we need to know the WHOLE story behind what’s going on. This will sometimes require us to look back many years or decades in order to understand the sequence of events that lead us to the current situation. And we need to search through multiple sources of information, from different perspectives, in order to get even a hint of the truth.

We know for a fact that we’ve been lied to on many occasions in the past. The government and the MSM mouthpieces have lost credibility. We should not go to war unless there is ample, verified evidence that the American people, here in this country, would be endangered if not for military action.

No more wars for oil companies or the military industrial complex. No more wars that leave in their wake “collateral damage” where tens or hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians are left dead or maimed.

I always find it ironic that we don’t have enough money for healthcare or Social Security, but there is never any hesitation to spend trillions of dollars on wars, drones, and killing machines.[/quote]

I pretty much agree with all of this. I was only responding to what appeared to be a knee-jerk reaction rejecting what the US government says, in favor of what other, equally untrustworthy governments claims.

I don’t think most ordinary people will ever really know the truth. The fact is, we will never know if what we’re looking at is genuine evidence, and in many cases don’t have the technical knowledge to evaluate raw evidence even if we did have access.

That said, I did find this pretty compelling:

Veteran Intelligence Professionals Warn Obama on Syrian Intel

There are some names on that list that make me a little skeptical, though not all. And none of them make me near as skeptical as Brennan, Clapper and Alexander.

[SK in CV]

[quote=bearishgurl]
Now, all these affected CA jurisdictions (hundreds of them) are scrambling to figure out how they’re going to properly SERVICE all these outlying residents on into the future. It’s a comedy of errors which isn’t going to end well, folks.

Hence my impending “retirement” to a much lesser-populated county or out of state.[/quote]

Is this really true? Are all MR jurisdictions scrambling? The PUSD is the only MR district that I’ve ever heard of that has actually raised MR assessments post initial sale. I suspect there are other problems in other parts of the state. But I’ve never heard of that happening right next door in Carmel Valley or anywhere else in the city of SD (outside of the PUSD). There are plenty of older MR districts in CV that have been paid off in due course. The infrastructures have been built and the homeowners paid for it as originally agreed. Maybe similar problems in Chula Vista as in the PUSD (I don’t know)?

Is it possible that the problem is not the MR regulations allowing tax assessments/bond issuance to pay for infrastructure. The problem seems to be when these schemes are abused by municipalities and school districts. I think there’s some evidence that MR can be used successfully.

[SK in CV]

[quote=Blogstar]
If you don’t believe the U.S government , since it’s kind of a yes or no deal, that guides one to believe the Russian view. Even if the U.S. is closer to the truth they could be exaggerating quite a bit.

At this point I don’t think most Americans want military action regardless of the facts. The warmongering is demoralizing to this country. It makes it look like we can not succeed on our own merits anymore and that begs lots of other questions…like why?[/quote]

I agree with this, except the bolded part. I have no idea what you mean. Can you elaborate?

[SK in CV]

[quote=CA renter]Thanks for sharing that video, paramount. Makes sense to me, too. There is very little reason to believe what we’re being told by our govt.[/quote]

I don’t know which version is accurate, but is there a reason to believe the Russian government over the US government?

[SK in CV]

[quote=livinincali]
I tend to agree that I’m not sure that Assad was responsible. Obviously that’s a pretty large point when it comes to punishing responsible parties. Just another reason that maybe we should wait for some more evidence before making a knee jerk reaction to this incident.

I think there’s a fair amount of proof that a chemical weapons were used. I don’t think there’s a ton of supporting evidence that the weapons use was ordered by Assad. Certainly there’s other parties like the rebels and Saudi Arabia that would like the US to strike Assad military forces. They might be just as likely or perhaps more likely to use those weapons in an attempt to bring the US into the mix.[/quote]

Generally, I agree here….a few points….

I’ve read dozens of articles purporting to tell the “real truth” with “evidence and stuff”. Some of them present compelling arguments, but not a single one of them has shown me actual proof of who was responsible for the chemical attacks. (At this point, i’m pretty convinced they did occur.) And this goes for arguments going both ways, both that the Assad regime was responsible or some other party was responsible. Videos showing what appear to be low tech rockets aren’t terribly compelling. There is no way I can know if they’re authentic. I’ve seen videos from that part of the world that show people being shot and killed, and a week later videos of the very same dead guy, purporting to show him rescuing a wounded child. Wearing the exact same clothes he was wearing a week earlier when he was shot dead. The fake video industry is alive and well in that part of the world. And those fake videos could come from either side.

I’m not sure it’s meaningful whether Assad either ordered or had knowledge, if in fact, the weapons were used by the Assad regime. If they came from the Assad regime, his government is responsible, irrespective of whether he was directly involved.

The argument “why would they do it” is just as compelling from either side. Would rebels kill their own? It’s conceivable.

Right now i’m leaning towards accepting they came from the Assad regime, but with not much more than a 60-40 confidence level. But even if it was 100%, I’d be opposed to US involvement. That could change. More shit could happen.

[SK in CV]

[quote=Want_to_Retire]Well, AIPAC seems to be pretty gung-ho..

New York Times Deletes This Paragraph In Which White House Says AIPAC Is Key To War
Read more at http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/09/links-9413.html#fkOWz0YidKG45E4h.99

AIPAC calls for Congress to authorize Syria action
Read more at http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/09/links-9413.html#qUu4UcVwyfkspe0i.99%5B/quote%5D

Yes, I’ve seen that. It doesn’t really answer my question. It doesn’t make much sense.

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