Thursday, December 02, 2010
Well whaddyathinkofthat?
Hey, how about someone in D.C. decides that middle America is too big to fail for a change?
Financial Times:
European banks took big slice of Fed aid
By Robin Harding and Tom Braithwaite in Washington and Francesco Guerrera in New York
Published: December 1 2010 17:30
Foreign banks were among the biggest beneficiaries of the $3,300bn in emergency credit provided by the Federal Reserve during the crisis, according to new data on the extraordinary efforts of the US authorities to save the global financial system.
The revelation of the scale of overseas lenders’ borrowing underlines the global nature of the turmoil and the crucial role of the Fed as the lender of last resort for the world’s banking sector.
However, news that banks such as Barclays of the UK, Switzerland’s UBS and Dexia of Belgium borrowed billions of dollars at favourable terms from the US government may further anger critics already enraged about the Fed’s bail-out of Wall Street.
the rest here
CNBC:
US Ready to Back Bigger EU Stability Fund: Official
The United States would be ready to support the extension of the European Financial Stability Facility via an extra commitment of money from the International Monetary Fund, a U.S. official told Reuters on Wednesday.
"There are a lot of people talking about that. I think the European Commission has talked about that," said the U.S. official, commenting on enlarging the 750 billion euro ($980 billion) EU/IMF European stability fund. "It is up to the Europeans. We will certainly support using the IMF in these circumstances."
"There are obviously some severe market problems," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "In May, it was Greece. This is Ireland and Portugal. If there is contagion that's a huge problem for the global economy."
The remarks foreshadow a visit to Europe this week by a U.S. Treasury envoy who is expected to visit Berlin, Madrid and Paris to hold talks on the ramifications of the debt crisis.
(Another news report, however, raised questions about the true extent of the US commitment. Read more here).
The developments have echoes of the pressure applied by Washington on European capitals last May to create the near $1 trillion EFSF safety net that was last week used to rescue Ireland after its banking crisis spiraled out of control.
The IMF, whose biggest single shareholder is the United States, has committed 250 billion euros to the EFSF.
While reluctant to dictate to Europe how it should address the unfolding debt crisis, the U.S. government is growing concerned about the global fallout of Europe's predicament.
U.S. Treasurys' prices fell and the euro strengthened against the dollar on Wednesday after the news that the United States would be prepared to support an enlarged EFSF.
Germany, whose leaders have expressed frustration at the market backlash against their plans to solve the euro zone's debt problems, does not want to make the stability fund larger.
Yahoo:
Fed ID's companies that used crisis aid programs
By JEANNINE AVERSA, AP Economics Writer Jeannine Aversa, Ap Economics Writer – 1 hr 11 mins ago
WASHINGTON – The Federal Reserve revealed details Wednesday of trillions of dollars in emergency aid it provided to U.S. and foreign banks during the financial crisis.
New documents show that the most loan and other aid for U.S. institutions over time went to Citigroup ($2.2 trillion), followed by Merrill Lynch ($2.1 trillion), Morgan Stanley ($2 trillion), Bear Stearns ($960 billion), Bank of America ($887 billion), Goldman Sachs ($615 billion), JPMorgan Chase ($178 billion) and Wells Fargo ($154 billion).
Merrill Lynch was later acquired by Bank of America, while Bear Stearns collapsed and was sold to JPMorgan.
Foreign banks also benefited from the Fed's aid. They included Swiss bank UBS, which borrowed more than $165 billion, Deutsche Bank ($97 billion) and the Royal Bank of Scotland ($92 billion).
Many of the individual loans the banks took were worth billions and had short durations but were paid back and renewed many times.
Among the largest recipients were foreign central banks, such as the European Central Bank, Bank of England and the Bank of Japan. They borrowed huge amounts of dollars from the Fed to assist their own banks.
The documents are a reminder of how crippled the financial system had become during the crisis and how much it's recovered since. Banks earned $14 billion from July through September this year.
