Detroit Michigan.
Earlier I mentioned that Tom Kartsotis of Fossil fame had opened a new company in Detroit, Shinola, the first maker of high end American Watches in decades, and through his Bedrock Partners was encouraging a growing Entrepreneur spirit.
Recently Tom Gilbert the CEO of Quicken Loans has bought nine downtown buildings with his Rock Ventures subsidiary. The first new downtown tenant, Quicken Loans who moved from the suburbs and brought 1700 jobs into the city.
Twitter has opened an additional office in one of Gilbert's downtown buildings bring 373 more jobs.
Gilbert's efforts have brought 6500 new jobs to downtown Detroit and 100 small businesses and retailers. The advertising firm of Lowe Campbell and Edwards has also come back into the city from the suburbs.
Quicken is also subsidizing rents for new entrepreneurs engaged in industrial product design. Southern Michigan still has the highest concentration of industrial product developers in the world.
Also started a 140million dollar light rail line to link Downtown to the suburban Amtrak station.
On the drawing board 650 million dollar new home for the Detroit Red Wings and a new bridge to connect Detroit with neighboring Windsor Canada.
Ford motor company also has bought a digital radio start up, a high tech manufacturing institute has opened and the University of Michigan has opened a facility for the testing of driverless cars.
Just when you thought it was dead Detroit has become America's emerging market.
Sunday, August 31, 2014
say what..... a tan suit.
Jimmie Carter got to wear a white suit very cool
for a southern gentleman.
This suit was almost white! Where was the outrage............
Ut Oh I don't think Sr Bush is happy in his suit............
Can't figure it out. Is this tan or yellowish?
What is obvious is that Bill is on a roll...................
WTF>>>>>>>>
Very presidential don't you think maybe he is a
closet Mexican...........................
And my all time favorite this hideous plaid
Many presidents have worn tan suits in the past Both Bushes, Reagan wore them along with his hideous plaid Number and there was no outrage. GW Bush wore the little number shown above and although I wasn't a fan I didn't say a word and I can't remember that anyone did. Clinton wore a tan suit on many occasions.
But now it is the next scandal of the Obama administration. HE wore a TAN SUIT! OMG!
Please repubs don't waste my tax money with numerous futile investigations of this.
It's okay Abu al Baghdadi really doesn't care what the President is wearing.
Saturday, August 30, 2014
Happy Labor Day - Judicial Watch: Fed Bulletin Describes Threat of Imminent Terrorist Attack on Southern Border
Judicial Watch: Feds’ Bulletin Describes Threat of Imminent Terrorist Attack on Southern Border
By Andrew C. McCarthy
August 29, 2014 1:47 PM
Comments
6900
For those of us who’ve been raising alarms about both the jihadist threat and the national-security vulnerability created by the Obama administration’s non-enforcement of the immigration laws, this is not a surprise — particularly less than two weeks before September 11. But it is nonetheless jarring to read. Judicial Watch has just put out thisstatement:
Islamic terrorist groups are operating in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez and planning to attack the United States with car bombs or other vehicle born improvised explosive devices (VBIED). High-level federal law enforcement, intelligence and other sources have confirmed to Judicial Watch that a warning bulletin for an imminent terrorist attack on the border has been issued. Agents across a number of Homeland Security, Justice and Defense agencies have all been placed on alert and instructed to aggressively work all possible leads and sources concerning this imminent terrorist threat.
Specifically, Judicial Watch sources reveal that the militant group Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) is confirmed to now be operating in Juarez, a famously crime-infested narcotics hotbed situated across from El Paso, Texas. Violent crimes are so rampant in Juarez that the U.S. State Department has issued a number of travel warnings for anyone planning to go there. The last one was issued just a few days ago.
