Obamacare As a Job Creator

I promise I'm working in something interesting for you about the budget (never thought "interesting" and "budget" could be in the same sentence). 

In the meantime, check this out. From Coyote: 

most of my competitors are small businesses that are exempt from the Obamacare hammer.  To compete, I must make sure my company is exempt as well.  This means that our 400+ full time employees will have to be less than 50 in 2013, so that when the Feds look at me at the start of 2014, I am exempt.  We will have more employees working fewer hours, with more training costs, but the Obamacare bill looks like about $800,000 a year for us, at least (ed: more than his annual profit), and I am pretty sure the cost of more training will be less than that.

At least they're "creating jobs," right?

If you're not already reading Aretae...

Start. The guy is way more thoughtful than I am:

The top 8 predictive factors (that I know) impacting a person's quality of life (across many dimensions) are (in order, as I understand it):

Location (country/state/etc. -- see here for instance)
Patience
Self-Efficacy
Social/Emotional Intelligence
IQ
(roughly tied with 5) Conscientiousness
Resilience
Optimism

RTWT: http://aretae.blogspot.com/2012/11/social-science-news-oty.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+Aretae+(Aretae)&m=1

The Twinkie is Dead. Long Live the Twinkie.

Unless you live under a rock, you’ve heard that Hostess isgoing out of business. It’s possible that you are one of those who are making afortune selling Twinkies for hundreds of dollars. If so, great! I've never really been one to march against someone trying to make a buck. UnlessI’m buying from you.

The story, perpetuated by the same media that made you thinkMitt Romney and Barack Obama are different, is this: Hostess is going out ubbizzniz! Nozzz!!!!eleventy!!!1111! Twinkies will never be around again! This isworse than Zombieland!

My version: Ok, world. Take a deep breath. Yes, Hostess has filed for bankruptcy. But this does not mean what you think it means. Theconventional wisdom is that, when a company goes out of business, POOF!, all of its assets and productsvanish, never to be seen again on this earth. If this were the case, I wouldnot currently be waiting for a flight back to Michigan, to see my family. 

Airlines have been in and out of bankruptcy for years.Here’s the key: demand for flights has not gone down. I still want to flyaround the country to see friends and family. And so do you. Or maybe it’svacation that you like. Either way, you’re getting there by one of thegreatest human transportation machines that have ever existed, instead of horseand buggy, precisely because bankruptcy does NOT mean that in-demand thingsvanish.

Do you know any individuals or families that have filed for bankruptcy?Did they vanish as a result? Obviously, corporations are not people, but it’sinteresting to note that they don’t vanish, either. As Coyote often notes, bankruptcy is a process, notan end (and now I just feel like I'm reiterating what his post says). It’s a process that allows abusiness to try to reorganize so thatit may hold on for dear life. It ishopefully something that prevents death.

In a bankruptcy, someone is going to lose. Here’s the catch:most will lose less than they would if the firm went out of business. This processis supervised by an intermediary (a court) to make sure everyone is treatedfairly, and follows hundreds of years of precedent in who gets the most back.Hostess has stated their intent to sell all of their assets to the highestbidder. The formula for the Twinkie is an asset, and mostly likely will be boughtby someone.

Many of those employees will likely have a hard time findingjobs in their current cities. The lenders to Hostess will lose a lot of money. Butthe Twinkie is going to live. Calm your @$$ down.

And if you really want one, make your own.

Has the Grand Old Party Become the Old Useless Party?

Republicans lost what should have been the easiest win for the White House since Carter. Discussing what is next for the party is making for great political theater across the nation.

Some people think that Romney lost (and GOP lost seats in the Senate) because Americans don't buy the economic message:

the vital issue of this election was clearly the economy, and the Grand Old Party’s Grand Old economic ideas just didn’t sufficiently convince the American population. Their liberal economic notions suggested a form of trickledown economics more appropriate to a previous age, unable to ensure future advancement. I believe the inadequacy of this ideology was exposed to many Americans through the Great Recession; there is now a more common acceptance that the capitalist system is flawed and requires to be kept in check by at least a moderate form of government intervention. Mitt Romney’s policy to decrease business regulations {ed: I don't remember hearing anything about this--Romney said in the debate that he LOVES regulation} therefore didn’t sit too well with many Americans. However, I do not believe that more traditional, economically liberal policies are set to come to an end in the States; they just need to modernise, to encapsulate the American notions of individual freedom and liberty in a 21st Century context. 

Pundits want the GOP to make changes in order to "stay relevant," but these pundits seem to recommend the changes that they personally would like to see, as opposed to asking "What does this party need to do to drive more votes?"

Many people are saying that the socially conservative issues need an overhaul. The two issues that get the most play/votes are: abortion and gay marriage. Let's look at both.

Marriage: It's certainly the case that gay marriage is going to be a reality. SCOTUS is likely to hear a challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act in the spring, and the Obama administration has not been fighting it. A candidate would have to win the nomination from a party where 74% of the people think gay marriage should not be legal, then win in a general election with half of Americans in support of legal gay marriage, including 57% of independents. This is a difficult conundrum.

Abortion: My feeling (and I don't yet have data to support this, so feel free to post in the comments) is that, when it comes to gay marriage, most of the passion is on the "pro" side. On this issue, there is passion on both sides. Gallop says that pro-life Americans are at an all time high, but Rassmusen reports that pro-choice voters are at an all time high. And voters trump non voters, every time.

Even some Right to Life groups show that most Americans would support abortion under some circumstances. In this poll, only 20% think that it should be illegal, no matter what.

But here's what's interesting. Remember Richard Mourdock, who, while running for Senate, famously said that "even if life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen"? Well, he lost to a pro-life Democrat, Joe Connelly. In Indiana. 

The issue this year was the economy, and Romney just didn't do a good job of articulating why his plan was better. He didn't talk about social issues, either. There was really no reason to vote for the former governor this year, other than he was not Obama. As a Republican or independent, if you don't see differences between the two candidates, why vote for either? If the GOP is to win in 2016, there's no secret. The party doesn't really have to change, either. All they have to do is successfully nominate a candidate that can raise enthusiasm in the base, and among some independents. It's all about the candidate.

A Win

As everyone who reads this blog, or has had a political conversation with me knows, I considered there to be almost no difference between Obama and Romney. I consider a victory for either of them to be a loss for me, and for America.

But, of course, those were our options last night, and no one else was going to win. An ideal world, given that fact, would have meant Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party candidate, gets at least 5% of the vote. This would have meant the party could receive matching funds for the race in four years (ironic, I know). This would have taken us a long way toward ending the Republican Party, as it is.

Even though we didn't get this, I still consider election night to be a victory for the liberty movement. There actually are many small victories to celebrate:

Gay Marriage: As Reason reports, four states voted, via referendum, in favor of marriage equality. This is the first time such a referendum has been successful.

The Drug War: Washington and Colorado have legalized marijuana for recreational use (another first!), and Massachusetts has legalized it for medical use. This is a huge step in the right direction for ending the governments' war on its own people.

Other Great Stuff: Wisconsin elects the first openly gay senator. Jeff Flake becomes a Senator. Liberty PAC-endorsed candidates Thomas Massie, Justin Amash, David Schweikert, Walter Jones, Kerry Bentivolio, Steve Stockman, Randy Weber, Ted Yoho, and Ted Cruz all won.

Last, but not least, the Republican establishment was again rejected. I can only hope that they take this the right way: hammer home the fiscal issues, and go soft on the social ones. Stop making foolish comments about rape and abortion. Let people own themselves.