The Fed released the data in the form of more than 21,000 transactions. The disclosures are required under the financial overhaul law. The Fed's programs were credited with helping restore the health of individual banks and stabilize the financial system.
The documents disclosed details of more than $3.3 trillion in loans to financial institutions, companies and foreign central banks during the crisis. The figure comes from adding up the maximum amount of aid provided for each of the Fed's credit programs.
The Fed detailed more than $2 trillion it lent through eight programs from December 2007 to July this year to ease a credit crisis. It came at a time when the financial crisis had caused credit to virtually dry up, sidelining companies and municipalities in need of short-term cash. The credit clog worsened the deepest recession since the Great Depression.
"The system basically failed because banks stopped lending to each other," said Paul Miller, a banking analyst at FBR Capital Markets. "After Lehman failed ... the Fed essentially opened the floodgates and pushed as much liquidity into the system as possible. And it worked. It helped stabilize the system."
The emergency credit programs had never been used before and are now defunct. Most of the loans have been repaid, and none are overdue, Fed officials say.
The Fed also detailed the $1.25 trillion in mortgage securities it bought from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to help drive down mortgage rates, ease credit and provide some support to the crippled housing market.
In addition, the Fed disclosed details of "swap" arrangements with foreign central banks. These occurred when the Fed traded much-in-demand dollars for foreign currencies to try to ease credit. The foreign central banks, in turn, lent the dollars to banks in their countries that needed dollar funding. The Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, the European Central Bank, the Swiss National Bank and the Bank of Japan were involved in the exchanges.
One of the emergency lending programs the Fed created provided low-cost, short-term loans to banks. Another sought to ease credit problems in the "commercial paper" market, which many U.S. companies use to finance everything from salaries to supplies.
Another was designed to spark low-cost lending to consumers and small businesses. Investors used the Fed's loans to buy securities backed by auto loans, credit cards and other debt.
Big U.S. and foreign banks made repeated use of the programs. Bank of America, for instance, took out 14 loans worth $15 billion each under the Fed program that provided short-term loans. The loans were repaid after either one month or three months. The last was repaid by July 2009.
Barclays, a British bank, tapped the same facility 49 times. Its individual loans ranged from $300 million to $15 billion. Citigroup used the program 26 times.
The documents help illustrate the global scope of the crisis. The Federal Reserve provided credit lines to some of the largest central banks overseas: The European Central Bank took $8 trillion in temporary credit lines, while the Bank of England took $918 billion. That credit ensured that overseas markets wouldn't freeze for a lack of U.S. dollars, the global reserve currency.
"There's very much a sense from the data that the Federal Reserve was not just providing liquidity to U.S. banks but was creating stability for the entire world's financial system," said Linus Wilson, assistant professor of finance at the University of Louisiana, who has studied the financial crisis.
Large non-banking companies in the U.S. used the Fed's lending programs, too, the documents show. They did so to meet immediate payments such as payroll or payments to suppliers, because private financing had all but evaporated. General Electric borrowed more than $16 billion, Harley-Davidson Inc. borrowed $2.3 billion and a group of independent Caterpillar Inc. dealers borrowed $733 million.
Two other recipients were the California State Teachers Retirement System and the City of Bristol (Conn.) General City Retirement Fund.
But the emergency aid that was extended to banks and Wall Street rankled many ordinary Americans who weren't getting any help in their struggles with high unemployment, rising foreclosures and sagging home values. And many expressed anger toward banks and Wall Street for lax lending and for taking risky gambles that contributed to the crisis.
Much of the information the Fed is disclosing is similar to what would be required under a court case that a group of commercial banks is appealing to the Supreme Court
The Fed didn't take part in that appeal. What the court case could require — but the Fed isn't providing Wednesday — are the names of commercial banks that got low-cost emergency loans from the Fed's "discount window" during the crisis.
