“I Don’t Want That”: Ryan Opposes Trump Working With Democrats On Obamacare

admin

With House Republicans said to make another push to pass Obamacare, perhaps as soon as next week according to a Bloomberg report, some have speculated whether Trump will engage democrats this time to assure at least a few votes from across the aisle. Overnight, however, House Speaker Paul Ryan poured cold water on the idea, saying he does not want President Donald Trump to work with Democrats on overhauling Obamacare.
In an interview with “CBS This Morning” that will air on Thursday and which was previewed by Reuters, Ryan said he fears the Republican Party, which failed last week to come together and agree on a healthcare overhaul, is pushing the president to the other side of the aisle so he can make good on campaign promises to redo Obamacare.
“I don’t want that to happen,” Ryan said, referring to Trump’s offer to work with Democrats.
Carrying out those reforms with Democrats is “hardly a conservative thing,” Ryan said, according to released interview excerpts. “I don’t want government running health care. The government shouldn’t tell you what you must do with your life, with your healthcare,” he said.

This post was published at Zero Hedge on Mar 30, 2017.

FacebookTwitterRedditPinterestLinkedInWhatsAppEmail

Mass Protests in Yemen Against Saudi Arabia

admin

Two years after the start of the international war in Yemen, thousands of people in Sanaa have protested against the air raids of a Saudi-led military coalition. Protesters in the capital controlled by Houthi rebels waved Yemeni flags and called for chorus against ‘Saudi aggression’.
The Saudis, led by the British along with the Americans, had been fighting for two years in Yemen. Yemen is very poor; millions of people are threatened by hunger as a result of the war.
Not until mid-March was a refugee boat with Somalis aboard off the coast of Yemen from the air. More than 32 people died. Although no one was aware of the dead, the human rights organization Human Rights Watch said Sunday that the attack had been carried out ‘apparently’ by the Saudi coalition. It had the airiness in Yemen. The rebels do not have an air force.

This post was published at Armstrong Economics on Mar 30, 2017.

FacebookTwitterRedditPinterestLinkedInWhatsAppEmail

Broken America

admin

Is this the beginning of the end for the United States of America? It has been said that a house divided against itself will surely fall, and today we live in a shattered union. In all my years, I have never seen so much strife, discord, bitterness and resentment in this country. Everyone can see what is happening, but nobody can seem to stop it. Politically, you have got tens of millions of people trying to pull America one way, and you have got tens of millions of people trying to pull it the exact opposite way. As I discussed in a previous article, the term ‘civil war’ is now being thrown around by some pundits even though nobody has started shooting yet. We are a deeply divided and broken nation, and if we don’t find a way to fix things America will not survive.
Every survey and opinion poll that has been taken recently backs up what I am saying. For example, a Gallup survey that was conducted after the election in November found that an all-time record high 77 percent of all Americans believe that ‘the nation is divided on the most important values’…
Seventy-seven percent of Americans, a new high, believe the nation is divided on the most important values, while 21% believe it is united and in agreement. Over the past 20 years, the public has tended to perceive the nation as being more divided than united, apart from two surveys conducted shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

This post was published at The Economic Collapse Blog on March 29th, 2017.

FacebookTwitterRedditPinterestLinkedInWhatsAppEmail

Meet Pharmacy Benefit Managers – ‘The Most Profitable Corporations You’ve Never Heard Of’

admin

When I first started becoming aware of how sleazy, parasitic and corrupt the U. S. economy was, I only had expertise in one industry, financial services. Coming to grips with the blatant criminality of the TBTF Wall Street banks and their enablers at the Federal Reserve and throughout the federal government, I thought this was the main issue that needed to be confronted. What I’ve learned in the years since is pretty much every industry in America is corrupt to the core, more focused on sucking money away from helpless citizens via rent-seeking schemes versus actually producing a product and adding value. Unfortunately, the healthcare industry is no exception.
Today’s post zeros in on a particular slice of that industry. A group of companies known as Pharmacy Benefit Managers, or PBMs. Companies that seem to extract far more from the public than they give back. It’s a convoluted sector that is difficult to get your head around, which is why we should be thankful that David Dayen wrote an excellent piece on the topic recently. What follows are merely excerpts from his lengthy and highly informative piece, The Hidden Monopolies That Raise Drug Prices. I strongly suggest you read the entire thing.

This post was published at Liberty Blitzkrieg on Wednesday Mar 29, 2017.

FacebookTwitterRedditPinterestLinkedInWhatsAppEmail

Can Trump Turn Back Time On Coal Mining Employment?

admin

President Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday, repealing many of the environmental regulations introduced by his predecessor Barack Obama and rescinding a moratorium on the leasing of federal land to coal mining companies. In ‘ending the war on coal’, Trump tries to make good on his campaign promise to bring thousands of unemployed coal miners back to work and secure U. S. energy independence.
As Statista’s Felix Richter notes, Trump, like many of his supporters, blames Obama’s environmental policies for the coal industry’s decline, which, as the chart below illustrates, started long before Obama took office in 2009. While it is true that coal consumption and mining employment did drop significantly during Obama’s presidency, experts keep pointing out that the decline was caused primarily by the rise of natural gas and only secondarily by environmental regulation.

This post was published at Zero Hedge on Mar 29, 2017.