Intelligence officials have picked up radio talk and chatter indicating that the terrorist groups are going to “carry out an attack on the border,” according to one JW source. “It’s coming very soon,” according to this high-level source, who clearly identified the groups planning the plots as “ISIS and Al Qaeda.” An attack is so imminent that the commanding general at Ft. Bliss, the U.S. Army post in El Paso, is being briefed, another source confirms. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not respond to multiple inquiries from Judicial Watch, both telephonic and in writing, about this information.
The disturbing inside intelligence comes on the heels of news reports revealing that U.S. intelligence has picked up increased chatter among Islamist terror networks approaching the 13th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. While these terrorists reportedly plan their attack just outside the U.S., President Obama admits that “we don’t have a strategy yet” to combat ISIS. “I don’t want to put the cart before the horse,” the commander-in-chief said this week during a White House press briefing. “I think what I’ve seen in some of the news reports suggest that folks are getting a little further ahead of what we’re at than what we currently are.”
The administration has also covered up, or at the very least downplayed, a serious epidemic of crime along the Mexican border even as heavily armed drug cartels have taken over portions of the region. Judicial Watch has reported that the U.S. Border Patrol actually ordered officers to avoid the most crime-infested stretches because they’re “too dangerous” and patrolling them could result in an “international incident” of cross border shooting. In the meantime, who could forget the famous words of Obama’s first Homeland Security Secretary, Janet Napolitano; the southern border is “as secure as it has ever been.”
These new revelations are bound to impact the current debate about the border crisis and immigration policy.
By Andrew C. McCarthy
August 29, 2014 1:47 PM
Comments
6900
For those of us who’ve been raising alarms about both the jihadist threat and the national-security vulnerability created by the Obama administration’s non-enforcement of the immigration laws, this is not a surprise — particularly less than two weeks before September 11. But it is nonetheless jarring to read. Judicial Watch has just put out thisstatement:
Islamic terrorist groups are operating in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez and planning to attack the United States with car bombs or other vehicle born improvised explosive devices (VBIED). High-level federal law enforcement, intelligence and other sources have confirmed to Judicial Watch that a warning bulletin for an imminent terrorist attack on the border has been issued. Agents across a number of Homeland Security, Justice and Defense agencies have all been placed on alert and instructed to aggressively work all possible leads and sources concerning this imminent terrorist threat.
Specifically, Judicial Watch sources reveal that the militant group Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) is confirmed to now be operating in Juarez, a famously crime-infested narcotics hotbed situated across from El Paso, Texas. Violent crimes are so rampant in Juarez that the U.S. State Department has issued a number of travel warnings for anyone planning to go there. The last one was issued just a few days ago.
Intelligence officials have picked up radio talk and chatter indicating that the terrorist groups are going to “carry out an attack on the border,” according to one JW source. “It’s coming very soon,” according to this high-level source, who clearly identified the groups planning the plots as “ISIS and Al Qaeda.” An attack is so imminent that the commanding general at Ft. Bliss, the U.S. Army post in El Paso, is being briefed, another source confirms. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not respond to multiple inquiries from Judicial Watch, both telephonic and in writing, about this information.
The disturbing inside intelligence comes on the heels of news reports revealing that U.S. intelligence has picked up increased chatter among Islamist terror networks approaching the 13th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. While these terrorists reportedly plan their attack just outside the U.S., President Obama admits that “we don’t have a strategy yet” to combat ISIS. “I don’t want to put the cart before the horse,” the commander-in-chief said this week during a White House press briefing. “I think what I’ve seen in some of the news reports suggest that folks are getting a little further ahead of what we’re at than what we currently are.”
The administration has also covered up, or at the very least downplayed, a serious epidemic of crime along the Mexican border even as heavily armed drug cartels have taken over portions of the region. Judicial Watch has reported that the U.S. Border Patrol actually ordered officers to avoid the most crime-infested stretches because they’re “too dangerous” and patrolling them could result in an “international incident” of cross border shooting. In the meantime, who could forget the famous words of Obama’s first Homeland Security Secretary, Janet Napolitano; the southern border is “as secure as it has ever been.”