The Fed has long acted as a lender of last resort, offering commercial banks loans through its discount window when they couldn't obtain financing elsewhere. The Fed has kept secret the identities of such borrowers. It's expressed fear that naming such a bank could cause a run on it, defeating the purpose of the program.
The Fed didn't oppose releasing the information being disclosed Wednesday.
But the new financial overhaul law will require the Fed in late 2012 to provide information on any commercial banks that are drawing emergency loans from its discount window now. That doesn't include banks that drew loans from the discount window during the 2007-2009 financial crisis.
Wednesday, December 01, 2010
Another Christmas
My best friend's father died this morning, lost his fight with Alzheimers. But he was more than just my best friend's father. He was a friend to me, a man I've known for 33 years.
Frank was an old Polack and a World War II veteran, enlisting in the Navy at 16, lying about is age. He served aboard a destroyer (I don't know which) that patrolled the Marianas during the Battle of the Phillipine Sea and the Mariana's Turkey Shoot.
And in the early 70's, at a time it was largely unheard of, he chose to raise his son and daughter as a single father when the mother abandoned them.
Na zdrowie, Frank.
Polish American String Band
who will be our modern patton
Who is our next Patton?
from an e-mailer
VISUALIZE GENERAL GEORGE PATTON ADDRESSING EVERYONE TODAY AS OUTLINED BELOW……..
What Patton would have said…
This is how General George S. Patton would sum things up….and then catch holy hell from Ike.
He sure had a unique way of expressing his thoughts.
ATTENTION!
To ALL those whining, panty-waisted, pathetic Citizens, it’s time for a little refresher course on exactly why we Americans occasionally have to fight wars to keep this nation great.
See if you can tear yourself away from your”reality” TV and Starbucks for a minute, pull your head out of your ass — and LISTEN UP!!
Abu Ghraib is not “torture” or an “atrocity.”
Got that ?
THIS IS an atrocity!
WHICH PART DON’T YOU GET?
So Was This!!!
Islam is a religion of peace?
My Ass!
Millions of these warped misled sons-of-bitches are plotting, as we speak, to destroy our country and our way of life any way they can.
Some of them are here among us now.
Eliminating Evidence?
Fire was intentionally set at Islamic Center in Corvallis where alleged bomb plot suspect attended
They don’t want to convert you and don’t want to rule you. They believe you are a vile infestation of Allah’s paradise. They don’t give a shit how “progressive” you are, how peace-loving you are, or how much you sympathize with their cause.
They want your ass dead, and they think it is God’s will for them to do it.
Some think if we give them a hug or listen to them, then they’ll like us, and if you agree -
Then you are a pathetic dumb ass!
If they manage to get their hands on a nuke, chemical agents, or even some anthrax — you will wish to God we had hunted them down and killed THEM while we had the chance.
How many more Americans must be beheaded?
You’ve fallen asleep AGAIN – get your head out of your ass!
You may never get another chance!
NOW GET OFF YOUR SORRY ASS
and pass this on to any and every person you give a-damn about – if you ever gave a damn about anything!
DISMISSED!
Sheikh Qaradawi (Ground Zero Mosque Imam's Inspirational Guiding Light) Says, No Relations Between Christian and Muslim World
From the Financial Times:
During a recent Friday sermon, Sheikh Yusef al-Qaradawi, arguably the world’s leading scholar of Sunni Islam, uttered a few words that drew little notice internationally but could have big implications for future relations between Christians and Muslims.
“I was for the possibility of bridging the gap between the east and the west but recently I have changed my mind on this issue, especially since the west wants to impose its values and traditions on us,” Mr Qaradawi told his congregation at Doha’s Omar bin Al Khattab Mosque in a televised sermon in October.
“West is west and east is east. They do not recognise or follow our traditions and customs, so we should not follow theirs,” Mr Qaradawi said, echoing Rudyard Kipling, the British author.
