#(because they were a cheaper version of fundamentally the same thing)

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Understanding /r/wallstreetbets

There is no shortage of takes about what's going on with Gamestop (and other surging stocks), Robinhood and Reddit's r/wallstreetbets, many of them contradictory - at least on the face of them. But I think it's possible for most of these takes to be right. Here's how.

First you need to understand the underlying mechanics of the story. Stock markets are fundamentally a way of making bets, including bets on the outcome of other peoples' bets, and bets on the outcomes of *those* bets.

All this complexity creates lots of exploitable opportunities. Some of these opportunities are considered legitimate and are given respectable names like "arbitrage." Others are considered illegitimate, and are called disreputable things like "stock manipulation."

A hypothetical Martian observing all this through a telescope could not tell you which kinds of bets were honest and which were dishonest, because the difference isn't about any objective standard, but rather, about power.

The strategies of powerful people are legit, while the strategies of their would-be dethroners are not legit. Sometimes, even outright frauds are OK if they're done by people with enough power.

If your scam pays out quickly enough, you can sometimes parlay the resulting cash into retrospective legitimization, so even the strategies of the out-group can end up being retconned as legit, if they're successful enough.

That's why Amway isn't illegal: Betsy DeVos's father-in-law was simultaneously the boss of Amway and head of the US Chamber of Commerce, and Gerry Ford was his Congressman, who was then elevated to president in time to legalize its business model.

To understand the Gamestop rise, you have to understand a couple of different kinds of bets.

"Shorting": this is a bet that a stock will go down. There's a complicated backstory to how you make this bet, but it doesn't matter.

The thing to know here is that shorting a stock can make you rich...if the stock goes down. But if the stock goes up, you lose money. There's not really any limit to how much you can lose here.

Every time the stock goes up, the shorts have to pony up more money to keep their bet alive (in the hopes that it will go down again later), or they have to take their losses, pay out the winner of the bet and surrender any chance of winning later.

Shorting isn't just a bet on someone else's failure - it's a way to fund bullshit-detection. If you know (or suspect) that a company is lying about its prospects, you can bet against it.

Shorts fund a lot of research into defective products and scammy businesses, because they win when bad companies are exposed and their stocks go down. Some of the scary security research you read about bad IoT software is funded by shorts.

That's why habitual bullshitters like Elon Musk *hate* shorts. Musk leads a cult of credulous worshippers who buy whatever he's selling. Shorts make bets that Musk's cultists will get deprogrammed. Musk uses this to sharpen his cultists' resolve: "they want us to fail!"

"Options": many different bets get lumped in as "options" but for the purposes of this discussion, buying an option means buying the right to buy stocks later. The people who sell you the option usually go out and buy the stock right away so they'll have it to sell.

"Front-running": Cheating. Front-runners insert themselves into transactions by spying. If I know that Alice is buying a bunch of Bob's shares, I can snap them up a millisecond before Alice gets there, mark them up, and sell to Alice at a profit.

"Retail investor": An "average joe" who buys stocks from a brokerage like Robinhood.

"Institutional investor": Hedge funds, private equity funds, pension funds, index funds, investment banks, etc. Whales and sharks.

"High-frequency trader": A bot. Someone (usually an institutional investor) who uses an algorithm to buy and sell shares very quickly. HFTs might buy a stock and sell it less than a second later (when they're front-running, for example).

With that all out of the way, here's what seems to be going on. Reddit's r/wallstreetbets is a "retail investor" forum of average joes, many of them angry at the scammy, evil stuff that the big institutional investors get up to.

Their grievances are mixed: some are angry that big investors have figured out how to destroy good businesses for money. Some are angry because *only* big institutionals get in on the action when that happens and average joes are locked out of those plays.

They are stuck at home, have little to spend their money on, and - critically - have access to "trading platforms" like Robinhood that let them buy and sell stocks without any fees (institutionals often have sweetheart deals like this, but average joes used to pay to play).

They're getting together to make money and to punish their enemies. The easiest enemies to punish are shorts, because if they push up a stock even a little, the shorts get pounded for millions of dollars.

If they can keep the stock up long enough, the shorts will give up and the average joes will collect their winnings. And the average joes are clever. They've figured out that they don't even have to buy the stocks to force the price up - they can buy cheaper options instead.

An option is a bet. The people on the other side of the bet usually buy the stocks they sell options on. If I buy an option to buy a stock from you and then the stock goes up, you have to go out and buy the stock and sell it to me at a loss.

If you're an option seller who thinks a stock will go up, you protect yourself by buying shares now.

Buying options is a cheap way to get someone else to buy a stock, which pushes the price up. If the price is going up, options sellers will snap up more stock.

There's two prominent versions of the Gamestop story. The first is that r/wallstreetbets represents so many angry average joes that they can "move markets" by buying unlikely shares, like Gamestop or AMC, and confound the markets.

https://marketsweekly.ghost.io/what-happened-with-gamestop/

The second story is that r/wallstreetbets has figured out a hack. They inflict asymmetric pain on shorts (a tiny gain for average joes is a huge wound to the sharks). By buying options, they can eke out tiny gains for a fraction of the price.

https://www.cnet.com/news/reddits-gamestop-stock-surge-is-a-terrifying-new-occupy-wall-street/

But there's a *third* story, and I think it's the most important one. That's Alexis Goldstein's account of what's going on with Robinhood and the institutional investors it's in bed with.

https://marketsweekly.ghost.io/what-happened-with-gamestop/

Recall that all of this is only possible because Robinhood lets average joes buy and sell stocks for free. How can Robinhood give away a service that costs it money and still stay in business? (Hint: They're not making it up in volume).

The answer is: surveillance. Robinhood partners with institutional investors and lets them spy on what the average joes are buying and selling. Sometimes, this is just "market intelligence" ("Hey, people like fidget spinners") but the main event is front-running.

If you're paying Robinhood to tell you what assets its customers are about to buy, you can go out and buy them up first and sell them for a profit to Robinhood's customers.

Or you can buy some of that asset up because you know its price will go up once Robinhood's customers orders are filled.

Or both.

Citadel Securities is Robinhood's main institutional investor partner. Founded by billionaire Ken Griffin, they combine tech (high-frequency trading), an "asset manager" (they spend other peoples' money) and a "market maker" (they sell things like options).

Citadel gets to see all those r/wallstreetbets buy orders before they're filled. They can fill some of those orders, making a profit. They can buy some of the same stock for themselves, making a profit. They can sell options, making a profit.

A little bit of this profit comes at the expense of average joes: if there wasn't a front-runner marking up the stocks they buy, the average joes would pay a little less. But the average joes are still profiting from the destruction of the shorts.

Citadel is merely taxing their winnings. The real losers here, though are Citadel's competitors, funds like Melvin Capital, who were seriously short on Gamestop and went bust thanks to all of this. Guess who bought Melvin at fire-sale prices? That's right, Citadel.

So the third story goes like this: there are a lot of average joes. They're numerous, pissed and smart. They move a lot of money against shorts and make it go farther thanks to the force-multiplier effect of options.

*Then* all this activity is multiplied again by Citadel, a fund that is no better (and no worse) than Melvin or the other targets of the average joes' wrath. Citadel's bots are triggered by the average joes' activity, which turns kilotons of damage into gigatons.

It's not clear whether the average joes know they're triggering Citadel's bots, or whether this is just Citadel's bet on frontrunning average joes paying off for Citadel. It's possible Citadel is the joes' patsy, and the joes are *also* Citadel's patsies.

It's also not clear whether Citadel - and its feuding cohort of competing finance-ghouls - can contain the storm. Maybe they profit off the average joes now, but the joes figure it out and turn their weapons on Citadel and the whole system later.

Remember, the "legitimacy" of a financial strategy isn't determined by its objective decency, but rather by the power of the people who deploy it. If the average joes can attain respectability, they may be legitimized.

But the road to legitimacy is rocky. Yesterday, the finance monopolist TD-Ameritrade halted trading on the stocks targeted by the average joes. Today, Robinhood followed suit. Maybe they fear that they can't control the monster they created?

https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/28/22254102/robinhood-gamestop-bloc-stock-purchase-amc-reddit-wsb

[illlidans]

Buy used car tips

Action 1: Establish Your Spending plan You can purchase a used vehicle with cash money or by getting a vehicle loan. Presume which way is the smartest. We just advise spending for an automobile with cash money. No vehicle repayments right here! Yes, that suggests you'll have a severe damage in your cost savings, yet you'll miss the stress of investing thousands of dollars on car loan repayments monthly. Isn't that outstanding? For instance, if you borrow $10,000 for an automobile with a 5% rates of interest as well as a term of five years, you'll end up investing an added $1,322.74 in passion. Not so inexpensive anymore! However prior to you lose hope, remember this: You can find reputable pre-owned vehicles in any type of cost variety. If you're battling monetarily, you can locate an automobile to obtain you from point A to factor B for as low as $1,000 to $2,000. It might not be rather, yet you'll get by. If you aren't satisfied with the vehicles you can manage, bear in mind that you can take all that money you reduce vehicle settlements every month as well as stash it away for an upgrade. Just make it a top priority in your budget! P.S. If you need a budgeting tool, provide ours a test-drive in a Ramsey+ complimentary trial. It'll help you get going on ending up being debt-free and also functioning your method to the cars and truck you really want. Step 2: Find Your Perfect Vehicle When you have actually established your budget plan, you can locate your excellent auto. Not your dream auto. Your ideal car. It's the one that ideal fits your way of living and your reasons for buying it. Prior to you state your commitment to your favored vehicle brand, go back as well as have a look at the kinds of vehicles and what each was created to do. Trucks, as an example, were designed to lug goods and also hefty materials. So unless you're hauling heavy cargo regularly (you know-- crushed rock, lumber, blocks), do not buy a truck. For a great traveler lorry, stick with choices that are portable as well as energy reliable, like cars, hatchbacks or hybrids. Narrow down your choices with this fast list. Read through these declarations and also pick three that relate to your situation the most. Use your solution to assist choose which sort of cars and truck is perfect for you. ____ I want a vehicle with a lot of freight space. ____ I desire an automobile that can fit even more people. ____ I want a lorry with far better gas economy. ____ I desire an automobile that's very easy to enter and out of. ____ I want a lorry that's risk-free. ____ I want a lorry that's much better for the environment. ____ I want my lorry to lug heavy cargo. ____ I want to go off-road or on harsh terrain. ____ I desire my lorry to be compact as well as light for city car park. ____ I desire my car to have lugging abilities. As you choose your perfect vehicle, you'll have to make some sacrifices as well. You won't discover an automobile that does whatever. So prepare your heart for that. Be honest with yourself regarding your wants as well as your requirements, and believe long term regarding exactly how you'll be utilizing your automobile. Want to Save a Little Money? Obviously you do. So think about features you do not need your vehicle to have. Not simply technology like in-dash GPS, Bluetooth connectivity and also backup video cameras-- yet the basics as well. What kind of standard points? Well, take cylinders, for instance. Today, a 2011 Kia Sorento with 6 cyndrical tubes prices around $8,350 to $10,750.4 The exact same Kia with a four-cylinder engine? $7,750 to $10,150 (as well as these numbers change almost day-to-day).5 Though it might not feel like a great deal, you can take that added (virtually) $600 as well as put it towards your car insurance policy. Tip: Unless you're hauling hefty freight, simply stick with 4 cylinders. What concerning the transmission? Stick shifts are typically cheaper than automatics, some versions also improve gas mileage, as well as last but not least-- they're simply ordinary enjoyable to drive. As well as do you actually require four-wheel drive (AWD), or can you get by with front- or rear-wheel drive (2WD)? Unless you reside in the hills or handle great deals of rain, snow as well as ice on your commute, stick to front- or rear-wheel drive if you're simply driving in the city. Bonus Tip: When you're comparing different automobiles, do not neglect to think of insurance costs also. Deal with an independent insurance coverage representative who can help you save without shedding on protection on your cars and truck. Action 3: Buy a Used Automobile Now that you understand how much you can spend and also what kind of cars and truck cares for your requirements, you can begin buying. But initially, let's talk about two areas you ought to stay away from. New automobile dealers. Although a lot of new car dealers market utilized cars, they're always a lot more costly. Buy-here, pay-here great deals. These great deals refer to car dealerships that not just offer autos (get here) yet additionally use vehicle loan (pay here). You have actually seen these places. They generally have multicolor pennant streamers strung between light posts as well as a 20-foot blow-up gorilla trembling a "sale" indicator. Yep, you understand the kind. Stay clear of these lots as well. Their cars have a lots of surprise charges, and they likewise typically have less than a 48-hour return policy. With a little bit much more looking, you can locate better utilized cars somewhere else. Here are 6 places to begin your search. CarMax has a significant online stock and a very detailed cars and truck inspection. Carvana, like CarMax, has a huge supply and also does careful vehicle inspections. The difference is that Carvana is entirely an on the internet vehicle buying experience. And also Carvana delivers the cars and truck to you! Craigslist doesn't bill you a purchase fee (like ebay.com does). eBay Motors markets cars and trucks with online auctions and buy-it-now straight acquisitions. Display room grass can be dangerous, yet sometimes, the very best deals come from purchasing from an exclusive proprietor. Independent utilized vehicle dealers are likewise a clever area to look. Certain, you need to discuss with aggressive sales people, however you can certainly locate an offer at a strong car dealership. Step 4: Identify the Utilized Car's Worth Currently it's time to identify if the used automobile you have actually picked deserves the price. Collect all the info you can on the cars and truck so you can talk the vendor down to a much better deal. 1. Start with Kelley Directory (KBB). KBB uses data collected from real sales purchases and also auction prices to give you an exact price variety for the made use of cars and truck. 2. Buy a car history report (VHR). A good VHR prices regarding $50 as well as consists of mishap history, possession background, and also a lots of various other records. A VHR eliminates a great deal of uncertainty regarding the used car because it will certainly reveal you if the automobile has actually been in any kind of mishaps or has actually already invested a great deal of time in the shop. Vehicle Background supplies a totally free fundamental record, however if you will drop a couple grand on a used vehicle, purchase a detailed record from CARFAX. You'll require the VIN number (usually discovered beneath the windshield on the driver's side). Pro suggestion: If the VIN number has been damaged off or eliminated, don't buy the auto. That's a big warning. Possibilities are, the secondhand vehicle has actually been taken or the seller is concealing something. 3. Determine the possession price. That's what you'll spend to preserve the vehicle (oil modifications, new tires, liquid purges) as well as what long-term fixings you must anticipate for the make and design you're taking a look at. You'll likewise require to understand the costs and availability of substitute parts since parts for some automobiles are extra costly than others. You can make use of Edmunds Real Price to Own device to get a great price quote. 4. Discover on-line discussion forums concentrated on the used cars and truck. Virtually every design has an online forum with strings extending back a great while. Seek common concerns that owners have had with the type of automobile you wish to get. 5. Check the automobile's recall history. Don't think the vendor has actually dealt with a used automobile's security recalls. Actually, over 70 million vehicles get on the roadway with open recalls on them.6 And yeah, you guessed it-- people still try to market those automobiles without getting the recall fixed. So what can you do? Examine the National Highway Web Traffic Administration for your automobile's recall background (if it has one). 6. Request an insurance quote. Used cars and trucks are normally less costly to guarantee than brand-new ones. Actually, a 5-year-old auto is about 14% less costly to insure than its brand-new equivalent.7 If you already have insurance, ask how much your premium will certainly alter if you buy a certain make and also model. Work with an independent insurance policy agent who will do the buying you. Tip 5: Inspect the Made Use Of Auto Yourself Even if you're not a mechanic, you can use this listing of advice from the Department of Motor Automobiles to check for signs of damage and misuse. While none of these things alone should quit you from acquiring the automobile (except for major damage, like a blown head gasket), a bunch of these can stop you from buying somebody else's cars and truck trouble. Under the Hood Examine the oil level as well as color. Oil dipsticks lie near the engine (generally a yellow stick). Oil must be light brown. If there's no oil in the engine, that's a good sign this is a bad deal. Check the shade of the oil under the oil cap (located on the engine). If it's milky-- what some mechanics call "mayonnaise"-- do not buy the used cars and truck. If the oil is milk like, it's combining with coolant, a common indication of a blown head gasket (in some cases a $3,500 fixing). Check the belts. Belts lie around the engine, occasionally on the engine's side, so you may need a flashlight for this action. Belts ought to be smooth with no fractures. Broken belts aren't a bargain breaker, but you'll require to replace them quickly. Examine the transmission liquid dipstick (generally a red stick). Transmission liquid ought to be pink or red. If it's black and also smells burned, that's a poor indication. Transmission replacements are costly, so if you locate that the vendor hasn't replaced the fluid in a while, reevaluate buying the used cars and truck. Check the degree of the coolant. It needs to be between minimum as well as optimum. The coolant tank is someplace near the radiator. If you can't find the reservoir, ask the seller where it's located. Caution: Don't open the coolant cap while the engine is hot or if the automobile is running. Check the brake fluid. Make sure it's at the highest level. Outdoors Check out the cars and truck's paint work. Look for damages and also scratches. Check the tires. They ought to all coincide (not mismatched), as well as they should have also put on across the width. Look for scuffs, splits and cuts along the sidewall. Check the spare tire too. Examine the tail pipeline. If it's black, that indicates the vehicle is shedding oil-- an additional poor indicator. Open and shut the doors, as well as the trunk, fuel door and gas cap. Ensure they all job. Inspect the lights. Ask the vendor to run the directional signal, fronts lights and brake lights as you make sure (outside the car) that they function. Inside Take a deep breath. If the cars and truck smells mildewy or if you see mold under the seats, there's a likelihood the car has water damage that could bring about expensive electric problems. If there's an air freshener or if the cars and truck scents suspiciously scented, open the windows and also leave them open as you examine drive the car. When you're done with the test drive, you'll have the ability to smell the car's natural scent. Check the endure the steering wheel, seats and also pedals. Minor wear can be anticipated-- particularly if it's an older cars and truck. Lock and also unlock all doors. Make sure they function. Check A/C as well as heating. Everybody takes these things for provided ... till they don't function. Idle the cars and truck and watch the temperature scale. You do not want to acquire a pre-owned vehicle that overheats. See to it the radiator followers kick on when the temperature starts increasing. Step 6: Opt For a Test Drive When you're taking the vehicle for your initial test-drive, turn off the stereo and ask your guests (perfectly) to stay peaceful so you can pay attention for any problems. Before you test-drive, choose a route with hills, bumps and, yep, even potholes. Even if you intend to make use of the automobile on highways and level roadways, examination the auto on harsh roads to get a feeling of just how it handles the roadway.

Utilize your test-drive to respond to these inquiries:

Feel Exactly how does it feel on level roads? Smooth or bumpy? Just how does it feel when it hits a bump or pothole? Does it rock aggressively? Does the auto battle to pick up speed? Do the equipments transform smoothly? Is the brake squishy or also delicate? How does your body really feel after the test drive? Was the seat uncomfortable?

Sound Does the engine sound smooth when you increase? Does the engine rattle, knock or grind when you still? Are there resonances or weird noises under the hood when you speed up over 60 MPH? Do the brakes squeak?

View Can you see out of the cars and truck easily? Do you need to stress your neck to check your blind spots? Does black smoke come out of the exhaust when you begin the car or increase? Is the RPM gauge constant when you idle? Does it rise and fall way too much?

Smell Transform the cooling to a modest setting. Do you scent burning oil? Action 7: Take the Made Use Of Vehicle to a Reliable Mechanic If the car has actually passed your individual examination, great. Currently allow's see if it passes the technician's examination. If the vendor does not want an auto mechanic to evaluate the vehicle, that's a negative sign. Constantly have a mechanic check a secondhand car, regardless of the condition. A great auto mechanic will inform if you will purchase a trustworthy previously owned cars and truck or if it has any type of issues.