FacebookTwitterRedditPinterestLinkedInWhatsAppEmail

Iran’s President Rouhani Visited Russia: Another Step To A Multipolar World

admin

The significance of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s visit to Russia on March 27-28 goes far beyond the bilateral relationship. Iran is one of the main actors in Syria and Iraq. It has an importance place in the geopolitical plans of US President Donald Trump. Its relationship with Russia is an important factor of international politics. The future of the entire Middle East depends to a great extent on what Russia and Iran do and how effectively they coordinate their activities.
Less than two months are left till the presidential election in Iran. The presidential race formally starts on April 17 and Rouhani has a good chance to win. True, the country’s foreign policy at the strategic level is defined by Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but the executive branch of the government led by president implements it. The spiritual leader does not pay visits to other countries but Russian President Vladimir Putin met him in Tehran last year – the second time in the recent 17 years.
This was Rouhani’s first official visit to Russia and the first time he and Putin met within a bilateral framework. The trip took place against the background of growing partnership as both countries have become leading forces of the Astana process that made Iran, Russia and Turkey guarantors of the Syrian cease-fire.

This post was published at Zero Hedge on Mar 30, 2017.

FacebookTwitterRedditPinterestLinkedInWhatsAppEmail

L.A. to Worsen Housing Shortage with New Rent Controls

admin

Los Angeles, home to one of the least affordable housing markets in North America, is now proposing to expand rent control to “fix” its housing problem.
As with all price control schemes, rent control will serve only to make housing affordable to a small sliver of the population while rendering housing more inaccessible to most.
Specifically, city activists hope that a new bill in the state legislature, AB1506, will allow local governments, Los Angeles included, to expand the number of units covered by rent control laws while also restricting the extent to which landlords can raise rents.
Unintended Consequences Currently, partial rent control is already in place in Los Angeles and landlords there are limited in how much they can raise rents on current residents. However, according to LA Weekly, landlords are free to raise rents to market levels for a unit once that unit turns over to new residents.
This creates a situation of perverse incentives that do a disservice to both renters and landlords. Under normal circumstances, landlords want to minimize turnover among renters because it is costly to advertise and fill units, and it’s costly to prepare units for new renters. (Turnover is also costly and inconvenient for renters.)

This post was published at Ludwig von Mises Institute on March 30, 2017.

FacebookTwitterRedditPinterestLinkedInWhatsAppEmail

Lavrov Responds to U.S. Decision to Block Advance of Syrian Army

admin

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov commented on Monday about the U.S.-led operation to block the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) from marching on the Islamic State stronghold of Raqqa.
Responding to a journalist’s question about the development, Lavrov stated that Russia supports any international efforts to combat Islamic State, but warned the U.S. “to fight terror rather than gain geopolitical advantages in Syria“:
“umerous uninvited players : the US-led air force coalition, Turkish servicemen, and commandos from the United States and a number of European countries. All of this creates a rather motley picture, but we are confident (and have advocated this for a long time) that the main criterion should be our common concern in the fight against terrorism. So far, coordination leaves much to be desired. We have reason to believe that our partners, including the Americans, are beginning to realise the need for remedying this situation. Let us hope that all of us will be driven by the well-understood priority to fight terror rather than gain geopolitical advantages in Syria.”
Lavrov seems to be keeping his cards close to his chest, but it’s clear that he’s less than thrilled about Washington’s posturing around Raqqa. It could be as simple as a “lack of coordination” – but let’s be honest: There’s very likely a lot more at play here. Any attempt by Washington to prevent Syrian forces from liberating their own country from Islamic State should be seen as extremely worrying.
According to a trusted Syria expert, preventing the SAA from taking Raqqa signals that Washington is quietly preparing to “Balkanize” Syria – an analysis that we agree with.

This post was published at Russia Insider

FacebookTwitterRedditPinterestLinkedInWhatsAppEmail

Scottish parliament votes for second independence referendum

admin

Nicola Sturgeon has won a key Holyrood vote on her plans for a second independence referendum, triggering accusations from U.K. ministers that her demands are premature.
Sturgeon won by a 10-vote majority after the Scottish Greens backed her proposals to formally request from the U.K. government the powers to stage a fresh independence vote at around the time Britain leaves the E.U., in spring 2019.
She is due to write to Theresa May later this week, asking for Westminster to hand Holyrood the temporary powers to stage the referendum under a section 30 order. She said she would avoid writing until the prime minister had invoked article 50 to trigger the Brexit process, which she is expected to do on Wednesday.

This post was published at The Guardian

FacebookTwitterRedditPinterestLinkedInWhatsAppEmail

Obama Administration Blocked Comey From Revealing “Russian Tampering” Before Election

admin

The narrative of the “Russian hacking” of the US elections has been thrown for a loop following a report the Obama administration blocked FBI Director James Comey’s attempts to go public as early as the summer of 2016 with information on Russia’s alleged campaign to influence the U. S. presidential election, Newsweek reports citing two unidentified sources with knowledge of the matter.
According to Newsweek, Comey pitched the idea of writing an op-ed about a Russian “interference” campaign during a meeting in the White House’s situation room in June or July 2016, well before the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence accused the Russian government of tampering with the U. S. election in an October 7 statement, the same day as Wikileaks started released the hacked Podesta emails, and the same day that the Trump’s “grab her by the pussy” recording emerged.

This post was published at Zero Hedge on Mar 29, 2017.

FacebookTwitterRedditPinterestLinkedInWhatsAppEmail