Mr Qaradawi, 84, emigrated to Qatar in 1961 to avoid persecution in his native Egypt. His many fatwas, or religious decisions, are passed on to millions of Muslims worldwide via his long-running Al Jazeera talk show and Islam Online, a website. In 2008, Foreign Policy magazine ranked him the world’s third most influential intellectual.
Rest here>>>
Obama Reversing Position on Offshore Drilling, For Next 7 Years No New Drilling in Gulf of Mexico, The Atlantic and Pacific Coasts
If Obama really were purposefully trying to make America a pathetic waste of a once-great Nation, would he be doing anything differently?
Some Midday Humpday Blues for Our Burgeoning Wreckovery
Gimme Some Boone's Farm
Humbug
Meanwhile, when what needs to be addressed are the tax cuts, job creation and getting a budget in place for the fiscal year we are already 2 months into instead the Senate and House are dicking around with an unnecessary food safety bill which would give the FDA even more authority. And they even fucked that up (which is a good thing).
Some idiot of Fox yesterday was talking about the recovery being underway. That it's underway not because things are improving but because the downward spiral has now hit bottom. And then he said for every job available there are 5 people available for it. But what are those jobs? Checkout clerks? Grocery baggers? Burger flippers? French Fryers? When you'd been making 60 or 80 or 100K?
That's a recovery?
Never worry never fear our Vacationer In Chief is here.
This is the second Christmas season I'm out of work. The third that either my wife or I are out of work. No Christmas lights or decorations beyond a tree. Our annual Christmas Eve family get together for the entire family (30 people) is now being funded in part by my mom and a few others. Gifts for no one except our daughters. And those much smaller than ever. The nieces nephews godchildren will have to suffice with a candy cane.
And we're in far better shape than many many others around this country. Until January, anyway, when my benefits expire.
But it's hard for me to believe that when my twelve year old looks ate me with a little bit of worry and panic (she's none too good at hiding it) and asks if we are going to lose the house, (the only one she has ever known). Is the bank going to foreclose on it? (She's heard some of the blowouts I've had with Citibank).
So you'll understand when I say my TeeVee and computer are in danger these days.
Because if I see or hear one more fucking well-heeled talking head or political pissant nitwit patronize about how Americans are hurting Americans are in pain and all we're doing is talking about it (when they're doing just that) I'm going to put a brick or a bullet through the screen.
Newsmax:
2 Million Lose Jobless Benefits as Holidays Arrive
Wednesday, 01 Dec 2010
Extended unemployment benefits for nearly 2 million Americans begin to run out Wednesday, cutting off a steady stream of income and guaranteeing a dismal holiday season for people already struggling with bills they cannot pay.
Unless Congress changes its mind, benefits that had been extended up to 99 weeks will end this month.
That means Christmas is out of the question for Wayne Pittman, 46, of Lawrenceville, Ga., and his wife and 9-year-old son. The carpenter was working up to 80 hours a week at the beginning of the decade, but saw that gradually drop to 15 hours before it dried up completely. His last $297 check will go to necessities, not presents.
"I have a little boy, and that's kind of hard to explain to him," Pittman said.
The average weekly unemployment benefit in the U.S. is $302.90, though it varies widely depending on how states calculate the payment. Because of supplemental state programs and other factors, it's hard to know for sure who will lose their benefits at any given time. But the Labor Department estimates that, without a Congress-approved extension, about 2 million people will be cut off by Christmas.
Congressional opponents of extending the benefits beyond this month say fiscal responsibility should come first. Republicans in the House and Senate, along with a handful of conservative Democrats, say they're open to extending benefits, but not if it means adding to the $13.8 trillion national debt.
Even if Congress does lengthen benefits, cash assistance is at best a stopgap measure, said Carol Hardison, executive director of Crisis Assistance Ministry in Charlotte, N.C., which has seen 20,000 new clients since the Great Recession started in December 2007.
"We're going to have to have a new conversation with the people who are still suffering, about the potentially drastic changes they're going to have to make to stay out of the homeless shelter," she said.