When it pertains to assessments, you have two options:

Take the cars and truck to a trustworthy garage. Most cars and truck garages charge a flat charge for checking made use of automobiles. They'll place the automobile on the lift, check for corrosion and also corrosion, as well as tell you if the utilized auto has extreme fluid leakages. If you're working with a private seller who does not desire you to take the vehicle off his/her residential property, established a mobile assessment. A technician will pertain to the vehicle, execute the examination, and print out the results. If a technician tells you the car has problems that surpass its worth, kindly tell the vendor you're no longer interested, or utilize that knowledge to reduce the asking price. Tip 8: Usage Arrangement Skills If you have excellent factors to believe the vendor must decrease the asking cost, you can utilize everything you've just learned about utilized automobiles as ammo to work out a far better bargain. Arrangements can be tough for people who don't like to be confrontational. Bargain like a professional with these 3 ideas. 1. Bring your research to the table. Allow's say the vendor wants $3,000 for his previously owned Volkswagen Jetta. Kelley Directory claims the ordinary rate range for that Jetta is $2,800 to $3,000. But you observed that the tires are bald as well as a front lights does not function. And also you review online that this version has troubles with radiator followers. Your VHR reveals no owner has actually ever before replaced the radiator followers. Ah-ha! Now you have actually got something. Bring all this details to the seller-- factor in the cost of tires, a front lights and a radiator follower-- and supply less. 2. Pay in cash money. Inform the seller you'll be paying for your used car in cash money-- just don't expose how much money you have. When vendors sniff eco-friendly, they're most likely to agree on your terms. 3. Hold your horses. If the vendor does not budge, you can leave. You have all the acquiring power. Most of the moment, they need your money more than you require their vehicle.

This article is written by https://allamericanexporter.com/

[fingaudioart]

Hill House, and Audio Horror vs Film Horror

I got to thinking about this when an audio producer on Twitter asked what people thought the scariest parts of Haunting of Hill House, other than the jump scares. What struck me while reading the responses were almost all things that depended on the visuals, and would be very hard to move into the realm of audio.

I feel like many/most people think of horror movies as a template to build off of for horror audio fiction...which is fair, because for many of us, horror audio fiction wasn’t a thing we could find to listen to until recently (myself included). And it’s not uncommon to hear a successful, talent audio producer say something along the lines of “An audio drama is like a movie, without needing a million dollar budget.”

I agree with the thought, generally: audio fiction does have many similarities to film, but if you stretch it too far, it can be a dangerous approach. And it can be especially dangerous for Horror.

Let’s think about how we could move the Bent Neck Lady into audio (spoilers ahead). Except for one scream, she is silent and unmoving. To move it into audio, we’d either need a narrator (or someone to tell us what’s happening), or to make Bent Neck Lady move around. The first option would keep the nature of the ghost intact, but we would be robbed of having it happen in front of us. The second option would change the nature of the ghost entirely. This is before we even talk about the twist, that hinges on Bent Neck Lady largely being a silhouette, which obscures information without feeling like anything.

Horror is a genre that is especially dependent on craftsmanship, regardless of the medium. It’s a genre where--and you’re going to murder me for saying this--you don’t need a good story to be scary. You need a scary situation/scene, told with skill, but even if the scenes/plot/characters around it are terrible, you can still make the audience feel afraid (Looking at you, Argento).

That’s not to say the story doesn’t matter. In fact, a large part of what makes Haunting of Hill House so good is that it’s part horror, but also part family melodrama (and it actually spends more time on the melodrama than the horror), blended together so the ghosts have meaning. Bent Neck Lady is disturbing the first time you see it, but it’s the story behind it that makes her stay with you long after you’ve finished the show.

But if we set aside the story, and focus on the scary moments...they are pure filmmaking. Every aspect is working to create fear: the sets and art direction, the creature design, the pacing, the blocking, the editing, the sound design.

The same way a horror movie uses every weapon of filmmaking, a horror audio drama should use every weapon of audio to create dread/fear/suspense. But the flip side is, just as Haunting of Hill House isn’t using the tools of horror literature, your audio drama shouldn’t try to be a movie.

But I think we also need to own up to something: many of us (most of us?) have more experience watching horror movies than listening to horror audio dramas. So let’s get analytical here. What are films strengths? Audio’s strengths? Weakness? And how do these work in service of horror? Any tips for the audio drama producer?

Filmmaking’s Unique Gifts

Before I get into the list, I want to be very clear: I’m not to saying you can’t do versions of this in an audio drama. In fact, when these are successfully used in audio, they can be outright amazing. But they take a lot more work, either by carefully setting up signature sounds*, or by having narration, or some other creative way no one has done yet. The point of this list is that film does these things easily.

There are some obvious things, like, ya know, visuals. I don't think there's any amount of words or sounds that would allow me to imagine Giger’s Xenomorph. Some things just need to be seen.

One of film's special talents is it gives the audience an understanding of a location without even trying. I don’t mean the layout of a house (that can be confusing), but present an audience with one shot of a bedroom, and they’ll instantly understand where the bed is, the window, the door, the closet, the bedside tables. Films communicate small spaces so easily, they don't even need to stop to do it…a character walks in the room doing whatever, and as long as the space is seen by the camera, the audience gets it.

In horror, this is vital when the fear you're trying to create is that of a physical threat. Where is the killer? Behind the bookcase? Walking towards you from across the lawn?

Related to this idea of a physical space, films also have the ability to makes things appear--and disappear--quickly and unexpectedly. This is moments like Mike Meyers appearing in the closet in Halloween, or later, when Dr. Loomis looks over the edge of the Balcony, and Michael Meyers has vanished.

Perhaps film’s most famous strength is the montage. You can easily cut between different scenes and settings, without the audience ever getting confused.

There is one tool of film that I am very frustrated won’t work in audio: the Title Card. I don’t mean the title of the show, I mean those cards that say things like “Burbank, CA” or “CIA Headquarters” or “3:23pm.” Text on screen is a painless way to give the audience information without tripping up the storytelling.

Finally, let’s talk about one of film’s most powerful tricks...patience.

A film can stretch moments out, sometimes with slomo, but often with editing between close-ups. You can also have moments where nothing happens, you just linger in the mood/ambience/characters reactions. 

A great example is the “Spielberg-Face”, those shots when the characters are reacting to something the audience hasn’t seen yet. In Jurassic Park, we spend a full 30 seconds watching jaws drop before we see the first dinosaur. This is pretty nuts, when you think about it. The true stars of the movie aren’t introduced with a speech, or a title card, or a curtain pulling back, but by the characters just staring in the distance for half a page.

Pausing the action, or even just stretching it out, is one of the fundamental tools of horror movies. It’s a way to create the mood: Show the spooky location, play the spooky ambience. It’s a way to create suspense in a scene, think of the long POV shot scanning the room for that noise. End the moment with something suddenly appearing, and you have the basic recipe for a jump scare. Even if you decide to be an artsy horror story, like Haunting of Hill House, silently drawing out the action is your primary weapon. Done well, the audience will be rapt, knowing that something could be about to happen any moment, even though as far as the plot goes, we haven’t moved much at all.

I’ll be honest, if I could go back in time and tell the younger version of me who hadn’t made an audio drama yet that you can’t draw out a moment the way you do in film, I probably would not have believed me. In my work as a TV Editor, it’s been one of the tricks that has really elevated my pieces...it feels like magic. But I’ll never forget editing my first audio piece, having a character fumble with a doorknob while trying to escape someone who was chasing them. They grunted at the door as the footsteps got closer and closer, and it was lousy. It felt like the manipulation it was.

Audio’s Unique Gifts

The thing that audio does better than any other media--and this is controversial--a narrator feels like they are talking directly to you, the listener (a narrator in a film feels more like they are talking to an auditorium). Now, here are people who find that narration is jarring and takes them out of the story. They aren’t wrong--you can’t argue someone’s experience--but that’s certainly not what happens to me. If you are one of these poor souls, I hope you take some time to listen to some narration and reprogram your brain, because you’re missing out on some magic.

The other great thing about sound is it activates the imagination. Films can also do this, of course, but audio does it be default.

Sound is also very good at evoking a sense of touch. Texture. Clothing. Almost anything you can feel in your hand.

While sounds is great at telling us about what’s very close, it also tells us about the world in the distance, i.e. ambiences. The sound of a forest transports us to a forest that exists in all directions. Distant traffic can tell us if the city is awake or asleep.

Audio also does an amazing plot twist that I’m gonna call the “Pull Back to Reveal” twist (yeah, that’s a film term). This is when, deep into a scene, something is revealed to the audience that the characters understood was there the whole time. While a movie can usually only sustain this for a minute or two, audio dramas can push this for a really long time. The Truth’s classic “The Dark End of the Mall” is a great example, as is the episode “Have You Seen My Mom?” It’s use in horror is more limited though...suspense works the best when the audience knows as much or more about the situation than characters (a.k.a. Audience Superior), and this is a twist that is Audience Inferior.

And, not for nothing: It’s way cheaper than a film. That’s not say the money doesn’t matter, but it doesn’t matter in the same way. 

Film’s Failings

The hardest part of film is the flip side of its strengths: it’s so easily grounded in reality, it’s very hard to step out of it. That’s more of a problem than you think.

Take the sentence, “Andy called his sister-in-law.” While it takes just four words to write in a book, in a movie, you are going to be contorting dialog or some other clever trick, to get the audience to understand “that’s his wife’s sister.” (Non-narrated audio dramas also have this problem with exposition.)

Same goes for backstory. In the middle of a scene, a book can say things like “She’d been working on this for ten hours now, and was ready to scream.” One sentence. A film would have to lay out exposition, or clues for the audience to put it together.

Film also has a hard time conveying senses other than sound or sight. During scenes where a character walks into a place and says “Ugh, what’s that smell!”, I never really imagine the smell, I just see an actor pretending to smell something.

Visuals can be too intense. Gore or nudity are the first things that come to mind in this category, and are often alluded to in a film for exactly that reason. But even if they are merely hinted at, the film audience may spend a scene wondering “Are they going to actually show it?”, which knocks you out the movie a little. 

Films are complicated to make, at every level. Casting is tougher---the actor needs to both sound and look the part. There’s the expense of sets and lighting, the effort of just getting a crew to a location can be monumental. And once it’s all shot, film editing is more complicated and time intensive than audio editing, and not just because it involves audio editing.

Audio's Weakness

The biggest: There's a big Blindspot right in front of the audience. Without some careful context, raw audio recording from real life is disorienting at best, intelligible at worst. Most sounds that come from the blank spot are descriptive, they generally tell us if someone’s shoes are wet, but they won’t tell who is walking around the room in wet shoes.

This blind spot can be especially dangerous to a producer, because in real life, our brain attaches sounds to the objects it sees, and when you understand what a sound is, it’s easy to place it. Because a producer knows what sound they are placing in the piece, it’s easy to think your sound design is intelligible. Sounds we don’t understand are also hard to place in the space. I personally find that while stereo and ambisonics can help make the sounds be more distinct from each other, they don’t really locate them precisely.

Another weakness of audio, characters are hard to tell apart. This can especially affect women's voices, who don't tend to have as much variation. This isn’t as true if the audience has seen the face of the actor talking, something about that seems to lock in our understanding of a voice (video though, not just a headshot). But without a face, it’s tough. EDIT: So I wasn’t very clear with that last point. To be clear, it’s not that you CAN’T cast people who sound different, or that you can’t direct people with similar voices to give different performances. It’s that you need to make a point of doing so. And while I have personally found that women’s voices are more likely to sound alike, that’s not the main idea. We remember face’s very easily, and names relatively easily (unless you’re me, I’m terrible at names). Voices without faces are easily confused.

This character confusion especially applies to large casts...I have a hard time imagining an audio only version of OCEAN’S ELEVEN, for example. Put twelve characters in a room for an audio drama, and it’s gets confusing for the listener really quickly.

If you aren't using a narrator, making time pass can be hard. A Rocky montage needs to be carefully setup.  "Cut To: Five Minutes Later" is damn near impossible without narration.

Sound Effects need to be more meticulous. THE AVENGERS can sweeten a superhero punch so it hardly sounds like a punch at all, and the visuals on screen will lock it into place. Without a picture to give a sound context, they need to be much more realistic for them to be understood correctly.

So let’s put this all together.

Lets turn it into an “approach,” and design some scenes that work easily in the medium. 

Ambiences are a strength, so we’ll pick a setting that has an interesting one, and avoid things like quiet rooms. We’ll have a small number of characters, let’s say four or less, and to make it easier for audience to remember who is who, we’ll cast actors with clearly different voices, and we can help on the script level by making sure they all have different motivations/goals/emotional states. To get that intimacy of the voice, we’ll have at least some of the characters close to each other (and the mics), and not shouting across the room.

The physical setup of the room will be straight forward, and our characters’ movements though the space will be clearly motivated and direct (“Does this key unlock this door?”), if a character has busy work that moves them through the space, the details won’t matter (like they are doing dishes). We’ll also want to have some moments that play on that sense of touch. Perhaps most importantly, we’ll want to paint some clear visuals for the listener to imagine.

For a horror scene, you really want to work your ambiences to make them add to the tension, vs just adding realism. We first want the monsters in the distance, say on the other side of a door or outside the house, or somewhere in the woods. Make our scared characters really close to the listener, play the sounds that you only hear when you are right next to them, like their breathing, swallows, adjusting the clothes or their make-shift weapon.

When the monster enters the room, have it spend as little time as possible in the blindspot, so avoid things like fist fights and fast-paced footchases. Instead get the monster right inside our character's personal bubble. If you’re aiming for a startle, instead of having it leap out in front of the hero like in a movie, you’d want to skip the blindspot, and have the monster pounce onto the hero--using those touch sounds that are so intense.

To me, that sounds like a scary scene.

It’s Not a Formula, and All of This is Nonsense

In fact, you probably wouldn’t want every scene in your piece to follow this, because a) it’ll get repetitive, and b) when you go against the medium, you’re more likely to make some magic (if you pull it off). But I do think it’s important to realize when the big moment of your piece is resting on some of the weaknesses. When this happens, you may want to make sure you’re leaning on something really strong to carry the weight. Other times, you may want to toss around some other ideas, make sure that it’s actually working, and to see if it could be improved.

Also, even though I’ve written a lot of words here, I fully expect someone has already proven every one of these rules wrong. But I also think it’s a good exercise to go through this and figure out why I’m wrong.

The medium matters. And I hate writing conclusions, so I’m ending it here.

*Signature Sound: A sound that the audience understands to mean something specific, such as a doorbell or a gunshot.

[innocentworm]

So you remember old versions of Animal Crossing where you’d go talk to Brewster and purchase a cup of coffee? And he’d talk about this handpicked blend of beans, how freshly ground they were, and made mention of the perfect temperature at which the coffee should be served?

It’s pretty clear he’s making some gormet shit. This is NOT your morning cup of maxwell house or whatever. This is fresh stuff. Prepared to be an experience worth having. 

This guy has clearly put a lot of study into how to serve that coffee in the way  a customer would likely truly enjoy it, and make it worth their while to purchase coffee from him rather than, say, making a pot of folgers at home. That’s a bit easier. Definitely cheaper. Dudes gotta be good at what he does to compete with that.

And then when he pours that cup you have a choice. You can either drink the coffee, or let it cool. 

Except if you choose that second choice it’s revealed that it’s not REALLY a choice. Brewster insists you drink the coffee the way he painstakingly served it to you, and will keep doing so until you agree. I mean, the dude is a real expert when it comes to coffee. You might know how you usually drink your hot cup of joe at home, but tossing this guy’s effort out the window might not only be a bit insulting to his expertise, but you also might be robbing yourself of an experience hand crafted just for you.

That cup of coffee is a metaphor for the videogame the scene takes place in.

I’m not saying this to dunk on the people who got the game and immediately time traveled? Because this isn’t to say there’s anything wrong with the cup of coffee one might make at home. Just like there isn’t necessarily anything wrong with playing the game you bought the way you decided is “more fun.”

But I think there’s also an argument to be made that a time traveler is not really playing the same game everyone else is. Like, you’re playing by different rules on a pretty fundamental level. Kinda like how Tennis and Ping Pong work kinda the same way but they are, at the end of the day, completely different games. 

Or like, when you speedrun a game, you’re interacting with it in a usually completely broken way that doesn’t resemble normal gameplay. I mean, time travel is usually used to get things faster than you’re supposed to so I guess it’s the same idea. I friggin love a good speedrun and I also can really enjoy the stuff people can manage to make using time travel in this game, that they probably wouldn’t manage if they played the game the way it was made to be played. So like, I get it. Whatever.

But it still does leave the question, are you really playing the same game?

[haywire4]

As short stories go, Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death” is very short. At 2,378 words it would qualify as a decently economical Jamboroo installment, and can be neatly summed up in a sentence. During a time of plague, a prince and his royal buddies repair to a well-provisioned castle, weld the iron gates shut, and throw themselves a heedless, non-stop party in defiance of the sickness ravaging the world outside, until such time as that party becomes immediately and entirely untenable. It’s a perfect story, but it’s not a subtle one.

If there’s any aspect of the presidency in which Donald Trump has come close to flourishing during his first term, it is the ceremonial one. To the extent that anything in his plummy, anxious, relentlessly public life prepared him for the job ahead, it was this. Trump has bobbed and leered through gaudy ballrooms all his life, blithely cutting the line at one buffet after another and demanding one more ashen flap of beef than any other guest is permitted, rising to Make Some Remarks at some point in the evening, and otherwise circling and circulating to receive the thanks and praise that are his due as host. He may enjoy all of that, but it’s just as likely that he doesn’t. Trump is not at these parties to have fun, anyway. He’s there because it’s the only place he can be.

The thing for him is to move, to collect whatever adulation there is and then to float on, leaving behind the absolute minimum of his own small self. The tribute he receives from these supplicants—the habitually divorced, the serial franchisees, the plump pink yachters and the reckless sunburned boaters alike—is fulsome but reflexive. It’s thin and vague and it doesn’t sustain him so much as it propels him ahead; it’s the continual rush of water through a shark’s gills that allows it to breathe. The other guests, the schools of smaller Trumps that push him around the room, are all mostly there because he is, but the party doesn’t really start until he leaves. It’s then, lit up with the memories of the moment when they saw some perfected and untouchable version of themselves in Donald Trump and were acknowledged by him in turn, that the celebrating starts.

“Staff and guests lingered after the president was there,” the Minnesota political consultant Blois Olson said of Trump’s private fundraiser at the home of a countertop company’s CEO in the state on Wednesday. “They sang karaoke, they had their arms around each other.” The St. Paul Pioneer Press reported that South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem was one of the celebrants, but between that fundraiser and a rally in Duluth and flights around the state with various Republican officials and Members of Congress, Trump saw a lot of people during his visit. Some percentage of them may now have picked up the coronavirus that Trump himself and numerous members of his executive entourage confirmed they had on Thursday night.

Again, the story is concise and perfect and not really remotely a metaphor. When Trump called Sean Hannity’s Fox News show on Thursday night, shortly before the public announcement that he and his wife had tested positive for COVID-19, he made clear that none of this was really anyone’s fault. “You know, it is very very hard when you are with people from the military or from law enforcement,” Trump said, “and they want to hug you and they want to kiss you, because we really have done a good job for ’em. You get close, and things happen.”

Like every story that Trump tells, this is both one he tells often and always to the same end. People just can’t help themselves around him, they come up to him with tears in their eyes—the big people, the tough and even rough people, the successful people and the real workers—and they need to be near him. Who could tell them to keep their distance, or to wear a mask, or take any of the precautions that some other citizens have taken because they are the only way to stop the spread of the pandemic that Trump has effectively chosen to ignore? Who would? “There are some who would have thought him mad,” Poe wrote of Prince Prospero, the decadent party’s decadent host. “His followers felt that he was not. It was necessary to hear and see and touch him to be sure he was not.”