These new revelations are bound to impact the current debate about the border crisis and immigration policy.
Friday, August 29, 2014
Should Senators Actually Live in the State They Represent?
Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu doesn't own a home in Louisiana. Her nit-picking opponents are trying to make a big deal of this. What's the problem? Sure, this is what brought Senator Lugar down. But, what the heck, Senators don't represent their in-state constituents anyway, they represent the people who finance their campaigns, big corporations, super pacs, etc. Come on people, lighten up and face reality. http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/DC-Decoder/Decoder-Buzz/2014/0829/Sen.-Mary-Landrieu-owns-no-Louisiana-home.-What-was-she-thinking
Thursday, August 28, 2014
Under Affordable Care Act, Minimum Wage Hike Discourages Work or To Raise the Minimum wage or not.
Most criticisms of minimum wage increases focus on its employment effects. Some minimum wage earners will be priced out
of the labor market and find themselves unemployed. But due to the
perverse incentives in our welfare system, some of those who keep their
jobs may find that higher wages result in a loss of Medicaid benefits.
This means that raising the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour would substantially increase disincentives to work. Under a $10.10 minimum wage, any childless adult who takes a full-time, year-round job would need to give up access to Medicaid.
In the 26 states plus the District of Columbia that have expanded Medicaid under the ACA, any nonelderly person whose income is below 138% of the poverty line is eligible for Medicaid coverage. However, the poverty line differs according to household size. For a single adult, the Medicaid eligibility threshold is $16,105. With a wage of $7.25 an hour, this individual could enroll in Medicaid. However, with a wage of $10.10, he no longer qualifies.
Over half of minimum wage earners work part time, but those who work full-time for the current minimum wage of $7.25 an hour earn about $13,195 per year. Raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, as President Obama has proposed, would raise their annual income to $18,382 if they kept their jobs--an increase of $5,187. This would be a decent deal were it not for the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion.
Under the minimum wage increase President Obama proposes, full-time workers with previous wages below $8.53 per hour would be at risk of losing Medicaid coverage. All these people would thus be forced to buy insurance through the federal exchanges at a higher cost. While many would receive subsidies, these phase out as income rises, which could leave low-income Americans spending hundreds or even thousands of dollars for exchange coverage.
Before Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid eligibility generally applied to certain categories of people, including children, pregnant women, and people with disabilities. This is still the case in the 23 states that have not expanded Medicaid. These categorical eligibility requirements limited work disincentives by making income level a secondary condition of coverage. Under the ACA, however, income level is the primary condition for Medicaid eligibility. Moving up the income ladder increasingly means loss of Medicaid coverage.
In 2012, average per capita spending for able-bodied adults on Medicaid was $4,101. Even though recent evidence from a randomized study in Oregon suggests that Medicaid coverage has no measurable effect on physical health outcomes, people do value having Medicaid coverage. The same study found that Medicaid beneficiaries had a better self-reported quality of life. This implies that people will take Medicaid coverage into account when making career choices.
It is an advantage to the administration that raising the minimum wage would force some people off Medicaid and on to the health care exchanges. The administration is actively seeking young people to sign up for insurance through the exchanges in order to counteract the high healthcare costs of older enrollees. Singles who earn close to minimum wage are likely to be younger and healthier than the average enrollee. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 71 percent of minimum wage earners are below the age of 35.
This phenomenon highlights one of the central flaws in our welfare system--our government pays people to work less or not at all. When income must be lower than a certain threshold to receive benefits such as Medicaid and food stamps, people face disincentives to work. A person is much less likely to climb the economic ladder when he has to leave so many benefits behind.
