Josh Fulton's Open Salon Blog

"No discrimination for pre-existing conditions" out window?

Sun, 10 Jan 2010 09:01:04 -0500

Surprise, surprise.

Nation:

Taken at face value, Senator John Ensign's amendment which was included in the final Senate healthcare bill sounds pretty decent: by meeting "wellness" standards people can receive discounts on their employer-based healthcare premiums. Stop smoking--pay less. Hit a certain weight--pay less. Meet a cholesterol target--you get the idea.

Dems probably should have stopped and realized since the amendment was offered by Ensign it probably wasn't motivated by "wellness" at heart.

In fact, it allows premiums to be raised from current levels, and then "discounts" would reduce the premiums to current rates. People who don't meet the insurance companies' targets could pay up to 30 percent more for coverage, roughly $4000 based on the average cost of family coverage. The amount could increase to 50 percent which is over $6,600 for a family.

There is also the problem that this is biased against people with a genetic predisposition to high blood sugar, hypertension, high cholesterol, being overweight and a host of other often hereditary conditions. It's also biased against a lower-income person working two to three jobs to pay the bills, who has to stop and chow down some fast food between jobs rather than get to the gym where he or she can't afford a membership anyway. It's even biased against communities that don't have grocery stores where they can find fresh fruits and vegetables.

So what does this all mean? Remember a central promise of healthcare reform--even the watered down version--how people with preexisting conditions weren't supposed to be denied coverage or forced to pay more for their insurance? That all sounded pretty good, right? Well, guess again.

[...]Ultimately it's Democrats, not Senator Ensign, who bear the responsibility for the inclusion of this insane provision. (And apparently Chairman Max Baucus spoke against this amendment in Committee before he voted for it in "the spirit of bipartisanship"--thanks again, Max.) Now is the moment to contact your legislators and tell them to rid the final healthcare bill of this gift to insurance--found in Section 2705 of the Senate bill.

Read story at: www.joshfulton.blogspot.com

SEC to ban access to Money Markets?

Sun, 10 Jan 2010 09:01:53 -0500

A money market account is a savings account that tries to offer a low rate of return in exchange for relative safety.

Zero Hedge:

[A] typical investor in a money market seeks minute investment risk, no volatility, and instantaneous liquidity, or redeemability. These are the three pillars upon which the entire $3.3 trillion money market industry is based.

Yet new regulations proposed by the administration, and specifically by the ever-incompetent Securities and Exchange Commission, seek to pull one of these three core pillars from the foundation of the entire money market industry, by changing the primary assumptions of the key Money Market Rule 2a-7. A key proposal in the overhaul of money market regulation suggests that money market fund managers will have the option to "suspend redemptions to allow for the orderly liquidation of fund assets." You read that right [...][This refers to] Money Market funds, which account for nearly 40% of all investment company assets. The next time there is a market crash, and you try to withdraw what you thought was "absolutely" safe money, a back office person will get back to you saying, "Sorry - your money is now frozen. Bank runs have become illegal." [...]In essence, the entire US capital market is now a hedge fund, where even presumably the safest investment tranche can be locked out from within your control when the ubiquitous "extraordinary circumstances" arise.

[...][A]bout 80% of all U.S. companies use money market funds in managing their cash balances; and about 20% of the cash balances of all U.S. households are held in money market funds.

[...]A little more on money markets:

[...]Rule 2a-7 of the act restricts investments in money market funds by quality, maturity and diversity. Under this act, a money fund mainly buys the highest rated debt, which matures in under 13 months. The portfolio must maintain a weighted average maturity (WAM) of 90 days or less and not invest more than 5% in any one issuer, except for government securities and repurchase agreements.

Ironically, the proposed change to Rule 2a-7 seeks to make dramatic changes to the composition of MMs: from 90 days, the WAM would get shortened to 60 days. And this is occurring at a time when the government is desperately seeking to find ways of extending maturities and durations of short-term debt instruments: by reverse rolling the $3.2 trillion industry, the impetus will be precisely the reverse of what should be happening, as more ultra-short maturity instruments are horded up, leaving a dead zone in the 60-90 day maturity window. Some other proposed changes to 2a-7 include "prohibiting the funds from investing in Second Tier securities, as defined in Rule 2a-7. Eligible securities would be redefined as securities receiving only the highest, rather than the highest two, short-term debt ratings from a requisite nationally recognized securities rating organization. Further, money market funds would be permitted to acquire long-term unrated securities only if they have received long-term ratings in the highest two, rather than the highest three, ratings categories." In other words, let's make them so safe, that when the time comes, nobody will have access to them. Brilliant.

[...][M]oney markets account for a huge portion of the $11 trillion of mutual fund assets as of November (per ICI, whose opinion, incidentally, was instrumental in shaping future money market policy), $3.3 trillion to be precise, and second only to stock funds at $4.8 trillion, one can see why an administration, hell bent on recreating a stock-price bubble, would do all it can to make money markets extremely unattractive.