The basic premise of Trumpism and the fundamental promise that Trump has made during his political career is that those who are with him will be treated one way, and those who are not will be treated in another, much worse way. Because of how Trump is—because of how avaricious and joyless he is, and because of how fearful and paranoid he is, and because of how unrelentingly aggrieved he is—this promise is fundamentally negative. Only the most powerful of the people that fell into formation behind him will receive any positive benefit from anything that he does; this is axiomatic, as Trump doesn’t do anything for anyone other than himself. Everyone that follows him understands and accepts this to some extent, and the less influential of those who lined up behind him either out of perceived interest or some rote and sour habit or pure servile instinct surely know as much. They also know that they will receive a more diffuse but still quite valuable dividend for their service, which is the certainty that they will never be treated as badly as the people on the other side.

That certainty is false, of course, but that doesn’t mean it’s not valuable. Trump has lived his life inside a curdled and childish belief that he can do and take and keep whatever he wants, without consequence, forever. As a sort of tabloid cartoon of a rich person, an adult Richie Rich that had somehow figured out how to use a smartphone and commit adultery, this delusion has served him decently well; the realities of his wealth and the structural forces that the country has built to protect people of similar fecklessness and similar means conspired to sustain it for decades. The version of this impunity that Trump sells to his audience is a cheaper reproduction, not sold in any store and available exclusively through this limited-time television offer, in which they can feel as invulnerable and unaccountable as him, and be just as lazy and just as cruel, without actually being anywhere near as well-insulated from the consequences of their actions. “I play to people’s fantasies,” Trump “writes” in the ghostwritten Art Of The Deal. “People may not always think big themselves. but they can get very excited by those who do.”

“That,” Trump continues, “is why a little hyperbole never hurts.” When it comes to building a brand or a public image, the utility of this sort of theatrical dishonesty is at least debatable. But the open secret with Trump is that there is nothing underneath all of this—not just no actual values beneath the pretend ones or actual product behind the pitch, but nothing at all. There is just bottomless idiotic appetite and unstinting demand, the urgency and endlessness of which makes any number of outlandish cruelties not just possible but inevitable. Trump is not the only person who is like this, but it may be that no one is more like this than him. Discernment isn’t on the menu, but it also fundamentally isn’t an option—admitting any kind of error or demonstrating any kind of vulnerability would mean not just defeat but a sort of death. The nature of this country and its economic and political depravities guarantee that such a person—someone rich enough and determined enough, stupid enough and frightened enough and selfish enough—can go a very long way. The idea of being that way is something that can be sold, because the shiny false certainty of it is something that people want to display, and feel themselves. It is a poisonous lie, but an aspirational one.

It is true that, from a public health perspective and a political one, Trump could have done any number of things to fight the pandemic that’s still spreading unchecked across the United States. But the reason he did basically none of them is that Trump is incapable of thinking of this challenge—of any challenge, really—from a public health perspective or a political one. These are abstractions to him, and as such much less interesting or important than his own comfort. Trump would and could not wear a mask because to do so would signal that he could get sick like anyone else; he could not tell the truth about what needed to be done to fight the pandemic, let alone actually do those things, because it would interrupt the story he prefers to tell about his own success. He could not follow or even accept the advice of scientists and epidemiologists because it would be a tacit admission that they knew more about this than he did. Most importantly, though, Trump could not care about what the pandemic does, about the communities it hurts and people it kills, because none of that is him; their deaths just don’t rate relative to his own discomfort.

And so the move, the only move, was to go on in denial, to push irritably and impatiently through the unrelenting fact of the disease behind the fantasy that none of it could ever have any consequences for him. His people followed on behind, not so much in denial as in defiance of the thought that any of this could possibly apply to them. The people that fly into rages upon being asked to wear a mask to protect other people and stop the spread of the disease would, paradoxically or not, also fly into a rage if the people serving them were not wearing masks themselves. This is because these people are fucking unwell, but it is also because that facile distinction between themselves and other people is a load-bearing one. It holds up the whole gilded edifice, until it doesn’t.

It was probably inevitable that Trump would get the virus, because the country is still awash in it and because he has refused to protect himself or others from it. It is, again, not really much of a metaphor that he himself seems to have become something of a vector for its spread in his own gilded circles. This is not a complicated story, or a long one. It’s the nature of a virus to spread, to move blindly from one person to the next, absolutely and always as illimitable as it is permitted to become.

Another excellent piece from David J. Roth, who has moved from analysis of the highly paid mediocrities of sports to the highly paid mediocrities of the current administration with great ease.

[bigskydreaming]

@seekingxanadu​

LOL I think you and I aren’t likely to ever agree on the subject of Jason’s role in the show, xanadu, as I actually like him being present and would enjoy seeing him end up more integrated into the team in the future. Yeah, there are a lot more classic Titans that they still haven’t gotten to, but IMO there’s a lot of reasons for that (like Wally and Roy currently being used elsewhere, Vic with the Doom Patrol, others perhaps ‘on hold’ because there’s always any number of projects or potential projects in the works that aren’t even announced to the public yet, etc).

Personally, I think its likely Jason’s role in the show and mythology has been expanded instead of introducing more Titans in his place for the same reason Hawk and Dove are here despite never being hugely present in Titans stories for the most part: they’re cheap.

Like tbh, that plays SO much more of a role than most people realize with shows like this, where budget concerns are constantly an issue, and special effects tend to carry the highest price tags. As far as the showrunners are likely concerned, the more they can bring in non-powered characters and give them screentime, the better....because it saves money.

For that matter, superhero projects belonging to the various live action shared universes love to cheat special effects whenever and wherever possible....and roster choices are absolutely made with an eye towards if any existing properties produced by the same companies have special effects that can be repurposed and used with other characters. Like, creating the special effect for the first time tends to be the most expensive part by far, whereas its often relatively simple and cheap to reuse it in a variety of ways....so they all like to do this as much as possible.

Just as an example, take the X-Men movies (sorry if they’re unfamiliar to you, they’re just the instances I can speak to as a sure example of this).....to most people, a LOT of the mutant characters used in the various films seem random as hell....like Azazel in First Class, and Sunspot in DOFP, etc. Thing is...those two and other characters were picked primarily because of the special effects. Azazel’s similarities to Nightcrawler wasn’t a coincidence, it was the point. The studio already had the special effect they’d created for Kurt’s teleportation power signature, and it’d been easily one of the most positively received and talked about special effects of the original trilogy....so they wanted to use it more. Cheap and easy, compared to making new ones for characters with entirely different powers. So by making Azazel one of the primary villains, they just used Kurt’s special effects and gave it a slightly different tint. Same thing with Riptide, Shaw’s other henchman in that movie....totally random choice given he’s never been remotely associated with the Hellfire Club and what they showed in the movie isn’t even really how his powers work in the comics...but the way they portrayed him in the movies allowed them to reuse some of the tornado effects they’d created for Storm in the original trilogy. Havok’s power displays were just repackaged versions of Cyclops’ special effects, and for Sunspot in DOFP they just reused stuff they’d developed in the original trilogy for Pyro...even though again, what Sunspot was shown doing in that movie isn’t remotely how his power works in the comics.

So like....this is a very very big consideration for studios with any and all superhero projects, both film and TV...its why WB picks nonpowered characters to center TV projects around whenever possible, like Arrow and Batwoman and the reason Hawk and Dove were referenced as being looked at for a possible spin-off pretty much since Titans started...and its not a coincidence that the Flash was the first superpowered character they chose to expand their TV universe with, as superspeed has always been one of the cheaper effects to create (its also why Smallville utilized Clark’s superspeed even more often than it did his superstrength). Same thing why when picking another ‘powered hero’ to add to Arrow early on, they went with Ray Palmer and gave him basically just an Iron Man style suit to start...because even when they eventually had him develop his shrinking power....again, super cheap. Size changing effects just involve shooting a lot of different takes using scale models or messing with proportions in post. Compared to what’s required for a lot of DC’s more high profile heroes....that costs nothing to do.

Odds are, Jason was originally introduced in S1 purely because they could use him to advance Dick’s solo storylines in ways very few other characters could allow for, given a key point of Dick’s story arc in becoming Nightwing over the course of two seasons has revolved around touching on where he’s been and come from, and how he’s now grown past that. To really make the most of that, you need something connected to his past, to Batman, and given its notoriously difficult and complicated to secure approval to use Bruce in any and all live action projects, with the sheer volume of different people you need to get on board with it....Jason was a much easier alternative.

And then once he was relatively well received, they jumped on the chance to expand his role because he enabled them to expand their core cast of characters without dramatically inflating their budget at the same time. Just like that’s why Hank and Dawn were never going anywhere any time soon.

So tbh....he’s very likely not taking anything away from any other Titans’ chances of appearing...since the same hurdles and reasons to take it slow are still there for a lot of the other characters. After Arrow ends, it might be a different story with that freeing up Roy to start making appearances...and who knows with Wally because even though he plays an entirely different version of Wally, bet you anything they’re waiting to be sure Keiynan is definitively done playing Kid Flash or the Flash show is for sure never going to bring him back, before considering either Wally for use elsewhere. Like, I know he already said he was done playing Wally but actors change their minds, so I doubt anyone in the studios took that as an immediate green-light to launch a new Wally project elsewhere.

This almost certainly played a factor in their killing off Garth in just his first appearance....water effects are notoriously hard to make look convincing, and this one’s on the writers too given that I bet people in the writers’ room in general weren’t pushing really hard to make Garth a core character for the show....a lot of TV writers reeeeeally hate trying to write for characters who are intrinsically affiliated with say, the ocean, if they’re not otherwise an ocean-themed show already.....because its just another version of why a lot of comic book writers say they have a hard time showcasing Arthur in JLA books, due to a lot of his most thematic abilities being so location dependent. (I mean, personally I say in both cases this is just a lack of imagination and not a good excuse for not using Garth or Arthur more, lol, but like, it is what it is. This tendency among writers as is still already exists).

And the DC expanded universe and which production companies are affiliated with which properties and studios and stations and all that is a huge complicated mess, so I’m not even going to try tracing the connections to verify for sure, but I’d be willing to bet Titans has access to either some of Supergirl’s special effects or some of Superman’s movie special effects or both (or possibly just to Superman special effects developed for various projects that have come and gone over the years without ever making it to completion). Either way, bet you anything that has as much to do with the decision to introduce Superboy into this particular ensemble, as does just them wanting to have a Super-family character in the mix and Superboy was next on the list, not already being used elsewhere.

*Shrugs* But yeah. Never underestimate the power of the dime even with something as fundamental as picking a core roster. Actually, ESPECIALLY with something that fundamental, since that’s the foundation any and all budget concerns spring from. As much as I love the original Judas Contract storyline, I’m not at all bothered to see Rose kinda shoehorned into Terra’s role in a truncated variation of it here....because first, that story’s been adapted a ton in a variety of different ways, so its not really a huge loss to not have it fully adapted again, but second.....its less likely that Rose took Terra’s role here and more likely that Terra was never remotely an option for the show given how ridiculously expensive her powers would be to render well....so they looked at what else they could make fit a similar role and decided hey, why not bring Rose into this as well, even though she’s not primarily associated with this generation of characters?

And Joey was obviously always a strong candidate to add to the cast as early as this, of course. My bet is other than possibly Roy, depending on WB’s overall plans for him, like, I would guess the next most likely Titans to show up/be added to the cast are Lilith, Mal and/or Karen. Telepathy’s cheap and easy to gimmick up some power signature for.....tbh, I wouldn’t be surprised if the only reason Lil HASN’T shown up yet is because they’ve been saving her for after the Jericho storyline is done, given that her powers would cut through all the stakes and suspense and reveal Joey was riding shotgun in Slade’s head from the very first time the Titans encountered Deathstroke this season. For that matter, it’d be extremely difficult to write her as not sensing the sheer chaos going through Dick’s mind this entire season and cutting off that storyline early, and it does seem they’ve known exactly where they wanted to go with Dick this whole time so I can easily see them having decided early on they viewed this as a necessary part of his evolution into Nightwing, and Lil’s mere presence would throw a spanner in those works.

And as for Mal and Karen, again, the shrinking powerset is relatively easy to pull off and its likely more just not wanting to invest in Karen’s suit/flight just yet that’s been the delay there, and Mal’s sonic powers OR his teleportation powers are both relatively easy and cheap.

And of course, other non-powered characters not usually affiliated with the Titans are always a possibility. I’d put money on freaking Golden Eagle being a more likely contender to show up than some of the other powered Titans, for that matter.

Anyway, just my industry take on the matter in general, lol. You know I’d always be for Jason as a Titan as I think he would have ended up one eventually if he hadn’t died when he did, and I’d love to have just one adaptation that doesn’t stick to his death and Red Hood storyline. He doesn’t need it to be an interesting character, just good writing. Its not like Bruce or Dick are definitively chained to one specific storyline outside of their own origin stories, so no reason Jason should have to be either. (And honestly, in line with everything I was talking about here......IMO the nonpowered characters are always a degree safer from being killed off than the powered characters. Doesn’t mean they’re ever totally safe, and it doesn’t mean the show’s necessarily ‘at capacity’ for powered/expensive characters already, but at a certain point the cast list likely will end up sticking with just the powered characters they have until one of those powered characters is killed or otherwise written off...before adding another ‘expensive’ character to take their place.)

But yeah, anyway, lol. Don’t know if that might make you a little more positively inclined to Jason taking up a slot on the show....all things considered, I truly doubt that it was ever a case of them picking to make Jason a series regular OVER adding another classic Titans character in that place instead. It really is more likely IMO that the cast list we have this season was more or less already otherwise in place and they just looked at things and said “we can’t really afford to introduce an additional character on top of the other ones we want to add already this season, like Joey, Slade, etc, and especially not one with special effects heavy powers...BUT we can bring Jason in as more of a presence in the ensemble and bump him up to series regular without too much trouble.”

[fireflysummers]

Delta Rune: Addendum

People have asked me if my opinions have shifted at all in light of Toby Fox’s FAQ.

The answer is yes and no. 

Also, I’ve gotten a fair amount of...unasked for feedback on my other post, which was mostly just my own musings and opinion? So I might as well just kinda...address a bunch of things here, based on a couple observations over the last 48 hours.

What People Didn’t Like (And Why)

The Repetition of Plot Elements from Undertale in the Dark World

This one’s pretty common, and very justified given that, when the demo first launched, we had no idea that it was a demo. For all we knew, it was some kind of finished product. 

Although I didn’t want to believe that this is the case, it’s not uncommon for creators to accidentally fall into a sophomore slump of sorts, where under the pressure of measuring up to their freshman fame, they end up creating something dull and uninspired. 

Despite that, there wasn’t any level of self-awareness that indicated that the Dark World was supposed to be a cheaper version of Undertale. And then it ended by falling into the “it was just a dream” trope (not entirely, but close enough), which is one of my least favorite tropes, so I was just turned off altogether. 

The Battle System

I didn’t really enjoy the new combat system (that’s definitely a personal thing though...turn-based jrpg games have always been a struggle for me, and I straight up don’t have the time for the strategy that it often takes). That aside, Fox himself admits that the system is rough and really unbalanced.  

Also, I get the sense that he wants to bring home that theme of your choices mean nothing, but isn’t exactly sure how to do that yet, which explains a lot of the issues with ACTing in the demo.

Even after he gets it fixed up, I’m not sure I’m really going to enjoy the battle system, although I do commend him for his creativity and the attempt to integrate Undertale’s bullet hell into a turn-based game style.

Underdeveloped Characters

This one I can forgive almost entirely, by nature of it being a demo rather than a finished piece of work. I can relax my criticism of the Dark World NPCs as a result.

That said, I still failed to really feel anything other than aww...cute a couple of times (usually as Ralsei)

Oh, that and a shit ton of existential horror at Undyne and Alphys not knowing each other, the world being generally indifferent to whatever made Susie the way she is, and that everybody is turning a blind eye or actively punishing Asgore for some unknown crime. 

But I’ll talk about that a bit more in the next section.

The Vague Relation to Undertale and the Re-Use of Characters

Okay so like. I understand that Toby Fox insists that it’s Not Undertale.

Except that like.

I don’t buy that for a second.

Like, it’s Not Undertale only in the sense that it’s not related to the pacifist ending, but doesn’t disqualify it from being a follow-up to the genocide run (and therefore a direct sequel of sorts). 

That aside, if it truly was Not Undertale, then he wouldn’t have named it Delta Rune, brought Gaster into it, and drawn visual and flavor text metaphors to the original game. It’s related, it might be an AU, but that doesn’t make the OOC meanness of the familiar faces easy to swallow.

It could easily interpreted as “unsettling and OOC to show the player that their expectations will be subverted and that there is something Seriously Wrong with this world,” and a lot of people have interpreted it that way! I’m on the fence there myself, but you gotta understand that not everybody shares that interpretation.

For others, including myself to some extent, the message was: 

In the absence of dire circumstances, the characters that you were led to believe cared deeply about each other and you, are indifferent, apathetic, and  downright mean.

I mean, even if Kris on their own is a total dick? That doesn’t justify the way that the other characters treat each other. 

And that lack of warmth in the story was felt like a gut-punch to a small number of people.

On top of that, the weird twist ending didn’t do much to subvert that message. It gave no sense of whether or not the entire thing indicated a fundamentally sick world, or disprove that sense of they only cared about you and others out of a mutual need.

And if you can put yourself in that mindset, you can understand how that could be painful.

What People Didn’t Like About Me (And Others) Not Liking It

You’re Complaining Because it’s Not Undertale

No, I’m complaining because it’s Too Much Undertale. Because my personal prerogative is that Undertale is perfect the way it is and any additional content would only detract value from the original.

I was sincerely hoping for a totally new game, with maybe cameos or nods to Undertale, because I didn’t want to risk that horrible sequel syndrome. 

And while we, as fans, can opt to ignore horrible sequels (see: the entirety of the Harry Potter fandom), at the same time...sometimes you can’t unsee what you’ve seen. Sometimes sequels are enough to mar your affections and feelings for characters, especially because it comes from The Voice of God Dog.

You’re Can’t Complain that Things are OOC When It’s an AU!

-rubs forehead-

Look. I don’t know if you know this, but I adore AUs. Not every AU, of course, but I loved the concept and how the community came together to create some kind of semi-cohesive multiverse.

I mean, I literally drew over 100 different AUs:  SET 1 || SET 2 || SET 3 || SET 4 || SET 5 || SET 6 || SET 7 || SET 8 ||

But there’s a difference between fandom AUs and canon AUs--namely in that fandom AUs can be as out of character as they want, because it’s a fan creation.

There are multiple series that play with that multiverse theory as well, within their own canons, starting with the entire body of Osamu Tezuka, but also including the works of CLAMP (most notably XxxHolic and Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicles), Adventure Time, the Final Fantasy series, and so on.

And the key to making an effective multiverse? The thing that makes it work? 

Keeping the characters in-character. There has to be that kind of consistency, otherwise it doesn’t function on a narrative level. You’re just reusing character designs and assigning new personalities, because you’re too lazy to design new characters.

Or worse, you’re baiting in previous players on a sense of nostalgia which is a trick I do not appreciate. 

You Shouldn’t Rely on Fictional Works to Aid Your Mental Health

Screw you. 

Everybody has Real Issues in their lives. Sometimes we need a hand from something or somebody else to keep moving.

Fine, But There’s No Reason To Be Publicly Upset by DR

It’s okay to dislike additional material, for whatever reason, so long as you’re not attacking others for liking it. It’s okay to be upset by something, even if it’s not rational, and you don’t need to force others to like what you like, nor should you feel guilty that somebody else doesn’t ‘get it.’ 

Will You Play Chapter 2?

I will purchase it to support Toby Fox on his endeavors. 

But you gotta understand, I straight up don’t play video games most of the time. Don’t have the time or the energy.