The Congressional Budget Office projects that the ACA will reduce labor supply (the amount people choose to work) by the equivalent of 2 to 2.5 million full-time workers. Part of this reduction, particularly for childless adults, is due to Medicaid expansion. A recent NBER working paper by Laura Dague, Thomas DeLeire, and Lindsey Leininger supports this projection: the authors estimate that public health insurance reduces labor supply among its beneficiaries by between 2.4 and 10.6 percentage points. If 12 million people gain Medicaid coverage under the ACA, employment could decline by between 288,000 and 1.3 million people.
Public spending on Medicaid exceeds $400 billion a year, making it the third-largest entitlement program after Social Security and Medicare. Those costs will only go up when more people enroll in the program under the ACA. And yet, the program still fails to improve physical health among its beneficiaries.
This means that raising the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour would substantially increase disincentives to work. Under a $10.10 minimum wage, any childless adult who takes a full-time, year-round job would need to give up access to Medicaid.
In the 26 states plus the District of Columbia that have expanded Medicaid under the ACA, any nonelderly person whose income is below 138% of the poverty line is eligible for Medicaid coverage. However, the poverty line differs according to household size. For a single adult, the Medicaid eligibility threshold is $16,105. With a wage of $7.25 an hour, this individual could enroll in Medicaid. However, with a wage of $10.10, he no longer qualifies.
Over half of minimum wage earners work part time, but those who work full-time for the current minimum wage of $7.25 an hour earn about $13,195 per year. Raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, as President Obama has proposed, would raise their annual income to $18,382 if they kept their jobs--an increase of $5,187. This would be a decent deal were it not for the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion.
Under the minimum wage increase President Obama proposes, full-time workers with previous wages below $8.53 per hour would be at risk of losing Medicaid coverage. All these people would thus be forced to buy insurance through the federal exchanges at a higher cost. While many would receive subsidies, these phase out as income rises, which could leave low-income Americans spending hundreds or even thousands of dollars for exchange coverage.
Before Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid eligibility generally applied to certain categories of people, including children, pregnant women, and people with disabilities. This is still the case in the 23 states that have not expanded Medicaid. These categorical eligibility requirements limited work disincentives by making income level a secondary condition of coverage. Under the ACA, however, income level is the primary condition for Medicaid eligibility. Moving up the income ladder increasingly means loss of Medicaid coverage.
In 2012, average per capita spending for able-bodied adults on Medicaid was $4,101. Even though recent evidence from a randomized study in Oregon suggests that Medicaid coverage has no measurable effect on physical health outcomes, people do value having Medicaid coverage. The same study found that Medicaid beneficiaries had a better self-reported quality of life. This implies that people will take Medicaid coverage into account when making career choices.
It is an advantage to the administration that raising the minimum wage would force some people off Medicaid and on to the health care exchanges. The administration is actively seeking young people to sign up for insurance through the exchanges in order to counteract the high healthcare costs of older enrollees. Singles who earn close to minimum wage are likely to be younger and healthier than the average enrollee. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 71 percent of minimum wage earners are below the age of 35.
This phenomenon highlights one of the central flaws in our welfare system--our government pays people to work less or not at all. When income must be lower than a certain threshold to receive benefits such as Medicaid and food stamps, people face disincentives to work. A person is much less likely to climb the economic ladder when he has to leave so many benefits behind.
The Congressional Budget Office projects that the ACA will reduce labor supply (the amount people choose to work) by the equivalent of 2 to 2.5 million full-time workers. Part of this reduction, particularly for childless adults, is due to Medicaid expansion. A recent NBER working paper by Laura Dague, Thomas DeLeire, and Lindsey Leininger supports this projection: the authors estimate that public health insurance reduces labor supply among its beneficiaries by between 2.4 and 10.6 percentage points. If 12 million people gain Medicaid coverage under the ACA, employment could decline by between 288,000 and 1.3 million people.
Public spending on Medicaid exceeds $400 billion a year, making it the third-largest entitlement program after Social Security and Medicare. Those costs will only go up when more people enroll in the program under the ACA. And yet, the program still fails to improve physical health among its beneficiaries.
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
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