In fact, the current administration has been on a roll on this regard: i) keeping money market rates at record lows, ii) removing money market fund guarantees and iii) and even allowing reverse repos to use money markets as sources of liquidity (because we all know that the collateral behind the banks shadow banking arrangement with the Fed are literally crap[...]). Money Markets are the easiest recourse that idiotic class of Americans known as "savers" has to give the big bank oligarchs, the Fed and the bubble-inflating Administration the middle finger.

[...]Obviously, attempts to push capital out of MMs have succeeded: after peaking at $3.9 trillion, currently money markets hold a two year low of $3.27 trillion. Furthermore, the number of actual money market fund operations has been substantially hit: from 2,078 in the days after the Lehman implosion, this is now down to 1,828, a 12% reduction. At this rate soon there won't be all that many money market funds to chose from.

Read more at: www.joshfulton.blogspot.com

Haiti bans largest political party from elections

Sun, 10 Jan 2010 09:01:50 -0500

Canada Haiti Action Network:

THE CANADA Haiti Action Network expresses its grave concern at the November 26 decision by Haiti's Provisional Electoral Council (Conseil électoral provisoire--CEP) to exclude the Fanmi Lavalas Party from planned elections to take place on February 28, 2010. On that date, Haiti will hold elections for 98 of 99 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 10 seats of its 30-seat senate.

According to varying news reports, some 12 other political parties that had registered to participate in the election were ruled ineligible.

Thousands of Haitians staged a protest in the capital city of Port-au-Prince on December 16 against the exclusion of Fanmi Lavalas. Dr. Maryse Narcisse of the party's executive council told the Reuters news network, "There will be no election in February, there will be a selection. What the authorities are planning is really a big farce."

[...]One party approved by the CEP is the Front for National Reconstruction of the notorious paramilitary Guy Philippe. He stands indicted by a U.S. court in 2005 on charges of drug trafficking and money laundering.

This is the second time this year that the CEP has barred Fanmi Lavalas from an election. The first banning occurred in the election to 11of the 30 seats in Haiti's Senate that was held in two rounds in April and June of 2009. Following a call by Lavalas for a boycott of that election, voter turnout was less than 10 percent, perhaps as little as 2 or 3 percent. Despite the low turnout, the "elected" senators, mostly from President René Préval's electoral machine, L'Espwa, took office.

[...]MINUSTAH [UN peacekeeping force] approved of the "election" of April/June 2009, as did the United States, Canada and France. The big three countries provided $12 million to organize it. Some $15 million is earmarked for the hastily called 2010 election. The United Nations' independent expert on human rights in Haiti, Michel Forst, declared on November 30 that he was convinced the CEP had "good reasons" for its recent exclusion decisions.

Read more at: www.joshfulton.blogspot.com

Saudis fire 1400 rockets into Yemen

Sun, 10 Jan 2010 09:01:39 -0500

Grrreeeat.

Press TV:

Saudi fighter jets have launched another round of aerial bombardment of Houthi positions in northern parts of Yemen along the border with the oil-rich kingdom.

According to a statement released by the fighters on Thursday, Saudi forces carried out 13 aerial raids on Jebel al-Madood as well as villages in close proximity to the border region in northern Yemen.

The statement added that Saudi forces fired some 1400 rockets against the rugged area.

The conflict in northern Yemen began in 2004 between Sana’a and Houthi fighters. It intensified in August 2009 when the Yemeni army launched Operation Scorched Earth in an attempt to crush the fighters in the northern province of Sa’ada.

Read more at: www.joshfulton.blogspot.com

12% of minors held in government custody are sexually abused

Sun, 10 Jan 2010 09:01:12 -0500

Raw Story:

Some 12 percent of minors held in government custody are sexually abused, and in some facilities the rate reaches a stunning one in three children, says a report released Thursday by the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

The first-ever National Survey of Youth in Custody found that no less than 10 percent of the 26,550 juveniles being held in detention facilities in the US are abused by staff at the facility, while another 2.6 percent report abuse at the hands of other inmates. (Meaning abuse by the staff is 4 times as likely as abuse by the inmates)

[...]The study was mandated by a 2003 law, the National Prison Rape Elimination Act, which also created the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission.

[...]"Every day Attorney General Eric Holder fails to promulgate national prison rape elimination standards is another day in which kids and adults are being abused behind bars," Fellner said. "The attorney general already has on his desk proposed standards that reflect the best thinking and effective practices to end this widespread scourge. There is no need to reinvent the wheel or to delay moving forward." (Because they don't care. It is simply inconsequential to them)

The survey found that gay youth were at higher risk than heterosexual youth, with one in five reporting abuse at the hands of a staffer or fellow inmate. Males were more likely to report being abused than females (10.8 percent to 4.7 percent). And 95 percent of those abused by staff reported that the abuser was female (INcredible). But that number may be influenced by the fact that 91 percent of youth in custody are male. (The percent of abuse done by female guards is still higher than the percent of the population that is male)

[...]The Associated Press also notes that sex abuse by staffers was higher in state-run facilities than in privately-run or municipal detention centers, and smaller facilities appear to have lower abuse rates than larger ones.

The study investigated a 12-month period, and was carried out from June, 2008, to April, 2009. (Way to wait 5 years to get it done, boys)

Read more at: www.joshfulton.blogspot.com