I only played Undertale after I’d had the whole thing spoiled to me, and knew it was worth the investment of my time. I should’ve waited on this one too, but I was too eager, and instead lost 4-5 hours of critical time for my graduate coursework (which definitely contributed to my annoyance).

TL;DR

You guys realize it’s okay for people to dislike deltarune? It’s okay for them to have been hurt by the characterization in deltarune? And people don’t have to write an essay in order to hold those opinions?

And that you don’t have to aggressively convert people to it like you’re some kind of church missionaries?

-sighs- At any rate, beginning to feel a bit more optimistic overall, and after that interview I can feel Toby Fox’s enthusiasm (he had something cool and he couldn’t wait to show it off!!), and I can get excited for him and others, even if as a whole the entire game experience fell flat.

Some day, I might even warm up to the game well enough to draw some stuff some time. I’ve got some fun ideas and theories, but still refuse to be hopeful that it’ll actually shape up. 

Because I am made of salt. 

[introvertguide]

The Influence of 12 Angry Men on American TV Shows

The movie 12 Angry Men (1957) is included on the AFI list of the 100 Greatest American Films and a couple of my housemates were asking me why. It is true that, although a good movie, it is not really ground breaking in any way. It was considered a box office failure at the time it was released and it didn’t win any Academy Awards. The story wasn’t really that original except to focus on the jury side of a story as opposed to the open courtroom. So what makes it stand out? Most of it falls on the writing and the acting being excellent, but part of it is that it is just so dang easy to copy. To remake this movie, one only needs 12 people, something to disagree upon, a room with a big table and...well...that’ s about it. It is so easy to recreate and has such a powerful story (one voice of reason standing up against the biased opinions of many in an attempt to ascertain the truth) the really speaks to the American people. To show you what I mean, here are five episodes from popular TV that straight up copied the storyline:

King of the Hill - Nine Pretty Darn Angry Men: A slight subversion from the original, this episode from the animated series sees Hank and some of the other  main characters judging a new lawn mower that is an upgrade from the previous model. Instead of being in court, the 9 men are in a shopping mall focus group that have to praise or criticize the new product. Although it is not in the legal domain, it is a group of men separated in a room making a decision that sees one holdout versus the rest of the group. At first it seems like Hank is ragging on the new machine because he owns the old model, but he is able to win over the group by pointing out the fundamental flaws of the new model. 

Family Guy - 12 and a Half Angry Men: A complete copy of the storyline, this is just the movie with the local mayor being the person convicted of a crime. In this version, it is the Griffin family dog, Peter, that is the only hold out on the jury. It seems that it would not be that much easier or cheaper to have all the characters in one room when dealing with animation, but a simpler background in a single setting does making for easier storyboarding and simpler animation.

Monk - Mr. Monk Gets Jury Duty: A strong subversion from the original, this version has a holdout but it is not the hero of the group. The one holdout is actually a villain in this episode because she is in league with the defendant and is trying to draw out the case to either hang the jury or give the criminal a chance to escape. Detective Monk is on the jury and figures out what she is doing so she holds the group ransom in an attempt to let the defendant go free. 

The Andy Griffith Show - Aunt Bee, The Juror: Slightly different in that there is more contact with the world outside the room during the deliberation, the female character “Aunt Bee” is the holdout on the jury. This gives the main character, Sheriff Andy, the opportunity to go out and find the real culprit. This particular show had a lone woman standing up against 11 angry men and it was supposed to be empowering for women. It really didn’t turn out that way since the only reason she was able to hold out against the group was because she had the town sheriff working on her side. 

The Dick Van Dyke Show - One Angry Man: This was a straight up copy of the film but with a lesser crime. The lead character, Rob, is a hold out on a jury that is trying a suspect of robbery. This is much more of a comedy and less a drama, but everything is pretty much the same. 

12 Angry Men showed that great things can be done with a simple set and a small budget as long as the storyline is good the actors are passionate. All of the voices of the jurors are like all the little voices going off in your head when trying to make a difficult decision. The jury room is very simple and the deliberation can be made longer or shorter depending on the run time of the media. This makes for a perfect TV episode. In fact, 12 Angry Men was a made-for-TV special on CBS before it was ever a movie. I guess some stories lend themselves well to the small screen, and this is a prime example of one of the best. 

[stanmelosi1988-blog]

Wrong, you act like no one has free will, or can choose to do the right thing. But, if someone is in pain or on their deathbed, its Gods fault. Because you understand the mind of an immortal being. One of the most famous cases of effective crisis management came in the wake of the 1982 and 1986 Tylenol tampering scares. In 1982, seven people in the Chicago area died after ingesting Tylenol laced with cyanide. Even though the deaths were a result of local tampering, Johnson Johnson engaged in a nationwide warning campaign and ordered the removal of all Tylenol capsules from store shelves at a cost of $100 million dollars.. The one person whom I turn to when I sick, sad, and/or happy. It is exactly because of the fact that it is my best friend and it is my home that I appreciate it even more. It has so much regional variety that one dish can have several different versions. Accepting an "influencer terms without the brand explicit permission is probably fine the vast majority of the time, but given the way Jen in particular does her reviews (assessing the claims skincare brands make, based on ingredients), I not sure the PR company really did their due diligence. I certainly understand why a brand like L wouldn want their claims and ingredients questioned in a video they paid for. Jen style of review might not be a good fit for sponsored content in general, or at least not for skincare products.. Obviously, this is is not enough for Filipinos who commute and walk everyday (like me). That why, again, I want a locally formulated, quality sunscreen since the formulators/chemists of that product will be more in tune with what Filipinos need.Because Biore is a good example of a product that is within your budget, considered the best in class by international buyers, 영월출장샵 from a country with a good safety and quality control reputation. These are all reasons why it fundamentally more important to not use a local option as a sunscreen.I am well aware of Japanese sunscreens as I personally use one (Nivea Milky Gel PA++++).It seems you are actually unaware because Nivea is German.I am also aware of the state of S in the country, and the fact that we are far behind as compared to other countries such as Japan. These bylaws are nothing more than empty inclinations. These concerns can happen rapidly when trying to lose weight. Especially for those who may have started a radical diet regimen or extreme change. She weds herself to be her lawfully wedded bitch. She says, "if the shoe fits, wear it, bitch". She thanks her parents for delivering a great genetic pool. If anybody has any tips about how I can better utilize this product I love to know. It like 11 bucks, and you can buy re fill pouches to refill your bottle for cheaper, which is awesome. 4 stars just because I feel like I don really understand how this stuff works.. This poem, with its Gallic brilliancy and audacity, long exercised over Chaucer's mind the same dominant influence which it possessed over most secular poets of the age. Chaucer's second period, that of Italian influence, dates from his first visit to Italy in 영월출장샵 1372 3, where at Padua he may perhaps have met the fluent Italian poet Petrarch, and where at any rate the revelation of Italian life and literature must have aroused his intense enthusiasm. From this time, and especially after his other visit to Italy, five years later, he made much direct use of the works of Petrarch and Boccaccio and to a less degree of those of their greater predecessor, Dante, whose severe spirit was too unlike Chaucer's for his thorough appreciation.

[patriotsnet]

Why Do Republicans Really Want To Repeal Obamacare

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/why-do-republicans-really-want-to-repeal-obamacare/

Why Do Republicans Really Want To Repeal Obamacare

Passage Of House Bill Revives Effort To Supplant Obamacare

Why Don’t Republicans Want to Repeal Obamacare Anymore?! | Rand Paul

Just six weeks after House Republicans pulled a bill to substantially overhaul the the nation’s health care system, they successfully — if narrowly — passed a revised version of the measure.

On May 4, 2017, the House passed a the bill by a 217-213 margin.

Republican leaders adjusted the bill following negotiations with both the conservative and moderate wings of the party.  

The revised bill would do several things.

It would end subsidies provided to people who buy health insurance on the Affordable Care Act’s online marketplaces, replacing them instead with tax credits. It would repeal several taxes imposed under the ACA that primarily hit high-income taxpayers. It would allow states to obtain waivers to some requirements of the Affordable Care Act, including the “essential health benefits” provision that requires maternity care or mental health services. And it would curb further expansion of Medicaid that had been allowed under the Affordable Care Act, as well as eventually capping Medicaid expenditures in ways that would effectively end its status as an entitlement.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the original version of the bill would have increased the number of uninsured people by 24 million by 2026. The changes made before passage might change that number, but the specific impact awaits a new score by CBO, which is expected in the coming days.

Why Is The Affordable Care Act So Despised By So Many Conservatives

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IT HAS been called the most dangerous piece of legislation ever passed, as destructive to personal and individual liberties as the Fugitive Slave Act and a killer of women, children and old people. According to Republican lawmakers, the sources of each of these quotes, the Affordable Care Act , or Obamacare, is a terrible thing. Since it was passed by a Democratic Congress in 2009, it has been the bête noire of the Republicans. The party has pushed more than 60 unsuccessful Congressional votes to defeat it, while the Supreme Court has been forced to debate it four times in the acts short history. Obamacare was also at the heart of the two-week government shutdown in 2013. Why does the ACA attract such opprobrium from the right?

Why Do Conservatives Oppose The Law

Republicans say it imposes too many costs and regulations on business, with many describing it as a “job killer”. However, since the implementation of Obamacare jobs in the healthcare sector, at least, rose by 9% and a found that around 2.6 million jobs could be lost by 2019 if it is repealed.

Conservatives have also baulked at Obamacare’s rule requiring most companies to cover birth control for free.

The Trump administration tried to put in place new guidelines for organisations to opt out on moral grounds last year, but two federal judges blocked the move.

During the Obama presidency, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives took dozens of symbolic votes to repeal the law and provoked a partial government shutdown over the issue.

After repeated legal challenges, in 2012 the US Supreme Court declared Obamacare constitutional.

Despite having a majority on Capitol Hill under President Trump, a Republican repeal bid failed in dramatic fashion in 2018.

Democratic leaders have acknowledged Obamacare is not perfect, and have challenged Republicans to work with them to fix its flaws.

Trumps Executive Action Could Erode Marketplace Built Under Obamacare

Attempts to repeal portions of the Affordable Care Act have failed in the past several months, leading President Donald Trump to issue an executive order expanding access to cheaper, less comprehensive health care plans.

The order, signed on Oct. 12, instructs federal agencies to remove certain limitations on “association health plans” and expand the availability of short-term health plans, both of which can skirt certain minimum coverage requirements included in the Affordable Care Act and state laws.

These changes will not immediately take effect; federal agencies will have to figure out how to act on Trump’s directions.

The executive action orders agencies to explore ways in which the government can expand access to short-term health plans, which are available to individuals on a three-month basis and meant for people who are in-between health care coverage plans. Under the instructions, association health plans would be allowed to sell plans across state lines; those plans allow small businesses to band together to create cheaper health care plans that offer fewer benefits.

The order was intended to create more options for individuals seeking health insurance and help stimulate competition among insurers. Some health policy advocates worry that it could disrupt the insurance marketplace in a way that would drive up health care costs for elderly individuals and people with medical conditions.

It will be months before changes are seen in the marketplace.

This Is Why Republicans Couldnt Make A Better Replacement

Republicans have made a lot of political hay out of pointing out that the plans available under the Affordable Care Act are, in many ways, disappointing. Unsubsidized premiums are higher than people would like. Deductibles and copayments are higher than people would like. The networks of available doctors are narrower than people would like.

These problems are all very real, and they all could be fixed.

They are not, however, problems that the American Health Care Act actually fixes. While Republicans have made several changes to the AHCA to cobble together a majority of House votes, the core of the bill remains the same: it offers stingier insurance to a narrower group of people.

This is because the AHCA does what Republicans want: it rolls back the ACA taxes. But under those circumstances, its simply not possible for the GOP to offer people the superior insurance coverage that it is promising.

The bill the House is voting on Thursday doesnt get rid of the ACAs tax credits to make it easier to buy health coverage, but it bases them on age, with younger people getting bigger credits, rather than income which means poorer Americans. especially elderly ones, will have a bigger tax burden and more difficulty affording the insurance they need.

Do Republicans Really Want To Repeal Obamacare Maybe Not

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WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 07: Speaker of the House Paul Ryan shares a laugh with… Republican members of Congress after signing legislation to repeal the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, and to cut off federal funding of Planned Parenthood during an enrollment ceremony in the Rayburn Room at the U.S. Capitol January 7, 2016 in Washington, DC. President Barack Obama has promised to veto the bill.

Here is something that may surprise you. Did you know that in the 6 ½ years since the passage of Obamacare, Republicans have not held a single hearing on the problems the law has created for ordinary people? No hearing in the House of Representatives. None in the Senate. None anywhere else. Zip. Zero. Nada.

There certainly has been no shortage of problems. It seems like every other week the New York Times brings us a new investigative report complete with gory details and eyewitness reports of victim after victim of President Obamas signature legislative accomplishment. But if you look over the subject matter for the committee hearings in Congress for the past several years, you would never know an Obamacare problem even exists.

Why is that? There have been no shortage of votes to repeal Obamacare. At last count the House has voted to repeal some or all of the hated legislation 60 times!

So lets return to the titular question.

Would House Republicans really vote to take health insurance away from 20 million people?

Eliminating Health Care Penalties

The Affordable care Act, required most Americans to be enrolled in Health Insurance since it was made affordable, otherwise a penalty would be induced. Effective 2017, congress attempted to eliminate financial penalties that were related to complying with the mandated law that every individual needs to be enrolled in Health insurance, this law however did not become effective until 2019. This policy is still valid, the penalty for having no health insurance was reduced to 0$. Individual mandates effects the decisions made by individuals regarding healthcare in that some people will not enroll since health insurance plans are no longer mandatory.

On March of 2020, the nation has undergone a global pandemic, however, several Republican-led states and the Justice Department are making the case for invalidating the ACA. This will cause at least 60 million people to not be able to afford being hospitalized, or treated which increased the number of COVID-19 cases nationwide.

This Is Why Republicans Cant Make A Better Replacement

Republicans have made a lot of political hay out of pointing out that the plans available under the Affordable Care Act are, in many ways,disappointing. Unsubsidized premiums are higher than people would like.Deductibles and copayments are higher than people would like. The networks of available doctors are narrower than people would like.

These problems are all very real, and they all could be fixed.

They are not, however, problems that any of the GOP replacement plans fix. Instead, while Republican alternatives vary in many important ways, they all fundamentally offer stingier insurance to a narrower group of people.

This is because the Republican plans all envision rolling back these ACA taxes. But under those circumstances, it’s simply not possible for the GOP to offer people the superior insurance coverage that it is promising.

Phil Klein, a top conservative health policy journalist, has urged Republicans to solve their overpromising problem by “stating a simple truth, which goes something like this: ‘We don’t believe that it is the job of the federal government to guarantee that everybody has health insurance.'”

Gop Wants To Repeal Obamacare Without A Backup Plan But Some Republicans Say That’s A Bad Idea

The Real Reason Republicans Want to Pull the Plug on Obamacare | Robert Reich

U.S.CoronavirusHealth CareObamacareCongress

A Republican-led lawsuit is leaving the fate of the Affordable Care Act hanging in the balance of the courts amid a pandemic that’s ravaged the globe and exacerbated the need for health care.

Yet GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill concede they do not have safety net legislation ready to catch the millions of Americans who would find themselves suddenly without health insurance during a potential second coronavirus wave.

Some Republicans, however, believe that needs to change.

“We need to have a plan in place to make sure that people don’t lose coverage,” said Senator Mitt Romney .

Pre-existing conditions are the “most important thing” to cover, said Senator Martha McSally. But, the Arizona Republican added, “there are many other contingencies that we need to be looking into,” referring to a wide array of issues that could arise without the law.

Republicans have tried unsuccessfully over the years to repeal and replace Obamacare with health provisions of their own. But more than three years into President Donald Trump’s first term, they acknowledge there is neither a discussion nor a plan available to simply replace the expansive health care law that is Obamacare, should it be struck down.

Senator Rick Scott , a former hospital CEO, said he’s “come up with lots of proposals. But there’s no proposal here,” he added.

Does President Trump Really Want To Repeal The Aca

Feb 25, 2020

When he introduced the 2020federal budget President Trump re-emphasized his intention to repeal theAffordable Care Act, known more popularly to most of us as Obamacare.

Perhaps that is the issue! Trumpand Obamacare!

The Affordable Care Act is irrevocably associated with the Democratic Party and ex-President Obama in particular.  Most citizens benefit from it one way or another.

Since the swing to theDemocratic Party at the Mid-Term elections in 2018 President Trump has beenremarkably quiet on his plans for replacing Obamacare if he is granted a secondterm by the American public.  Indeed, hehas made it clear that there will be no new legislation until at least 2021.

In the meantime, he will bewatching the polls and judging the voters intentions as the Democratcandidates put their healthcare policies on display.

Nobody claims the AffordableCare Act is perfect.  All agree it can beimproved.  At the 2018 mid-term electionsmore than half the voters claimed that healthcare was the major factor in theirvoting decision.  That is why it stays atthe top of the political agenda. After all, our spending on healthcare accountsfor nearly 20% of the way in which we spend the countrys income .

This may be true but there arelimits to savings from increased efficiency and inflation is inevitable.  The outcome is, necessarily, reduction inbenefits or in enrollment.

There are signs that Trump mightbe prepared to keep the subsidies and allow income-related tax relief.

Gridlock In House Stalls Trump’s Pledge To Repeal Obamacare

As a candidate for president, Donald Trump said that “real change begins with immediately repealing and replacing the disaster known as Obamacare.”

On March 24, the nation learned that it’s not happening immediately. And the road forward isn’t clear either.

Capping a frenzied week of negotiations between three House Republican factions — the party leadership, the hardline conservative House Freedom Caucus, and members of the more moderate, pragmatic wing of the party — House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., announced that he would not bring the American Health Care Act to the floor for a vote, as he had planned.

That March 24 announcement came one day after the floor vote had been pushed back to allow for last-minute changes and arm-twisting, and half a day after Trump had issued an ultimatum to House Republicans — pass the bill or he’ll move on.

In the run-up to Ryan’s announcement, vote counting by media outlets had concluded that the House GOP would lose too many votes to pass the bill if it tried.

“We came really close today, but we came up short,” Ryan said at a press conference. “I will not sugarcoat this. This was a disappointing day for us.”

For members on the party’s right flank, the American Health Care Act left in place too much of the infrastructure of the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama’s signature health care law and the target of intense Republican opposition for seven years.

The Real Reason Republicans Couldnt Kill Obamacare

Democrats did the work, Republicans didntand that says a lot about the two parties.

Adapted from The Ten Year War: Obamacare and the Unfinished Crusade for Universal Coverage, St. Martins Press 2021.

The Affordable Care Act, the health-care law also known as Obamacare, turns 11 years old this week. Somehow, the program has not merely survived the GOPs decade-long assault. Its actually getting stronger, thanks to some major upgrades tucked in the COVID-19 relief package that President Joe Biden signed into law earlier this month.

The new provisions should enable millions of Americans to get insurance or save money on coverage they already purchase, bolstering the health-care law in precisely the way its architects had always hoped to do. And although the measures are temporary, Biden and his Democratic Party allies have pledged to pass more legislation making the changes permanent.

The expansion measures are a remarkable achievement, all the more so because Obamacares very survival seemed so improbable just a few years ago, when Donald Trump won the presidency. Wiping the law off the books had become the Republicans defining cause, and Trump had pledged to make repeal his first priority. As the reality of his victory set in, almost everybody outside the Obama White House thought the effort would succeed, and almost everybody inside did too.

That was no small thing, as Republicans were about to discover.

