Oh goody, yet another Trump billionaire alligator thrown into the swamp!
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Low information voters are âlow informationâ for a reason: they never read anything. So they will continue to be âlow informationâ and abysmally ignorant.
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remind me that trump voters were tired of the country run by wealthy elites.
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There are two ways for the âlittle guyâ to get ahead with this administration, it is too grab all the torches and pitchforks and the other is control the tar and feather market. Whoâs in?
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As near as I can see, we still have the good billionaires.
In the Trump administration, what criteria will be used to distinguish between âadvisorsâ and âspecial advisorsâ?
a) net worth
b) the number of companies theyâve broken up and killed
c) the number of jobs theyâve cut and people theyâve made unemployed
d) the total number of average Americans theyâve fucked over in whatever way
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I looked into the COLAs after I asked my dad to explain his comment that âObama thinks old people should just go away and die.â The only two things he could come up with (I kid you not) were that his health insurance premiums were rising and that his civil-service retirement âhasnât had a COLA in 3 yearsâ.
I dismissed the health insurance premium complaint, because it has been happening for all age groups for many decades, and because Obamacare actually shifted a portion of the insurance premium burden from older people to younger.
A quick search found that the COLAs are based on a formula set up decades ago, and use one of the several government indexes of consumer inflation (CPI-W, created by the BLS). The 2017 COLA rate is based on the change in the average CPI-W for the Apr-Jun quarter* from 2015 to 2016. Needless to say, Obama had nothing to do with setting the COLA rate. The lag between the comparison period and the issuance of payments reflecting the new rate makes the COLAs appear somewhat random. There were several sharp moves in energy prices during the Obama years that heavily influenced the COLA rates. The times my father got zero COLA (only 2 years in a row, I found, not 3) were periods that followed big drops in oil prices. Basically, he got cheaper fill-ups for the RV instead of slightly larger retirement payments.
*The period compared is the âthird quarter of the yearâ. That would be Apr-Jun, if they are using the fiscal year, or Jul-Sept if they use the calendar year. I didnât need to know which, so I didnât keep looking.
If you are on Social Security, they wonât increase your Medicare premium by more than the amount of the increase of your SS check. This is called the âhold harmlessâ provision. If your SS check was flat, it means you got a break on your Medicare premium. You can be certain that Ryanâs fake Medicare wonât offer anything like the hold harmless benefit.
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Fox guarding the hen house, seems to me.
No slight to you intended, silvrfoĂ!
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Whatâs the old saying? Something about, uh, foxes and, umm, henhouses.
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Having taught 1st year medical students I can forgive ignorance but not willful and deliberate ignorance or out right deliberate laziness.
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Because Billionaires are such good stewards of the middle class.
Rube Nation
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My point was (if I can remember) that trumpsters are in for a surprise when the face the reality of disappearing insurance a livable retirement and/or what they thought they were voting for not being what the reality is. Thise voters got snookered as did the rest of us because he won.
Itâs not gonna be pretty.
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Iâve understood without being able to explain it to someone that the fact that the benefit does not rise is a good thing, as you say, partly driven by drops in oil prices among other factors. The cost of Medicare is still affordable for me, and with any luck the âaffordableâ part will never be wiped out of my vocabulary.
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Ivan Boesky is said to be interested in being an advisor to Trump and those administering his Blind Pig Trust.
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Contrasting collars are back, not only on Kudlow. 1980s all over again!
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Medicare is by far the most efficient, cost-effective way to deliver medical care to people. It can be improved â allowing Medicare to bargain on drug prices, for one thing â but it is light years better than what any insurance company can deliver, especially for profit insurance companies.
I think we can now replace the phrase âfox guarding the hen houseâ with âIchan picking the SEC Headâ, as it so much more apt, going forward.
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Icahn bailed him out of his last Atlantic City disaster, which closed in November, most likely a big tax loss write-off for Icahn. About 1,000 jobs are gone and thereâs another hulking empty high rise in Atlantic City with the dirt marks of the letters TRUMP on the walls.
But Trumpâs proud that he took a lot of money out of Atlantic City, so itâs all good.
Count your fingers after you shake hands with Donald Trump.
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Manson is a fan of Donald Trump.