Baby Boomers And The Aging Population

Robert Reich failed to mention the aging population. 76M boomers were born after WW-II, between 1946 and 1964, and America wasnt prepared for that growth. Neither were other nations. There werent enough hospitals, pediatricians, schoolteachers, textbooks, playgrounds, or even bedrooms in our homes. Now, as 11,000 more baby boomers turn age 65 every day, retire, and go on Social Security and Medicare, the ability to pay for public assistance becomes more difficult. By 2029, more than 20% of the US population will be over 65 . That 1-in-5 number is up from 1-in-7 today; and by 2035, 1-in-3 US households will be headed by someone 65 or over.

Thats because people are living longer . But were also less active and have higher rates of chronic disease and disability. Almost 39% of boomers are obese, compared to about 29% in the previous generation, and 40% of them are low-income , meaning theyll need more public assistance.

The age 85+ population needing the most medical care will grow the fastest over the next few decades, equaling 4% of population by 2050, or 10 times its 1950 share  1.9M Americans are already 90+, an in 2010, people 90+ had a median income of just $14,760, about half of it from Social Security. This is a worldwide phenomenon thanks largely to longer average longevity. The United Nations says that by 2050, the older generation will be larger than the under-15 population.

Why Republicans Wouldn’t Actually Repeal Obamacare

It would be a political disaster, but it hasn’t yet stopped them from trying.

Last week, in a bold example of their governing prowess, congressional Republicans took their 62nd vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and this time they actually passed it through both houses and sent it to President Obama to be vetoed. Naturally, they were exultant at their triumph. Speaker Paul Ryan admitted that there is as yet no replacement for the ACA, but they’ll be getting around to putting one together before you know it. The fact that they’ve been promising that replacement for more than five years now might make you a bit skeptical.

What we know for sure is this: If a Republican wins the White House this November, he’ll make repeal of the ACA one of his first priorities, whether there’s a replacement ready or not. To listen to them talk, the only division between the candidates is whether they’ll do it on their first day in the Oval Office, in their first hour, or in the limo on the way back from the inauguration.

But I’ve got news for you: They aren’t going to do it, at least not in the way they’re promising. Because it would be an absolute catastrophe.

Now imagine that ten million people, the number signed up for private coverage through the exchanges, all had their coverage simultaneously thrown into doubt. Think that might cause some bad press for the party and the president who did it?

Everything You Need To Know About Why Conservatives Want To Repeal The Presidents Health Care Law

Photo by Larry Downing/Reuters

Though the Affordable Care Act passed into law in 2010, conservatives continue to fight it at every opportunity: in the courts, in state legislatures, and in Congress. Its a safe bet that as the race for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination kicks off, a cavalcade of Republican hopefuls will torment innocent Iowans with tales of how theyve fought Obamacare in the past and why theyre the ones who can finally drive a stake through its heart. But if you dont read the conservative press, you might have no idea why those of us on the right side of the political spectrum are so worked up about Obamacare. To promote cross-ideological understanding, Ive prepared this little FAQ.

Why do conservatives oppose Obamacare?Not all conservatives are alike, and there are at least some, like Avik Roy of the Manhattan Institute, who believe Obamacare should be reformed and not repealed. But as a general rule, conservatives oppose the law and would like to see it repealed for several reasons.

First, some conservatives oppose it for the same reason that liberals favor it: Through the Medicaid expansion and the exchanges, it subsidizes insurance coverage for people of modest means by raising taxes on people of less-modest means and by curbing the growth in Medicare spending. Conservatives tend not to be enthusiastic about redistribution, and theyre particularly skeptical about redistribution that isnt transparent.

Why Republicans Cant And Wont Repeal Obamacare

Editor’s Note:

This article was originally posted on Real Clear Health on January 16, 2017.

Now that the Republicans control both the presidency and both houses of Congress, they must put up or shut up on their promise to repeal and replace Obamacare. Here is a flat-footed prediction: the effort will fail for three reasons. First, the Affordable Care Act has largely succeeded not failed, as president-elect Trump and other Republicans falsely allege. Second, it is impossible for the stated goals of repeal to be achieved. Finally, the political fallout from the consequences of partial or total repeal would be devastating. When it comes to casting votes, enough Republicans will conclude that repeal is a bad idea and will join Democrats to sustain the basic structure of the health reform law.

Second, the stated objectives of repealing Obamacare are mutually inconsistent. Three provisions comprise the core of Obamacare. First, rules barring insurance companies from refusing to sell insurance to people because of preexisting conditions or varying premiums based on those conditions. Second, a requirement that everyone carry health insurance who can afford it. And third, subsidies for those with moderate incomes to help make such insurance affordable. The law contains many other provisions as well, but these three are core.

Trump Administration Asks Supreme Court To Strike Down Affordable Care Act

The REAL Reason Republicans Can’t Stop Trying to Repeal Obamacare

If successful, the move would permanently end the health insurance program popularly known as Obamacare and wipe out coverage for as many as 23 million Americans.

WASHINGTON The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court late Thursday to overturn the Affordable Care Act a move that, if successful, would bring a permanent end to the health insurance program popularly known as Obamacare and wipe out coverage for as many as 23 million Americans.

In an 82-page brief submitted an hour before a midnight deadline, the administration joined Republican officials in Texas and 17 other states in arguing that in 2017, Congress, then controlled by Republicans, had rendered the law unconstitutional when it zeroed out the tax penalty for not buying insurance the so-called individual mandate.

The administrations argument, coming in the thick of an election season as well as a pandemic that has devastated the economy and left millions of unemployed Americans without health coverage is sure to reignite Washingtons bitter political debate over health care.

In his brief, Solicitor General Noel J. Francisco argued that the health laws two remaining central provisions are now invalid because Congress intended that all three work together.

The court has not said when it will hear oral arguments, but they are most likely to take place in the fall, just as Americans are preparing to go to the polls in November.

Is The Supreme Court Likely To Save Obamacare

The Supreme Court is likely to leave in place the bulk of Obamacare, including key protections for pre-existing health conditions.

Conservative justices John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh appeared in two hours of arguments to be unwilling to strike down the entire law a long-held Republican goal.

The courts three liberal justices are almost certain to vote to uphold the law in its entirety and presumably would form a majority by joining a decision that cut away only the mandate, which now has no financial penalty attached to it.

Leading a group of Democratic-controlled states, California and the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives are urging the court to leave the law in place.

A decision is expected by late spring.

Repealing Obamacare Is A Huge Tax Cut For The Rich

This did not play a major overt public role in the 2009-’10 debate about the law, but the Affordable Care Act’s financing rests on a remarkably progressive base. That means that, as the Tax Policy Center has shown, repealing it would shower moneyon a remarkably small number of remarkably wealthy Americans.

The two big relevant taxes, according to the TPC’s Howard Gleckman, are “a 0.9 percent payroll surtax on earnings and a 3.8 percent taxon net investment income for individuals with incomes exceeding $200,000.” That payroll tax hike hits a reasonably broad swath of affluent individuals, but in a relatively minor way. The 3.8 percent tax on net investment income , by contrast, is a pretty hefty tax, but one that falls overwhelmingly on the small number of people who have hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in investment income.

For the bottom 60 percent of the population that is, households earning less than about $67,000 a year repeal of the ACA would end up meaning an increase in taxes due to the loss of ACA tax credits.

But people in the top 1 percent of the income distribution those with incomes of over about $430,000 would see their taxes fall by an average of $25,000 a year.

[statetalks]

Why Do Republicans Really Want To Repeal Obamacare

Passage Of House Bill Revives Effort To Supplant Obamacare

Why Don’t Republicans Want to Repeal Obamacare Anymore?! | Rand Paul

Just six weeks after House Republicans pulled a bill to substantially overhaul the the nation’s health care system, they successfully — if narrowly — passed a revised version of the measure.

On May 4, 2017, the House passed a the bill by a 217-213 margin.

Republican leaders adjusted the bill following negotiations with both the conservative and moderate wings of the party.  

The revised bill would do several things.

It would end subsidies provided to people who buy health insurance on the Affordable Care Act’s online marketplaces, replacing them instead with tax credits. It would repeal several taxes imposed under the ACA that primarily hit high-income taxpayers. It would allow states to obtain waivers to some requirements of the Affordable Care Act, including the “essential health benefits” provision that requires maternity care or mental health services. And it would curb further expansion of Medicaid that had been allowed under the Affordable Care Act, as well as eventually capping Medicaid expenditures in ways that would effectively end its status as an entitlement.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the original version of the bill would have increased the number of uninsured people by 24 million by 2026. The changes made before passage might change that number, but the specific impact awaits a new score by CBO, which is expected in the coming days.

Why Is The Affordable Care Act So Despised By So Many Conservatives

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IT HAS been called the most dangerous piece of legislation ever passed, as destructive to personal and individual liberties as the Fugitive Slave Act and a killer of women, children and old people. According to Republican lawmakers, the sources of each of these quotes, the Affordable Care Act , or Obamacare, is a terrible thing. Since it was passed by a Democratic Congress in 2009, it has been the bête noire of the Republicans. The party has pushed more than 60 unsuccessful Congressional votes to defeat it, while the Supreme Court has been forced to debate it four times in the acts short history. Obamacare was also at the heart of the two-week government shutdown in 2013. Why does the ACA attract such opprobrium from the right?

Why Do Conservatives Oppose The Law

Republicans say it imposes too many costs and regulations on business, with many describing it as a “job killer”. However, since the implementation of Obamacare jobs in the healthcare sector, at least, rose by 9% and a found that around 2.6 million jobs could be lost by 2019 if it is repealed.

Conservatives have also baulked at Obamacare’s rule requiring most companies to cover birth control for free.

The Trump administration tried to put in place new guidelines for organisations to opt out on moral grounds last year, but two federal judges blocked the move.

During the Obama presidency, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives took dozens of symbolic votes to repeal the law and provoked a partial government shutdown over the issue.

After repeated legal challenges, in 2012 the US Supreme Court declared Obamacare constitutional.

Despite having a majority on Capitol Hill under President Trump, a Republican repeal bid failed in dramatic fashion in 2018.

Democratic leaders have acknowledged Obamacare is not perfect, and have challenged Republicans to work with them to fix its flaws.

Trumps Executive Action Could Erode Marketplace Built Under Obamacare

Attempts to repeal portions of the Affordable Care Act have failed in the past several months, leading President Donald Trump to issue an executive order expanding access to cheaper, less comprehensive health care plans.

The order, signed on Oct. 12, instructs federal agencies to remove certain limitations on “association health plans” and expand the availability of short-term health plans, both of which can skirt certain minimum coverage requirements included in the Affordable Care Act and state laws.

These changes will not immediately take effect; federal agencies will have to figure out how to act on Trump’s directions.

The executive action orders agencies to explore ways in which the government can expand access to short-term health plans, which are available to individuals on a three-month basis and meant for people who are in-between health care coverage plans. Under the instructions, association health plans would be allowed to sell plans across state lines; those plans allow small businesses to band together to create cheaper health care plans that offer fewer benefits.

The order was intended to create more options for individuals seeking health insurance and help stimulate competition among insurers. Some health policy advocates worry that it could disrupt the insurance marketplace in a way that would drive up health care costs for elderly individuals and people with medical conditions.

It will be months before changes are seen in the marketplace.

This Is Why Republicans Couldnt Make A Better Replacement

Republicans have made a lot of political hay out of pointing out that the plans available under the Affordable Care Act are, in many ways, disappointing. Unsubsidized premiums are higher than people would like. Deductibles and copayments are higher than people would like. The networks of available doctors are narrower than people would like.

These problems are all very real, and they all could be fixed.

They are not, however, problems that the American Health Care Act actually fixes. While Republicans have made several changes to the AHCA to cobble together a majority of House votes, the core of the bill remains the same: it offers stingier insurance to a narrower group of people.

This is because the AHCA does what Republicans want: it rolls back the ACA taxes. But under those circumstances, its simply not possible for the GOP to offer people the superior insurance coverage that it is promising.

The bill the House is voting on Thursday doesnt get rid of the ACAs tax credits to make it easier to buy health coverage, but it bases them on age, with younger people getting bigger credits, rather than income which means poorer Americans. especially elderly ones, will have a bigger tax burden and more difficulty affording the insurance they need.

Do Republicans Really Want To Repeal Obamacare Maybe Not

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WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 07: Speaker of the House Paul Ryan shares a laugh with… Republican members of Congress after signing legislation to repeal the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, and to cut off federal funding of Planned Parenthood during an enrollment ceremony in the Rayburn Room at the U.S. Capitol January 7, 2016 in Washington, DC. President Barack Obama has promised to veto the bill.

Here is something that may surprise you. Did you know that in the 6 ½ years since the passage of Obamacare, Republicans have not held a single hearing on the problems the law has created for ordinary people? No hearing in the House of Representatives. None in the Senate. None anywhere else. Zip. Zero. Nada.

There certainly has been no shortage of problems. It seems like every other week the New York Times brings us a new investigative report complete with gory details and eyewitness reports of victim after victim of President Obamas signature legislative accomplishment. But if you look over the subject matter for the committee hearings in Congress for the past several years, you would never know an Obamacare problem even exists.

Why is that? There have been no shortage of votes to repeal Obamacare. At last count the House has voted to repeal some or all of the hated legislation 60 times!

So lets return to the titular question.

Would House Republicans really vote to take health insurance away from 20 million people?

Eliminating Health Care Penalties

The Affordable care Act, required most Americans to be enrolled in Health Insurance since it was made affordable, otherwise a penalty would be induced. Effective 2017, congress attempted to eliminate financial penalties that were related to complying with the mandated law that every individual needs to be enrolled in Health insurance, this law however did not become effective until 2019. This policy is still valid, the penalty for having no health insurance was reduced to 0$. Individual mandates effects the decisions made by individuals regarding healthcare in that some people will not enroll since health insurance plans are no longer mandatory.

On March of 2020, the nation has undergone a global pandemic, however, several Republican-led states and the Justice Department are making the case for invalidating the ACA. This will cause at least 60 million people to not be able to afford being hospitalized, or treated which increased the number of COVID-19 cases nationwide.

This Is Why Republicans Cant Make A Better Replacement

Republicans have made a lot of political hay out of pointing out that the plans available under the Affordable Care Act are, in many ways,disappointing. Unsubsidized premiums are higher than people would like.Deductibles and copayments are higher than people would like. The networks of available doctors are narrower than people would like.

These problems are all very real, and they all could be fixed.

They are not, however, problems that any of the GOP replacement plans fix. Instead, while Republican alternatives vary in many important ways, they all fundamentally offer stingier insurance to a narrower group of people.

This is because the Republican plans all envision rolling back these ACA taxes. But under those circumstances, it’s simply not possible for the GOP to offer people the superior insurance coverage that it is promising.

Phil Klein, a top conservative health policy journalist, has urged Republicans to solve their overpromising problem by “stating a simple truth, which goes something like this: ‘We don’t believe that it is the job of the federal government to guarantee that everybody has health insurance.'”

Gop Wants To Repeal Obamacare Without A Backup Plan But Some Republicans Say That’s A Bad Idea

The Real Reason Republicans Want to Pull the Plug on Obamacare | Robert Reich

U.S.CoronavirusHealth CareObamacareCongress

A Republican-led lawsuit is leaving the fate of the Affordable Care Act hanging in the balance of the courts amid a pandemic that’s ravaged the globe and exacerbated the need for health care.

Yet GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill concede they do not have safety net legislation ready to catch the millions of Americans who would find themselves suddenly without health insurance during a potential second coronavirus wave.

Some Republicans, however, believe that needs to change.

“We need to have a plan in place to make sure that people don’t lose coverage,” said Senator Mitt Romney .

Pre-existing conditions are the “most important thing” to cover, said Senator Martha McSally. But, the Arizona Republican added, “there are many other contingencies that we need to be looking into,” referring to a wide array of issues that could arise without the law.

Republicans have tried unsuccessfully over the years to repeal and replace Obamacare with health provisions of their own. But more than three years into President Donald Trump’s first term, they acknowledge there is neither a discussion nor a plan available to simply replace the expansive health care law that is Obamacare, should it be struck down.

Senator Rick Scott , a former hospital CEO, said he’s “come up with lots of proposals. But there’s no proposal here,” he added.

Does President Trump Really Want To Repeal The Aca

Feb 25, 2020

When he introduced the 2020federal budget President Trump re-emphasized his intention to repeal theAffordable Care Act, known more popularly to most of us as Obamacare.

Perhaps that is the issue! Trumpand Obamacare!

The Affordable Care Act is irrevocably associated with the Democratic Party and ex-President Obama in particular.  Most citizens benefit from it one way or another.

Since the swing to theDemocratic Party at the Mid-Term elections in 2018 President Trump has beenremarkably quiet on his plans for replacing Obamacare if he is granted a secondterm by the American public.  Indeed, hehas made it clear that there will be no new legislation until at least 2021.

In the meantime, he will bewatching the polls and judging the voters intentions as the Democratcandidates put their healthcare policies on display.

Nobody claims the AffordableCare Act is perfect.  All agree it can beimproved.  At the 2018 mid-term electionsmore than half the voters claimed that healthcare was the major factor in theirvoting decision.  That is why it stays atthe top of the political agenda. After all, our spending on healthcare accountsfor nearly 20% of the way in which we spend the countrys income .

This may be true but there arelimits to savings from increased efficiency and inflation is inevitable.  The outcome is, necessarily, reduction inbenefits or in enrollment.

There are signs that Trump mightbe prepared to keep the subsidies and allow income-related tax relief.

Gridlock In House Stalls Trump’s Pledge To Repeal Obamacare

As a candidate for president, Donald Trump said that “real change begins with immediately repealing and replacing the disaster known as Obamacare.”

On March 24, the nation learned that it’s not happening immediately. And the road forward isn’t clear either.

Capping a frenzied week of negotiations between three House Republican factions — the party leadership, the hardline conservative House Freedom Caucus, and members of the more moderate, pragmatic wing of the party — House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., announced that he would not bring the American Health Care Act to the floor for a vote, as he had planned.

That March 24 announcement came one day after the floor vote had been pushed back to allow for last-minute changes and arm-twisting, and half a day after Trump had issued an ultimatum to House Republicans — pass the bill or he’ll move on.

In the run-up to Ryan’s announcement, vote counting by media outlets had concluded that the House GOP would lose too many votes to pass the bill if it tried.

“We came really close today, but we came up short,” Ryan said at a press conference. “I will not sugarcoat this. This was a disappointing day for us.”

For members on the party’s right flank, the American Health Care Act left in place too much of the infrastructure of the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama’s signature health care law and the target of intense Republican opposition for seven years.

The Real Reason Republicans Couldnt Kill Obamacare

Democrats did the work, Republicans didntand that says a lot about the two parties.

Adapted from The Ten Year War: Obamacare and the Unfinished Crusade for Universal Coverage, St. Martins Press 2021.

The Affordable Care Act, the health-care law also known as Obamacare, turns 11 years old this week. Somehow, the program has not merely survived the GOPs decade-long assault. Its actually getting stronger, thanks to some major upgrades tucked in the COVID-19 relief package that President Joe Biden signed into law earlier this month.

The new provisions should enable millions of Americans to get insurance or save money on coverage they already purchase, bolstering the health-care law in precisely the way its architects had always hoped to do. And although the measures are temporary, Biden and his Democratic Party allies have pledged to pass more legislation making the changes permanent.

The expansion measures are a remarkable achievement, all the more so because Obamacares very survival seemed so improbable just a few years ago, when Donald Trump won the presidency. Wiping the law off the books had become the Republicans defining cause, and Trump had pledged to make repeal his first priority. As the reality of his victory set in, almost everybody outside the Obama White House thought the effort would succeed, and almost everybody inside did too.

That was no small thing, as Republicans were about to discover.

Baby Boomers And The Aging Population

Robert Reich failed to mention the aging population. 76M boomers were born after WW-II, between 1946 and 1964, and America wasnt prepared for that growth. Neither were other nations. There werent enough hospitals, pediatricians, schoolteachers, textbooks, playgrounds, or even bedrooms in our homes. Now, as 11,000 more baby boomers turn age 65 every day, retire, and go on Social Security and Medicare, the ability to pay for public assistance becomes more difficult. By 2029, more than 20% of the US population will be over 65 . That 1-in-5 number is up from 1-in-7 today; and by 2035, 1-in-3 US households will be headed by someone 65 or over.

Thats because people are living longer . But were also less active and have higher rates of chronic disease and disability. Almost 39% of boomers are obese, compared to about 29% in the previous generation, and 40% of them are low-income , meaning theyll need more public assistance.

The age 85+ population needing the most medical care will grow the fastest over the next few decades, equaling 4% of population by 2050, or 10 times its 1950 share  1.9M Americans are already 90+, an in 2010, people 90+ had a median income of just $14,760, about half of it from Social Security. This is a worldwide phenomenon thanks largely to longer average longevity. The United Nations says that by 2050, the older generation will be larger than the under-15 population.

Why Republicans Wouldn’t Actually Repeal Obamacare

It would be a political disaster, but it hasn’t yet stopped them from trying.

Last week, in a bold example of their governing prowess, congressional Republicans took their 62nd vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and this time they actually passed it through both houses and sent it to President Obama to be vetoed. Naturally, they were exultant at their triumph. Speaker Paul Ryan admitted that there is as yet no replacement for the ACA, but they’ll be getting around to putting one together before you know it. The fact that they’ve been promising that replacement for more than five years now might make you a bit skeptical.

What we know for sure is this: If a Republican wins the White House this November, he’ll make repeal of the ACA one of his first priorities, whether there’s a replacement ready or not. To listen to them talk, the only division between the candidates is whether they’ll do it on their first day in the Oval Office, in their first hour, or in the limo on the way back from the inauguration.

But I’ve got news for you: They aren’t going to do it, at least not in the way they’re promising. Because it would be an absolute catastrophe.

Now imagine that ten million people, the number signed up for private coverage through the exchanges, all had their coverage simultaneously thrown into doubt. Think that might cause some bad press for the party and the president who did it?

Everything You Need To Know About Why Conservatives Want To Repeal The Presidents Health Care Law

Photo by Larry Downing/Reuters

Though the Affordable Care Act passed into law in 2010, conservatives continue to fight it at every opportunity: in the courts, in state legislatures, and in Congress. Its a safe bet that as the race for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination kicks off, a cavalcade of Republican hopefuls will torment innocent Iowans with tales of how theyve fought Obamacare in the past and why theyre the ones who can finally drive a stake through its heart. But if you dont read the conservative press, you might have no idea why those of us on the right side of the political spectrum are so worked up about Obamacare. To promote cross-ideological understanding, Ive prepared this little FAQ.

Why do conservatives oppose Obamacare?Not all conservatives are alike, and there are at least some, like Avik Roy of the Manhattan Institute, who believe Obamacare should be reformed and not repealed. But as a general rule, conservatives oppose the law and would like to see it repealed for several reasons.

First, some conservatives oppose it for the same reason that liberals favor it: Through the Medicaid expansion and the exchanges, it subsidizes insurance coverage for people of modest means by raising taxes on people of less-modest means and by curbing the growth in Medicare spending. Conservatives tend not to be enthusiastic about redistribution, and theyre particularly skeptical about redistribution that isnt transparent.

Why Republicans Cant And Wont Repeal Obamacare

Editor’s Note:

This article was originally posted on Real Clear Health on January 16, 2017.

Now that the Republicans control both the presidency and both houses of Congress, they must put up or shut up on their promise to repeal and replace Obamacare. Here is a flat-footed prediction: the effort will fail for three reasons. First, the Affordable Care Act has largely succeeded not failed, as president-elect Trump and other Republicans falsely allege. Second, it is impossible for the stated goals of repeal to be achieved. Finally, the political fallout from the consequences of partial or total repeal would be devastating. When it comes to casting votes, enough Republicans will conclude that repeal is a bad idea and will join Democrats to sustain the basic structure of the health reform law.

Second, the stated objectives of repealing Obamacare are mutually inconsistent. Three provisions comprise the core of Obamacare. First, rules barring insurance companies from refusing to sell insurance to people because of preexisting conditions or varying premiums based on those conditions. Second, a requirement that everyone carry health insurance who can afford it. And third, subsidies for those with moderate incomes to help make such insurance affordable. The law contains many other provisions as well, but these three are core.

Trump Administration Asks Supreme Court To Strike Down Affordable Care Act

The REAL Reason Republicans Can’t Stop Trying to Repeal Obamacare

If successful, the move would permanently end the health insurance program popularly known as Obamacare and wipe out coverage for as many as 23 million Americans.

WASHINGTON The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court late Thursday to overturn the Affordable Care Act a move that, if successful, would bring a permanent end to the health insurance program popularly known as Obamacare and wipe out coverage for as many as 23 million Americans.

In an 82-page brief submitted an hour before a midnight deadline, the administration joined Republican officials in Texas and 17 other states in arguing that in 2017, Congress, then controlled by Republicans, had rendered the law unconstitutional when it zeroed out the tax penalty for not buying insurance the so-called individual mandate.

The administrations argument, coming in the thick of an election season as well as a pandemic that has devastated the economy and left millions of unemployed Americans without health coverage is sure to reignite Washingtons bitter political debate over health care.

In his brief, Solicitor General Noel J. Francisco argued that the health laws two remaining central provisions are now invalid because Congress intended that all three work together.

The court has not said when it will hear oral arguments, but they are most likely to take place in the fall, just as Americans are preparing to go to the polls in November.

Is The Supreme Court Likely To Save Obamacare

The Supreme Court is likely to leave in place the bulk of Obamacare, including key protections for pre-existing health conditions.

Conservative justices John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh appeared in two hours of arguments to be unwilling to strike down the entire law a long-held Republican goal.

The courts three liberal justices are almost certain to vote to uphold the law in its entirety and presumably would form a majority by joining a decision that cut away only the mandate, which now has no financial penalty attached to it.

Leading a group of Democratic-controlled states, California and the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives are urging the court to leave the law in place.

A decision is expected by late spring.

Repealing Obamacare Is A Huge Tax Cut For The Rich

This did not play a major overt public role in the 2009-’10 debate about the law, but the Affordable Care Act’s financing rests on a remarkably progressive base. That means that, as the Tax Policy Center has shown, repealing it would shower moneyon a remarkably small number of remarkably wealthy Americans.

The two big relevant taxes, according to the TPC’s Howard Gleckman, are “a 0.9 percent payroll surtax on earnings and a 3.8 percent taxon net investment income for individuals with incomes exceeding $200,000.” That payroll tax hike hits a reasonably broad swath of affluent individuals, but in a relatively minor way. The 3.8 percent tax on net investment income , by contrast, is a pretty hefty tax, but one that falls overwhelmingly on the small number of people who have hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in investment income.

For the bottom 60 percent of the population that is, households earning less than about $67,000 a year repeal of the ACA would end up meaning an increase in taxes due to the loss of ACA tax credits.

But people in the top 1 percent of the income distribution those with incomes of over about $430,000 would see their taxes fall by an average of $25,000 a year.

source https://www.patriotsnet.com/why-do-republicans-really-want-to-repeal-obamacare/

[forbessierra95]

Reiki Chakra Healing Music Mind Blowing Cool Tips

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[andrewdburton]

Socially Responsible Investing: Is It Also More Profitable?

Since the Dawn of Mustachianism in 2011, the same question has come up over and over again:

“MMM, I see your point that index fund investing is the best option. But when you buy the index, you’re getting oil companies, factory farm slaughterhouses and a million other dirty stories.

How can I get the benefits of investing for early retirement without contributing to the decline of humanity?”

And in these nine years since then, the movement towards socially responsible investing has only grown. Public pension funds have started to “divest” from oil company stocks, and various social issues like human rights, child labor, climate change or corporate corruption have bubbled to the surface at different times.

And all of this has led to the exploding new field of Socially Responsible Investing (SRI), and a growing array of new ways to do it.

So it seems that this is not just a passing trend – people just might be starting to care a bit more. And since capitalism is just an expression of human behavior, the nature of capitalism itself may be starting to change.

This leads us naturally to the question:

What can I do with my money to help fix the world? And even better, is there a way I can make money in the process of fixing it?

The answer is a good, solid “Probably.”

As long as you don’t get too hung up on getting every last detail perfect, because just like real life, investing is a haphazard and approximate and unpredictable thing. But by understanding the big picture, you can make slightly better decisions on average, which lead to slightly better results. And slightly better results, stacked up consistently over time, can lead to a much better life, or even a much better world.

This is true in all of the main areas we care about – personal wealth, fitness and health, even relationships and happiness. And while your money and investments are certainly not the most important thing in life, they are still worthy of a bit of easy and effective optimization.

So anyway, the first thing to understand with SRI is, “what problem am I trying to solve?”

The answer is, “You are trying to make your investing (especially index fund investing) have a better impact on the world.”

On its own, index fund investing is ridiculously simple. You just get an account at any brokerage like Vanguard, Etrade, Schwab or whatever, and dump all your money into one exchange-traded fund: VTI.

When you do this, you are buying a stake in 3500 companies at once(!), which is both impressive and overwhelming. How do you even know what you are holding?

Well, this is all public information, and easily available with a quick Google search. For example, here’s a list of the top 90 holdings in VTI (click for larger):

Top 90 holdings in Vanguard’s VTI Exchange Traded Fund

As you can see, the biggest chunk of money is allocated to today’s tech darlings, because this index fund is weighted according to market value, and these are the most valuable companies in the US today.

Through a convenient coincidence, the total value of the VTI fund happens to be just under $1 trillion dollars, which means you can just throw a decimal point after the ten billions digit of market value to get a percentage. In other words, about 4.7% of your money will go towards Apple stock, 4.4 towards Microsoft, and so on. Together, these top 90 companies are worth more than the remaining 3,540 companies combined, so these are what really drive your retirement account.

And within this list, you will see some of the usual suspects: Exxon and Chevron (oil), Philip Morris (tobacco), Raytheon and Lockheed (bombs), and so on.

But what about the less-usual suspects? For example, I happen to think that sugar, and especially sugar-packed beverages like Coke, is the biggest killer in the developed world – a major contributor to 2 million of the 2.8 million deaths each year in the US alone. Should I exclude that from my portfolio too?

And what about drug and insurance companies – aren’t they behind the political stalemate and high costs of the US healthcare system? Comcast funded some election disinformation campaigns here in my home town in the early 2010s, should I exclude them too? And if you’re part of a religion that is against charging interest on loans, or in favor of pasta and Pirate costumes, or against a spherical Earth, or any number of additional ornate rules, you may have still more preferences.

The higher your desire for perfection, the more difficult this exercise will become. However, if you are like me and you just want to get most of the desired result with minimal effort, you might simply have a look at the Vanguard fund called ESGV.

ESG stands for “Environmental, Social and Governance”, and in practice it just means “We have tried to avoid some of the shittier companies according to some fairly simple rules.”

And the result is this:

Vanguard’s ESGV Exchange traded fund (ETF) – top 90 holdings

The first thing you’ll notice is that it’s almost the same. In fact, the top five holdings – Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, Alphabet (Google) and Netflix not far behind, collectively referred to as the FAANG stocks – are completely unchanged – and this means that there will be plenty of correlation between these funds.

It’s also the reason that the stock market as a whole has recovered so quickly from this COVID-era recession: small businesses like restaurants and hair salons have been destroyed by the shutdowns, but big companies that benefit from people staying at home and using computers and phones are making more money than ever. The stock market isn’t the whole economy, it’s just the publicly traded companies, which are the big ones.

But let’s look at the biggest differences between the normal index fund versus the social version.

The following large companies listed on the left are missing in the ESGV fund, in order of size. And to make up the difference, the stake in the companies on the right have been boosted up to take their place in your portfolio.

Main differences between VTI and ESGV (source: etfrc)

The omission of Berkshire Hathaway was a bit of a shocker, as it is run with solid ethical principles by Warren Buffet, one of the worlds most generous philanthropists. And in fact the modern day nerd-saint Bill Gates is on the Berkshire board of directors, another person whose work I follow and respect greatly.

(side note: Apparently the company fails on the “independent governance” category. And Buffet disputes this category, but in his characteristic way has decided to say, “Fuck it, I’ma just keep doing my own thing with my half-trillion dollar empire over here and you can have fun with your little committee” – I’m paraphrasing a bit but he totally did say that.)

Furthermore, both funds hold the factory meat king Tyson foods, while neither holds Roundup-happy Monsanto, because it was bought by the German conglomerate Bayer AG a while back. Nextera is a giant electric utility in the Southeastern US that claims to be the world’s largest generator of renewable energy. Some do-gooders are against nuclear power, while others (including me) think it’s the Bee’s Knees and we should keep advancing it. And all this just goes to show how nobody will agree 100% on what makes a good socially responsible fund.

But What About The Performance?

In the past, some investors were nervous about giving up oil companies in their portfolio, because while it was a dirty substance, it was also what made the world go round – which meant it was a cash cow.

Now, however, oil is on its way out as renewable energy and battery storage have crossed the cost parity threshold – meaning it’s cheaper to make power (and vehicles) that don’t use oil. In its place, technology is the new cash cow, and tech is heavily represented in the ESG funds. The result:

Traditional index fund (VTI) vs Socially Responsible equivalent (ESGV)

As you can see, the performance has been similar but the ESG fund has done significantly better in the (admittedly short) time since it was introduced at Vanguard.

Of course, we have no idea if this will continue, but the point is that at least our thesis is not a ridiculous one – environmentally sustainable companies do have an advantage, if the world gradually starts to care more about these things. And if you look at the share price of Tesla and other companies that surround it in electric transportation and energy storage, you will see that there are many trillions of dollars already lining up to benefit from this transition. And the very presence of so much investment money creates a self-fulfilling prophecy, as Tesla is now building or expanding five of the world’s largest factories on three continents simultaneously.

So What Should You Do? (and what I do myself)

My latest home-brewed ebike project – this one can reach 42MPH / 67km/hr!

First of all, it helps to remember a fundamental piece of economics: your spending dollars will probably have a much bigger impact than your investment dollars. This is because you are sending a direct message to the world rather than an indirect one:

When you buy a new gasoline-powered Subaru (or a tank of gas for your existing guzzler) or a steak at the grocery store, or a plane ticket, you are telling those company directly that consumers want more of these products, so they will produce more of them immediately.

When you buy shares in Exxon, you are only subtly raising the demand for those shares, which raises the average price, making it ever-so-slightly easier for Exxon to maybe issue more shares in the future. In other words, you are making it easier for them to access capital. But capital is only useful if there is demand for their products. And with oil there is a nearly constant surplus, which is why OPEC and other cartels need to work together to artificially restrict supply, just to keep prices up.

Plus, as a shareholder you are theoretically eligible to place votes and influence the future direction of companies – even companies that you don’t like. If you look up the field of “shareholder activism”, you’ll see this is a tradition that goes way back.

So I have tried to take a few simple steps on the consumer side myself, and I find it quite satisfying: Insulating the shit out of all of my properties, building a DIY solar electric array on one of them, and buying one electric car so far to eliminate local gas burning. And a few electric bikes including a super fast one I made myself.

Each one of these steps has provided a very high economic return, percentage-wise, but that still leaves a lot of money to account for, which brings us back to stock investing.

As someone who loves simplicity, I have done this:

Bought almost entirely VTI (or similar Vanguard funds) from 2000-2015

Started experimenting with Betterment in 2015, liked it, and have been adding a percentage of my ongoing savings to that account to that since then. (Note that Betterment now also offers a socially responsible portfolio option.)

Switched the dividend re-investing of my old Vanguard VTI over to Vanguard ESGV, to avoid “wash sales” in making the most of Betterment’s tax loss harvesting feature.

Bought some shares of Berkshire Hathaway separately, and also make a few sentimental investments in local businesses, including the MMM HQ Coworking space.

But you could choose to be more hardcore in your ESG/SRI investing:

Buy your own basket of stocks based on the index, but with different weighting based on your own values

Spend more money on other things that generate or save money (a bigger solar array on your house, better insulation, electric car, an ebike to reduce car trips, etc.)

Invest in local businesses of your choice, rental real estate, community solar projects, or other things which generate passive income – publicly traded stocks are just one of many ways to fund an early retirement!

Like most areas of life, investing is not something you have to do perfectly in order to succeed – even socially responsible investing. If you apply the 80/20 rule to get the big picture right, you have probably found the Sweet Spot and you can move on to the next area of life to optimize.

In the Comments: What is your own investment strategy? Have you thought at all about this ESG / SRI stuff? Did this article bring anything new to the table?

from Finance https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2020/08/22/socially-responsible-investing/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[kuwaiti-kid]

Is the FIRE movement bullshit?

The FIRE movement is incredibly popular. I follow many blogs who implement this idea, and it is part of what got me excited about finances.

Hell, I retired at 35. I live and breathe this stuff.

I first encountered the movement with articles on Mr. Money Mustache a while ago.

At the time, I didn’t know they were implementing FIRE, but I was intrigued by the ideas in the content. And working in information technology, I knew I had the salary for it.

It seemed revolutionary! How could these people cut expenses AND pursue happiness at the same time? I thought spending more money equaled happiness?

Could people realistically retire from their full-time jobs in their 30’s? How was this even possible? What were they doing with their time?

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What is FIRE?

The term FIRE means “Financial Independence Retire Early”. The idea is that you save as much as possible to be able to quit your full-time job. How exactly FIRE looks and is attained varies from person to person.

People have practiced a version of FIRE for a long time. But before the internet, they were living in separate bubbles. When the web took off, FIRE blogs started appearing and becoming more popular. We began to see different perspectives. The rise of Jack Bogle and index fund investing gave fuel to the movement.

Below I try to summarize the main points “most” FIRE supporters would agree with:

Save 40%-70% of your after-tax income (we saved 70%).

Quit your full-time job after ten years or so, usually in your 30’s or 40’s. Few have achieved this in their 20’s.

Learning to avoid revolving credit card debt.

The focus is on the short-term sacrifice to achieve the goal as fast as possible, which usually means being frugal and reducing expenses.

Pay off your mortgage, or end up downsizing to a smaller/cheaper house.

Invest in low-fee investments, like index funds.

Drive used cars, and if possible downsize to one or zero cars.

Many use the 4% rule to determine when they can retire. The idea is that pulling out 4% per year from your investment “should” mean your investments continue to grow and you don’t need to live off of the principle. So having $1,000,000 invested, you could live off of $40,000/year.

Many blogs are trying to re-wire the standard definition of FIRE by focusing on financial independence.

Having financial independence is usually defined as having a net worth of 25x your expenses.

The definition of “retirement” is used loosely. The goal is not necessarily to quit your job but having the flexibility in how/when you work.

Increasing income helps to achieve financial independence faster.

It is about hacking life to pursue your goals.

What I Like About FIRE

Frugality doesn’t equal deprivation.

If something gives you true value, it is worth the cost. Everything else can and should be cut from our expenses. If we are cutting so much that we don’t enjoy living, we are missing the point, which becomes more complicated if you have a partner because you will need to be on the same page with what is acceptable. Otherwise, arguments around money will be a common occurrence.

When we are used to spending money without much thought, it can be shocking to see how much money we waste. Especially if our family income is in the six-figure range, we should be able to save a lot of money. Having an accurate budget to understand how you are spending your money, and see what you can cut, is vital to success.

As consumers, we have a lot of options on how to spend our money. The secret is to figure out what is worth the extra cost, and where it makes sense to save money. Ultimately you want to be more mindful of your spending, to pursue what matters most to you.

Financial independence is color blind

One of my favorite parts about the pursuit of financial independence is that anybody can do it. Regardless of color, nationality or ethnicity, the pursuit of huge goals, like financial independence, is within the great majority of us. 

At its core, the pursuit of financial independence (and maybe even early retirement) is nothing more than a desire to achieve whatever those things mean to us.

If you are living in the first world, you’ve probably observed that financial independence is achievable by so many people from all different walks of life.

No race, gender or ethnicity has a monopoly on financial independence, and the more exposed we become to this way of life (especially off of the Internet), the more we realize just how many people are taking full control over their lives.

Over the course of my travels, I’ve spoken with all kinds of people — white and black, men and women, kids and no kids, who have realized that the traditional idea of the “American Dream” is rapidly changing — at least for them.

Working 10-hour days no longer seems like the thing to do to get ahead. Earning tons of money is no longer the be-all-end-all of what makes people genuinely happy. Things are fundamentally changing, and that’s good.

Life is short, as they say. And, I agree. It is short.

And, most of us won’t lie on our death beds at the end and wish that we spent more time in an office. That’s not reality.

Thinking about the Future

How our future could look, and what we would do if we had an abundance of free time, is healthy. This idea transcends any specific goal of FIRE. Pursuing FIRE because you hate your job is not going to get you to a spot where you enjoy retiring early. We should figure out what makes us happy first, and use that as motivation for what we want to pursue. Otherwise, we are aiming for the wind and destination is not going to be very enjoyable.

The diversity in how people are implementing FIRE shows that there is not one size that fits everyone. We are all at different stages, and figuring out what options we have to achieve what we want is the only way we can make it work.

Debt is Evil

I love how the FIRE movement is passionate about avoiding debt at all costs, including getting rid of your home mortgage. When you have large credit card balances, you are paying massive amounts on interest charges, and it usually is an indicator that you are spending more than you make.

Most people who have large amounts of credit card debt are also not saving. That was the case for most of my adult. The desire to pay off credit cards always exceeded my desire to save money, which makes sense, since the interest rate is much more than I could make on my investments. I found that having excessive debt consistently made me miserable.

Most FIRE implementers do not claim you should avoid using credit cards. Most think they are a great tool to earn extra rewards on our spending. But they advocate we should pay off the balance every month and spend far less than we make.

Most of us can save more money than we think

Unless you have a mortgage that you can’t afford or other costly financial circumstances, you should be able to save a significant amount of money towards your future. And we can think about ways we can earn more money.

It is about optimizing the time we have to work in a job, to make as much money as we can. When we have our goals and desires figured out, we pursue every possible avenue to achieve that goal as quickly as possible.

Focussing on income also challenges us to figure out ways we can earn passive income, which is valuable in providing income streams outside of our job, and to increase our overall cash flow, which opens up our options when retirement approaches.

Focus on Happiness

The goal is to figure out what makes you happy. And often that doesn’t mean “more.”  Happiness looks different for everyone, but when I realize that always having the latest electronics will not ever make me happy, but also add a lot of credit card debt, I can easily cut that out of my life. Spending less money on things that don’t add to your life is a win for everyone.

As Mr. Money Mustache puts it in this article, in regards to the goal of FIRE: “Complete freedom to be the best, most powerful, energetic, happiest and most generous version of You that you can possibly be.”

Many sources are trying to convince us if we purchase that item, it will make us happy. Or this piece of electronics is what we need. But these people don’t want to make us happy, because if we are happy, we might spend less money. They only care about you purchasing their product. It is a fight against hyper-consumerism.

What I Don’t Like About FIRE

My goal is not to be extra critical about the FIRE community. It is really to share some of the frustrations I’ve encountered reading articles.

Some of Us Can’t Relate

When you have a ton of credit card debt and are reading a blog post in how they are investing $10k+/mo towards retirement, it can feel like the author is living on a different planet. It is like they assume that everyone has been making smart financial decisions. Feeling like you are way behind where you “should be” can be depressing. Most of us are not in our early 20’s, where we have a lot of time for smart financial decisions to pay off. When you are playing catch up, it can be difficult to make up for lost time. Being in my mid-30’s and finally getting debt free puts me in a much different spot than most FIRE bloggers.

My primary goal is to break the bad financial habits I’ve developed over the years and work towards what matters most. I want people to realize there is always hope in turning things around. Not all blogs live in fantasy land, but it seems common to read “I always have been good at saving money.” But what about the rest of us?

A lot of popular FIRE blogs are making tons of money

When you are making massive amounts of money from a blog, it is easy to see how they could quit their day job. Now granted, a lot of these blogs didn’t become massive money machines overnight. It just seems like their lives would be different if they quit their jobs and didn’t have an enormous income stream from their blog. The good news is there are a lot of financial blogs, covering different perspectives on FIRE. Whether that is focusing on paying off debt, investing in the stock market, or paying off your mortgage, you can find content that speaks to you. I would love to be able to earn income from Money Stir. But my current focus is to become debt free, create an emergency fund and start investing without having an income stream from my blog.

Who sincerely wants to live off of $40k per year?

Maybe it is just me, but living off of $40k/year doesn’t seem appealing. At least, that's what I used to think.

It is possible we could make this work with some changes, but it is not the scenario I dream about during retirement. I want more flexibility to spend and give more. Not having a mortgage payment would help lower expenses, but even then I think shooting for living off of $80k per year is more realistic for us. I’m pleased to see that not all FIRE blogs push for learning to live on that level of income.

The focus seems to be on financial independence. I'm glad to see some blogs are not trying to live on this income level, and are focused on increasing cash flow.

The problem becomes less about reducing spending, to increasing income and pursuing the best version of yourself. It is about balance: figuring out how you can make more money and what expenses are worth cutting. Financial independence means I can loosen up our budget to do things we couldn’t enjoy as much before financial freedom. And there is not one right answer for everyone. Only you can decide what works best for you.

What if you don’t hate your job?

It seems some financial blogs focus on getting to a spot where you can stop working a job you hate. They want to get out of there as soon as possible. The good news is there are many people out there who can relate and who share their story.

The goal is not to quit your job, but more on achieving financial independence, which might mean working at your current job until 65. Or, even if you like your job, you may want more flexibility with your time. If you do hate your job, it is better to think about how you can make money doing something you enjoy.

But we need to realize there is probably not any job we will love 100% of the time. Sometimes the stress of my job gets to me, but overall I find my day-to-day work life enjoyable, and I get a lot of benefits where I work.

We all will be spending our time doing something, even during retirement.

The question is, what would I want to do when I don’t have to work for money?

Summary

The FIRE movement is hugely positive, as it challenges us to get rid of financial waste to pursue our dreams. It calls us to get into the nitty-gritty of our daily lives to figure out where we are not getting true value.

More money will not make us happier, but making smarter financial decisions on how we spend money and time will. It can be hard to get excited about the future when we are not in our early 20’s, making a substantial income, or have massive credit card debt. I’m delighted to see a lot of financial blogs tackling these problems when most of us are not in the best financial position. There is no rule on how you need to spend and save money. You need to think about what will work best for you, and how you want to reach your goals. Don’t feel like you have to follow precisely what other people are doing. Do I consider myself a FIRE blogger? Probably not, mainly because retiring in my early/mid 50’s is not “retiring early.” But we do share similar ideas. Getting rid of debt, increasing income and pursuing happiness.

The post Is the FIRE movement bullshit? appeared first on Your Money Geek.

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[thereallygoodblogshow]

MA Fashion and Textile Practices Major Project Path - 12th August

So now I had created my template and practice piece that represented my Protest T-shirt, I wanted to do the same for my Anarchist of Love T-shirt, so I began to follow the same template. I found a couple of websites which had a good selection of love songs to get my teeth into and then that set the ball rolling to trigger more personal songs. Music is an emotional experience for me, I think that’s why I don’t listen to it very often, I invariably start crying! I’m a big indie rock fan so I thought looking at indie love songs would add a unique edge. Love songs don’t always have to be about being sentimental and overtly romantic. Once I had found suitable lyrics I created a Design Map as before to plot out the layout of the T-shirt.

Initially I wanted to design a T-shirt about love that was multicoloured, bright and eye catching, but then that didn’t represent the aesthetic I wanted to achieve. It was a T-shirt about being an anarchist of love, so it had to look like a newspaper or a billboard, where you were willing to literally wear your heart on your sleeve (or T-shirt!) I decided that incorporating red into the black and white mix would be apt. Our traditional ‘Red Top’ newspapers grab attention like no others  - like the Daily Mirror front page on the Sex Pistols I showed earlier - and the colour red is considered to be the colour of love after all, but why is that? 

Red:

It is known that the colour red can affect us physically - simply observing the colour can enable increased heart rate, blood pressure and respiration. It makes us feel more energetic and confident, and can provide comfort, it’s a sexy colour, so there are many reasons why red is associated with love. Although red is very much the oxymoron of the colour wheel, it’s often used as a colour for warning, like the signs on the road - ‘Do not enter!’ and ‘Stop!’ Where would horror films be without the colour red? It’s the colour of blood and instills fear. Like the use of the red balloon that character Pennywise the clown carries in Stephen King’s tale ‘IT’. 

Wang, E. (2017). Scary Clown Delivery Service Offered by Hurts Donuts. [Photograph]. Retrieved from https://www.teenvogue.com/story/scary-clown-doughnut-delivery.

As I discussed in my previous blog entry regarding colour, colours can be interpreted in different ways depending on your culture, although the colour red is the most used colour in national flags. In China for instance the colour red is a protective colour. This theory comes from an ancient folk tale regarding a man eating beast called the Nian who only attacked at the end of the lunar year -Chinese New Year. The beast was overcome when the villagers discovered it  disliked light, loud noises and the colour red, so they made firecrackers, adorned their houses with red paper lanterns and dressed themselves with the colour for protection. Now at Chinese New Year these traditions still continue.   

Diana, L. (2017). Make Some Noise: The Story behind Chinese New Year Traditions. [Illustration]. Retrieved from https://steemit.com/chinesnewyear/@ladydiana/make-some-noise-the-story-behind-chinese-new-year-traditions.

The Aztecs discovered that using an extract from the female Cochineal beetle mixed with water produced a potent red dye. A pound of this dry extract would require the use of around 70,000 insects, which in the time of the Aztecs was more valuable than gold. The Aztecs may have discovered how to make and use extract, however it was the Spanish which introduced it to Europe around the 1500′s. The colour quickly took on where it was used mainly to produce textiles, many of which were used to produce gowns for the aristocracy or uniforms for armies. Red was perceived as a powerful colour.

Greenfield, A.B. (2016). An illustration of cochineal collection by Mexican priest and scientist José Antonio de Alzate y Ramírez, 1777. (Newberry Library, Edward E. Ayer Manuscript Collection) . [Illustration]. Retrieved from https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/bug-had-world-seeing-red-180961590/.

The colour inevitably made its way to the artists paint palette where it was mixed with a binder to produce a vibrant pigment known as Lake. If your funds for new materials were a little tight, the colour could be made from shreds of dyed cloth, but the results were not hardly as vibrant as the results Lake could achieve. There was a drawback to its use however, whilst the colour remained vibrant on textiles it faded through exposure to daylight on canvas. Within oils it had to be used in excess otherwise with only minimal use it would fade quickly. In the late 19th century artificial colours were produced, such as ones made from coal rat called Alizarins. These new artificial pigments not only gave the same vibrancy but better longevity and offered a much cheaper alternative. For the sake of the Cochineal beetle, this was probably good news as it almost died out in its native homeland.

Victoria, A. (2019). Melody & Mist Portrait Of A Lady, By Etienne Adolphe Piot 1850. [Illustration]. Retrieved from https://www.liveinternet.ru/users/3162595/post452105198/. 

Whilst on the subject of love, why is the red rose so symbolic of the emotion? We could say that it’s all Shakespeare’s (1564 - 1616) fault when he penned in his romantic tragedy Romeo and Juliet, when Juliet declares: 

“What’s in a name? that which we call a rose. By any other name would smell as sweet”.

But the rose has had significant meaning to cultures far earlier than Shakespearean times. In Western culture the rose was believed to have been created by the Greek goddess of love herself; Aphrodite. After her lover Adonis was killed by a wild boar his blood and her tears soaked into the ground and from that grew red roses, although this story has many versions and some say the wildflower Anemone grew instead. In Roman mythology it is said that wealthy Romans gave red roses as symbols of beauty and love. For thousands of years China was the main cultivator of roses, roses were said to have been grown in cultivated Chinese gardens dating back 5,000 years. According to Hindu beliefs the Goddess Laxmi - who is the Goddess of fortune and prosperity -  was created from 108 large and 1,008 small rose petals. Many depictions of her show her sitting or standing in a giant rose and holding roses in her hands. Her husband, the God Vishnu was deeply in love with her, thus cementing the idea that roses were strongly connected to love and romance.

Turiya, n.d. (2011). Laxmi. [Illustration]. Retrieved from http://blog.visionaire.org/5-maggio-laxmi/.

The Victorians used flowers a as floral code to portray their emotions. Publicly declaring your undying love to the object of your desire was not socially acceptable in the Victorian era, so they developed a floral code to say what they couldn’t. This code wasn’t solely used for declarations of love, flowers were used to send messages of sympathy, friendship, desire etc. Each flower had a different meaning, and when combined in certain ways could say specific things. Through the use of this code the Victorians instilled in us the importance of flowers and what they mean to us today.

20th Century Typographers (2017) states the renowned Artist and Teacher Josef Albers said of the colour red: 

“If one says ‘Red’ (the name of a color) and there are 50 people listening, it can be expected that there will be 50 reds in their minds. And one can be sure that all these reds will be very different”.

Albers was a teacher at the Bauhaus Weimar from 1923 to the school’s dissolution in 1933. He taught the fundamental ethos of Bauhaus, that design should be based primarily on the properties of the material used and the function of the design. Along with fellow teacher and artist László Moholy-Nagy he taught this preliminary course until 1928, then solo until 1933. After his stint at Bauhaus he and his wife - Bauhaus student and fellow artist Anneliese Fleischmann - moved to America where he began to work at Black Mountain College in North Carolina. Here he developed and wrote the course Interaction of Color. Albers was obsessed with colour and its use. The course was a first of its kind, he wanted to describe and show how colour behaved, he described colour like it was a sentient thing. For centuries colour had been perceived as a science, from Newton’s discovery of the colour spectrum to that of the colour wheel used in the school of Bauhaus itself. Albers was uneasy with the concept of the colour wheel and believed it served of little practical use to an artist, he wanted to show that colour behaved in certain ways, he believed that we perceive colour in varying degrees and that as a medium it is bent on deceiving the viewer. He catagorised colours into three distinctive areas: Passive, Deceptive and Unstable but he did recognise that colours were predictable to some extent and that they ‘sat’ together well. In 1963 the course was finally published, 33 years after its inception and in 2013, a ground breaking digital edition of the Interaction of Color was developed in the form of an app for the Apple iPad. The 50th Anniversary Edition publication below appears to be supporting his quote in regards to the several ways we perceive the colour red:

Shop at Matter, n.d. (n.d). INTERACTION OF COLOR: 50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION. [Photograph]. Retrieved from https://www.shopatmatter.com/product/interaction-of-color-50th-anniversary-edition/.

To me the most memorable of any ‘Love’ T-shirt that incorporates the colours black, white and red is that depicting graphic designer Milton Glaser’s famous logo ‘I ♥ NY’. On my first trip to New York it was one of the first things I wanted to buy because it represented a place I had only dreamt of going to. Also, I knew I could wear it once I got home as it was a fashionable item of clothing and still is! 

In 1976 when Glaser was a young New York designer just starting out, the city was on the decline. Crime rates were worrying high and many of the wealthier, middle class New Yorkers had moved out of town. Something had to be done in an attempt to restore some faith in the city, so the New York State Department of Commerce devised a campaign to do just that. The slogan ‘I love New York’ had already been mooted by Ad agency Wells Rich Greene and a jingle had been composed to be played between prime time TV shows. All that the campaign required was a strong logo to complete it and Glaser was brought in to do the job.    

S, A. (2013). A Brief History of the “I Love New York” Logo. [Illustration]. Retrieved from https://www.logoworks.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-the-i-love-new-york-logo/.

Clara, R. (2017). How the ‘I Heart NY’ Logo Transcended Marketing and Endures 4 Decades After Its Debut. [Photograph]. Retrieved from https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/how-the-i-heart-ny-logo-twice-transcended-marketing-and-endures-4-decades-after-its-debut/.

It was reported that in a yellow cab on the way to a client meeting he pulled out a red crayon from his pocket and quickly scrawled the idea down on a piece of paper. He then later adapted it so the text stacked on top of each other to line up the four elements. Using the heart instead of the word ‘Love’ was one of the first of its kind, akin to the use of emoji’s today. Chris Lowery (2017), president and chief strategist of Chase Design Group said as such:

“The I ♥ NY logo Milton Glaser created so many decades ago was really the world’s first emoji. In a diverse, multicultural city like New York, anyone who saw it instantly knew what it meant”.   

At the time Glaser worked pro bono, and when he was told the campaign wouldn’t run much past a few months he decided not to copyright the design. However New York state’s Economic Development Corp did copyright the design, and now after over 40 years it is still one of the world’s most recognised logos. The day after the horrific terrorist attack on New York on 11th September 2001, Glaser looked to the logo once again in an attempt to build moral. He signed the left side of the heart and added ‘more than ever’ underneath. 

Brady, S. (2018). Milton Glaser’s ‘I Love New York’ sign was used again after the 9/11 attacks. Image by Viviane Moos/Corbis via Getty Images. [Photograph]. Retrieved from https://www.lonelyplanet.com/news/2018/11/27/jane-maas/.

The modified logo appeared on the front cover of The Daily News on September 19th and the students at Manhattan’s School of Visual Arts produced a matching poster free of charge to be distributed around the city. Toufan Rahimpour (2017)  COO of Logoworks says the logo has stood the test of time for a reason:

“I ♥ NY was a symbol of its time (a “scrappy” logo for a “scrappy city”) that became so culturally omnipresent it transcended itself. It’s no longer just a logo, it conveys emotions. It represents the spirit of New York.”

Websites:

Smith, K. (n.d). All About the Color RED. Retrieved from http://www.sensationalcolor.com/color-meaning/color-meaning-symbolism-psychology/all-about-the-color-red-4344#.XVE_7OhKiUk.

20th Century Typographers. (2017). One Who Can See: A Look Back at Josef Albers’ Interaction of Color. Retrieved from https://www.printmag.com/color/one-can-see-look-back-josef-albers-interaction-color/.

100 Year of Bauhaus. (n.d). Josef Albers. Retrieved from https://www.bauhaus100.com/the-bauhaus/people/masters-and-teachers/josef-albers/.

The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation. (n.d). Interaction of Colour. Retrieved from https://albersfoundation.org/teaching/josef-albers/interaction-of-color/publications/.

Klara, R. (2017). How the ‘I Heart NY’ Logo Transcended Marketing and Endures 4 Decades After Its Debut. Retrieved from https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/how-the-i-heart-ny-logo-twice-transcended-marketing-and-endures-4-decades-after-its-debut/.

Greenfield, A.B. (2016). The Bug That Had the World Seeing Red. Retrieved from https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/bug-had-world-seeing-red-180961590/.

Rose Festival Kanzalak. (n.d). Why are Red Roses Considered Romantic?. Retrieved from https://www.rosefestivalkazanlak.com/red-roses-meaning-romantic-love/.

Kremp, C. (2018). Why Are Bouquets of Roses So Romantic? The History of The Classic Red Rose. Retrieved from https://www.kremp.com/blog/flowers/why-are-bouquets-of-roses-romantic-history-of-red-rose.

Bartleby. (n.d). Romeo and Juliet Act II. Scene II.. Retrieved from https://www.bartleby.com/70/3822.html.

[patriotsnet]

Why Do Republicans Really Want To Repeal Obamacare

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/why-do-republicans-really-want-to-repeal-obamacare/

Why Do Republicans Really Want To Repeal Obamacare

Passage Of House Bill Revives Effort To Supplant Obamacare

Why Don’t Republicans Want to Repeal Obamacare Anymore?! | Rand Paul

Just six weeks after House Republicans pulled a bill to substantially overhaul the the nation’s health care system, they successfully — if narrowly — passed a revised version of the measure.

On May 4, 2017, the House passed a the bill by a 217-213 margin.

Republican leaders adjusted the bill following negotiations with both the conservative and moderate wings of the party.  

The revised bill would do several things.

It would end subsidies provided to people who buy health insurance on the Affordable Care Act’s online marketplaces, replacing them instead with tax credits. It would repeal several taxes imposed under the ACA that primarily hit high-income taxpayers. It would allow states to obtain waivers to some requirements of the Affordable Care Act, including the “essential health benefits” provision that requires maternity care or mental health services. And it would curb further expansion of Medicaid that had been allowed under the Affordable Care Act, as well as eventually capping Medicaid expenditures in ways that would effectively end its status as an entitlement.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the original version of the bill would have increased the number of uninsured people by 24 million by 2026. The changes made before passage might change that number, but the specific impact awaits a new score by CBO, which is expected in the coming days.

Why Is The Affordable Care Act So Despised By So Many Conservatives

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IT HAS been called the most dangerous piece of legislation ever passed, as destructive to personal and individual liberties as the Fugitive Slave Act and a killer of women, children and old people. According to Republican lawmakers, the sources of each of these quotes, the Affordable Care Act , or Obamacare, is a terrible thing. Since it was passed by a Democratic Congress in 2009, it has been the bête noire of the Republicans. The party has pushed more than 60 unsuccessful Congressional votes to defeat it, while the Supreme Court has been forced to debate it four times in the acts short history. Obamacare was also at the heart of the two-week government shutdown in 2013. Why does the ACA attract such opprobrium from the right?

Why Do Conservatives Oppose The Law

Republicans say it imposes too many costs and regulations on business, with many describing it as a “job killer”. However, since the implementation of Obamacare jobs in the healthcare sector, at least, rose by 9% and a found that around 2.6 million jobs could be lost by 2019 if it is repealed.

Conservatives have also baulked at Obamacare’s rule requiring most companies to cover birth control for free.

The Trump administration tried to put in place new guidelines for organisations to opt out on moral grounds last year, but two federal judges blocked the move.

During the Obama presidency, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives took dozens of symbolic votes to repeal the law and provoked a partial government shutdown over the issue.

After repeated legal challenges, in 2012 the US Supreme Court declared Obamacare constitutional.

Despite having a majority on Capitol Hill under President Trump, a Republican repeal bid failed in dramatic fashion in 2018.

Democratic leaders have acknowledged Obamacare is not perfect, and have challenged Republicans to work with them to fix its flaws.

Trumps Executive Action Could Erode Marketplace Built Under Obamacare

Attempts to repeal portions of the Affordable Care Act have failed in the past several months, leading President Donald Trump to issue an executive order expanding access to cheaper, less comprehensive health care plans.

The order, signed on Oct. 12, instructs federal agencies to remove certain limitations on “association health plans” and expand the availability of short-term health plans, both of which can skirt certain minimum coverage requirements included in the Affordable Care Act and state laws.

These changes will not immediately take effect; federal agencies will have to figure out how to act on Trump’s directions.

The executive action orders agencies to explore ways in which the government can expand access to short-term health plans, which are available to individuals on a three-month basis and meant for people who are in-between health care coverage plans. Under the instructions, association health plans would be allowed to sell plans across state lines; those plans allow small businesses to band together to create cheaper health care plans that offer fewer benefits.

The order was intended to create more options for individuals seeking health insurance and help stimulate competition among insurers. Some health policy advocates worry that it could disrupt the insurance marketplace in a way that would drive up health care costs for elderly individuals and people with medical conditions.

It will be months before changes are seen in the marketplace.

This Is Why Republicans Couldnt Make A Better Replacement

Republicans have made a lot of political hay out of pointing out that the plans available under the Affordable Care Act are, in many ways, disappointing. Unsubsidized premiums are higher than people would like. Deductibles and copayments are higher than people would like. The networks of available doctors are narrower than people would like.

These problems are all very real, and they all could be fixed.

They are not, however, problems that the American Health Care Act actually fixes. While Republicans have made several changes to the AHCA to cobble together a majority of House votes, the core of the bill remains the same: it offers stingier insurance to a narrower group of people.

This is because the AHCA does what Republicans want: it rolls back the ACA taxes. But under those circumstances, its simply not possible for the GOP to offer people the superior insurance coverage that it is promising.

The bill the House is voting on Thursday doesnt get rid of the ACAs tax credits to make it easier to buy health coverage, but it bases them on age, with younger people getting bigger credits, rather than income which means poorer Americans. especially elderly ones, will have a bigger tax burden and more difficulty affording the insurance they need.

Do Republicans Really Want To Repeal Obamacare Maybe Not

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WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 07: Speaker of the House Paul Ryan shares a laugh with… Republican members of Congress after signing legislation to repeal the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, and to cut off federal funding of Planned Parenthood during an enrollment ceremony in the Rayburn Room at the U.S. Capitol January 7, 2016 in Washington, DC. President Barack Obama has promised to veto the bill.

Here is something that may surprise you. Did you know that in the 6 ½ years since the passage of Obamacare, Republicans have not held a single hearing on the problems the law has created for ordinary people? No hearing in the House of Representatives. None in the Senate. None anywhere else. Zip. Zero. Nada.

There certainly has been no shortage of problems. It seems like every other week the New York Times brings us a new investigative report complete with gory details and eyewitness reports of victim after victim of President Obamas signature legislative accomplishment. But if you look over the subject matter for the committee hearings in Congress for the past several years, you would never know an Obamacare problem even exists.

Why is that? There have been no shortage of votes to repeal Obamacare. At last count the House has voted to repeal some or all of the hated legislation 60 times!

So lets return to the titular question.

Would House Republicans really vote to take health insurance away from 20 million people?

Eliminating Health Care Penalties

The Affordable care Act, required most Americans to be enrolled in Health Insurance since it was made affordable, otherwise a penalty would be induced. Effective 2017, congress attempted to eliminate financial penalties that were related to complying with the mandated law that every individual needs to be enrolled in Health insurance, this law however did not become effective until 2019. This policy is still valid, the penalty for having no health insurance was reduced to 0$. Individual mandates effects the decisions made by individuals regarding healthcare in that some people will not enroll since health insurance plans are no longer mandatory.

On March of 2020, the nation has undergone a global pandemic, however, several Republican-led states and the Justice Department are making the case for invalidating the ACA. This will cause at least 60 million people to not be able to afford being hospitalized, or treated which increased the number of COVID-19 cases nationwide.

This Is Why Republicans Cant Make A Better Replacement

Republicans have made a lot of political hay out of pointing out that the plans available under the Affordable Care Act are, in many ways,disappointing. Unsubsidized premiums are higher than people would like.Deductibles and copayments are higher than people would like. The networks of available doctors are narrower than people would like.

These problems are all very real, and they all could be fixed.

They are not, however, problems that any of the GOP replacement plans fix. Instead, while Republican alternatives vary in many important ways, they all fundamentally offer stingier insurance to a narrower group of people.

This is because the Republican plans all envision rolling back these ACA taxes. But under those circumstances, it’s simply not possible for the GOP to offer people the superior insurance coverage that it is promising.

Phil Klein, a top conservative health policy journalist, has urged Republicans to solve their overpromising problem by “stating a simple truth, which goes something like this: ‘We don’t believe that it is the job of the federal government to guarantee that everybody has health insurance.'”

Gop Wants To Repeal Obamacare Without A Backup Plan But Some Republicans Say That’s A Bad Idea

The Real Reason Republicans Want to Pull the Plug on Obamacare | Robert Reich

U.S.CoronavirusHealth CareObamacareCongress

A Republican-led lawsuit is leaving the fate of the Affordable Care Act hanging in the balance of the courts amid a pandemic that’s ravaged the globe and exacerbated the need for health care.

Yet GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill concede they do not have safety net legislation ready to catch the millions of Americans who would find themselves suddenly without health insurance during a potential second coronavirus wave.

Some Republicans, however, believe that needs to change.

“We need to have a plan in place to make sure that people don’t lose coverage,” said Senator Mitt Romney .

Pre-existing conditions are the “most important thing” to cover, said Senator Martha McSally. But, the Arizona Republican added, “there are many other contingencies that we need to be looking into,” referring to a wide array of issues that could arise without the law.

Republicans have tried unsuccessfully over the years to repeal and replace Obamacare with health provisions of their own. But more than three years into President Donald Trump’s first term, they acknowledge there is neither a discussion nor a plan available to simply replace the expansive health care law that is Obamacare, should it be struck down.

Senator Rick Scott , a former hospital CEO, said he’s “come up with lots of proposals. But there’s no proposal here,” he added.

Does President Trump Really Want To Repeal The Aca

Feb 25, 2020

When he introduced the 2020federal budget President Trump re-emphasized his intention to repeal theAffordable Care Act, known more popularly to most of us as Obamacare.

Perhaps that is the issue! Trumpand Obamacare!

The Affordable Care Act is irrevocably associated with the Democratic Party and ex-President Obama in particular.  Most citizens benefit from it one way or another.

Since the swing to theDemocratic Party at the Mid-Term elections in 2018 President Trump has beenremarkably quiet on his plans for replacing Obamacare if he is granted a secondterm by the American public.  Indeed, hehas made it clear that there will be no new legislation until at least 2021.

In the meantime, he will bewatching the polls and judging the voters intentions as the Democratcandidates put their healthcare policies on display.

Nobody claims the AffordableCare Act is perfect.  All agree it can beimproved.  At the 2018 mid-term electionsmore than half the voters claimed that healthcare was the major factor in theirvoting decision.  That is why it stays atthe top of the political agenda. After all, our spending on healthcare accountsfor nearly 20% of the way in which we spend the countrys income .

This may be true but there arelimits to savings from increased efficiency and inflation is inevitable.  The outcome is, necessarily, reduction inbenefits or in enrollment.

There are signs that Trump mightbe prepared to keep the subsidies and allow income-related tax relief.

Gridlock In House Stalls Trump’s Pledge To Repeal Obamacare

As a candidate for president, Donald Trump said that “real change begins with immediately repealing and replacing the disaster known as Obamacare.”

On March 24, the nation learned that it’s not happening immediately. And the road forward isn’t clear either.

Capping a frenzied week of negotiations between three House Republican factions — the party leadership, the hardline conservative House Freedom Caucus, and members of the more moderate, pragmatic wing of the party — House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., announced that he would not bring the American Health Care Act to the floor for a vote, as he had planned.

That March 24 announcement came one day after the floor vote had been pushed back to allow for last-minute changes and arm-twisting, and half a day after Trump had issued an ultimatum to House Republicans — pass the bill or he’ll move on.

In the run-up to Ryan’s announcement, vote counting by media outlets had concluded that the House GOP would lose too many votes to pass the bill if it tried.

“We came really close today, but we came up short,” Ryan said at a press conference. “I will not sugarcoat this. This was a disappointing day for us.”

For members on the party’s right flank, the American Health Care Act left in place too much of the infrastructure of the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama’s signature health care law and the target of intense Republican opposition for seven years.

The Real Reason Republicans Couldnt Kill Obamacare

Democrats did the work, Republicans didntand that says a lot about the two parties.

Adapted from The Ten Year War: Obamacare and the Unfinished Crusade for Universal Coverage, St. Martins Press 2021.

The Affordable Care Act, the health-care law also known as Obamacare, turns 11 years old this week. Somehow, the program has not merely survived the GOPs decade-long assault. Its actually getting stronger, thanks to some major upgrades tucked in the COVID-19 relief package that President Joe Biden signed into law earlier this month.

The new provisions should enable millions of Americans to get insurance or save money on coverage they already purchase, bolstering the health-care law in precisely the way its architects had always hoped to do. And although the measures are temporary, Biden and his Democratic Party allies have pledged to pass more legislation making the changes permanent.

The expansion measures are a remarkable achievement, all the more so because Obamacares very survival seemed so improbable just a few years ago, when Donald Trump won the presidency. Wiping the law off the books had become the Republicans defining cause, and Trump had pledged to make repeal his first priority. As the reality of his victory set in, almost everybody outside the Obama White House thought the effort would succeed, and almost everybody inside did too.

That was no small thing, as Republicans were about to discover.

Baby Boomers And The Aging Population

Robert Reich failed to mention the aging population. 76M boomers were born after WW-II, between 1946 and 1964, and America wasnt prepared for that growth. Neither were other nations. There werent enough hospitals, pediatricians, schoolteachers, textbooks, playgrounds, or even bedrooms in our homes. Now, as 11,000 more baby boomers turn age 65 every day, retire, and go on Social Security and Medicare, the ability to pay for public assistance becomes more difficult. By 2029, more than 20% of the US population will be over 65 . That 1-in-5 number is up from 1-in-7 today; and by 2035, 1-in-3 US households will be headed by someone 65 or over.

Thats because people are living longer . But were also less active and have higher rates of chronic disease and disability. Almost 39% of boomers are obese, compared to about 29% in the previous generation, and 40% of them are low-income , meaning theyll need more public assistance.

The age 85+ population needing the most medical care will grow the fastest over the next few decades, equaling 4% of population by 2050, or 10 times its 1950 share  1.9M Americans are already 90+, an in 2010, people 90+ had a median income of just $14,760, about half of it from Social Security. This is a worldwide phenomenon thanks largely to longer average longevity. The United Nations says that by 2050, the older generation will be larger than the under-15 population.

Why Republicans Wouldn’t Actually Repeal Obamacare

It would be a political disaster, but it hasn’t yet stopped them from trying.

Last week, in a bold example of their governing prowess, congressional Republicans took their 62nd vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and this time they actually passed it through both houses and sent it to President Obama to be vetoed. Naturally, they were exultant at their triumph. Speaker Paul Ryan admitted that there is as yet no replacement for the ACA, but they’ll be getting around to putting one together before you know it. The fact that they’ve been promising that replacement for more than five years now might make you a bit skeptical.

What we know for sure is this: If a Republican wins the White House this November, he’ll make repeal of the ACA one of his first priorities, whether there’s a replacement ready or not. To listen to them talk, the only division between the candidates is whether they’ll do it on their first day in the Oval Office, in their first hour, or in the limo on the way back from the inauguration.

But I’ve got news for you: They aren’t going to do it, at least not in the way they’re promising. Because it would be an absolute catastrophe.

Now imagine that ten million people, the number signed up for private coverage through the exchanges, all had their coverage simultaneously thrown into doubt. Think that might cause some bad press for the party and the president who did it?

Everything You Need To Know About Why Conservatives Want To Repeal The Presidents Health Care Law

Photo by Larry Downing/Reuters

Though the Affordable Care Act passed into law in 2010, conservatives continue to fight it at every opportunity: in the courts, in state legislatures, and in Congress. Its a safe bet that as the race for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination kicks off, a cavalcade of Republican hopefuls will torment innocent Iowans with tales of how theyve fought Obamacare in the past and why theyre the ones who can finally drive a stake through its heart. But if you dont read the conservative press, you might have no idea why those of us on the right side of the political spectrum are so worked up about Obamacare. To promote cross-ideological understanding, Ive prepared this little FAQ.

Why do conservatives oppose Obamacare?Not all conservatives are alike, and there are at least some, like Avik Roy of the Manhattan Institute, who believe Obamacare should be reformed and not repealed. But as a general rule, conservatives oppose the law and would like to see it repealed for several reasons.

First, some conservatives oppose it for the same reason that liberals favor it: Through the Medicaid expansion and the exchanges, it subsidizes insurance coverage for people of modest means by raising taxes on people of less-modest means and by curbing the growth in Medicare spending. Conservatives tend not to be enthusiastic about redistribution, and theyre particularly skeptical about redistribution that isnt transparent.

Why Republicans Cant And Wont Repeal Obamacare

Editor’s Note:

This article was originally posted on Real Clear Health on January 16, 2017.

Now that the Republicans control both the presidency and both houses of Congress, they must put up or shut up on their promise to repeal and replace Obamacare. Here is a flat-footed prediction: the effort will fail for three reasons. First, the Affordable Care Act has largely succeeded not failed, as president-elect Trump and other Republicans falsely allege. Second, it is impossible for the stated goals of repeal to be achieved. Finally, the political fallout from the consequences of partial or total repeal would be devastating. When it comes to casting votes, enough Republicans will conclude that repeal is a bad idea and will join Democrats to sustain the basic structure of the health reform law.

Second, the stated objectives of repealing Obamacare are mutually inconsistent. Three provisions comprise the core of Obamacare. First, rules barring insurance companies from refusing to sell insurance to people because of preexisting conditions or varying premiums based on those conditions. Second, a requirement that everyone carry health insurance who can afford it. And third, subsidies for those with moderate incomes to help make such insurance affordable. The law contains many other provisions as well, but these three are core.

Trump Administration Asks Supreme Court To Strike Down Affordable Care Act

The REAL Reason Republicans Can’t Stop Trying to Repeal Obamacare

If successful, the move would permanently end the health insurance program popularly known as Obamacare and wipe out coverage for as many as 23 million Americans.

WASHINGTON The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court late Thursday to overturn the Affordable Care Act a move that, if successful, would bring a permanent end to the health insurance program popularly known as Obamacare and wipe out coverage for as many as 23 million Americans.

In an 82-page brief submitted an hour before a midnight deadline, the administration joined Republican officials in Texas and 17 other states in arguing that in 2017, Congress, then controlled by Republicans, had rendered the law unconstitutional when it zeroed out the tax penalty for not buying insurance the so-called individual mandate.

The administrations argument, coming in the thick of an election season as well as a pandemic that has devastated the economy and left millions of unemployed Americans without health coverage is sure to reignite Washingtons bitter political debate over health care.

In his brief, Solicitor General Noel J. Francisco argued that the health laws two remaining central provisions are now invalid because Congress intended that all three work together.

The court has not said when it will hear oral arguments, but they are most likely to take place in the fall, just as Americans are preparing to go to the polls in November.

Is The Supreme Court Likely To Save Obamacare

The Supreme Court is likely to leave in place the bulk of Obamacare, including key protections for pre-existing health conditions.

Conservative justices John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh appeared in two hours of arguments to be unwilling to strike down the entire law a long-held Republican goal.

The courts three liberal justices are almost certain to vote to uphold the law in its entirety and presumably would form a majority by joining a decision that cut away only the mandate, which now has no financial penalty attached to it.

Leading a group of Democratic-controlled states, California and the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives are urging the court to leave the law in place.

A decision is expected by late spring.

Repealing Obamacare Is A Huge Tax Cut For The Rich

This did not play a major overt public role in the 2009-’10 debate about the law, but the Affordable Care Act’s financing rests on a remarkably progressive base. That means that, as the Tax Policy Center has shown, repealing it would shower moneyon a remarkably small number of remarkably wealthy Americans.

The two big relevant taxes, according to the TPC’s Howard Gleckman, are “a 0.9 percent payroll surtax on earnings and a 3.8 percent taxon net investment income for individuals with incomes exceeding $200,000.” That payroll tax hike hits a reasonably broad swath of affluent individuals, but in a relatively minor way. The 3.8 percent tax on net investment income , by contrast, is a pretty hefty tax, but one that falls overwhelmingly on the small number of people who have hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in investment income.

For the bottom 60 percent of the population that is, households earning less than about $67,000 a year repeal of the ACA would end up meaning an increase in taxes due to the loss of ACA tax credits.

But people in the top 1 percent of the income distribution those with incomes of over about $430,000 would see their taxes fall by an average of $25,000 a year.