Forget Christmas presents. What the so-called "99ers" want most of all is what remains elusive in the worst economy in generations: a job.
"I am not searching for a job, I am begging for one," said Felicia Robbins, 30, as she prepared to move out of a homeless shelter in Pensacola, Fla., where she and her five children have been living. She is using the last of her cash reserves, about $500, to move into a small, unfurnished rental home.
Robbins lost her job as a juvenile justice worker in 2009 and her last $235 unemployment check will arrive Dec. 13. Her 10-year-old car isn't running, and she walks each day to the local unemployment office to look for work.
Jeanne Reinman, 61, of Greenville, S.C., still has her house, but even that comes with a downside.
After losing her computer design job a year and a half ago, Reinman scraped by with her savings and a weekly $351 unemployment check. When her nest egg vanished in July, she started using her unemployment to pay off her mortgage and stopped paying her credit card bills. She recently informed a creditor she couldn't make payments on a loan because her benefits were ending.
"I'm more concerned about trying to hang onto my house than paying you," she told the creditor.
Ninety-nine weeks may seem like a long time to find a job. But even as the economy grows, jobs that vanished in the Great Recession have not returned. The private sector added about 159,000 jobs in October — half as many as needed to reduce the unemployment rate of 9.6 percent, which the Federal Reserve expects will hover around 9 percent for all of next year.
"I apply for at least two jobs a day," said Silvia Lewis, of Nashville, Tenn., who's also drained her 401(k) and most of her other savings. "The constant thing that I hear, and a lot of my friends are in the same boat, is that you're overqualified."
JoAnn Sampson of Charlotte hears the same thing. A former cart driver at U.S. Airways, she and her husband are both facing the end of unemployment benefits, and she can't get so much as an entry-level job.
"When you try to apply for retail or fast food, they say 'You're overqualified,' they say 'We don't pay that much money,' they say, 'You don't want this job,'" she said.
Sampson counts her blessings: At least her two children, a teenager and a college student, are too old to expect much from Christmas this year.
Shawn Slonsky's three children aren't expecting much either. The 44-year-old union electrician in northeast Ohio won't be able to afford presents or even a Christmas tree.
His sons and daughter haven't bothered to send him holiday wish lists with the latest gizmos and gadgets.
Things used to be different. Before work dried up, Slonsky earned about $100,000 a year and he and his wife lived in a three-bedroom house where deer meandered through the backyard. For Christmas, he bought his aspiring doctor daughter medical books, a guitar, a unicycle.
Then he and his wife lost their jobs. Their house went into foreclosure and they had to move in with his 73-year-old father.
Now, Slonsky is dreading the holidays as he tries to stretch his last unemployment check to cover child support, gas, groceries and utilities.
"You don't even get in the frame of mind for Christmas when things are bad," he said. "It's hard to be in a jovial mood all the time when you've got this storm cloud hanging over your head."
U.S. condemns Palestinian report claiming Western Wall is an Islamic Waqf
In a highly unusual and completely unexpected move, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley even went as far as calling it "factually incorrect, insensitive and highly provocative".
Click on the title to read the whole story at Eye on the World.
The Ghost of the Moderate Muslim
I often-times hear that the people that carry out violent attacks against the West, the people “that claim that they’re Muslims but actually just misunderstand the peaceful religion of Islam” are in the minutest of minorities. They, in fact, are so few, people tell me, that you can count them on your fingers. That the vast majority of Muslims is peace-loving, infidel-liking and they are some of the most stand-up people of our societies. Hell, they even serve in the military!
There are a couple of things that are very irritating about all of this. First, people that feel the need to say “Islam is a religion of peace” every time they mention this godforsaken religion either have no idea about Islam or they feel the need to protect Islam while Muslim terrorists carry out their attacks in accordance with the violent commands in the Quran. Second, if you ask them how they know that the vast majority is peace-loving, they say, “well, there are 1.5 billion Muslims…” (actually there are 1.2 billion. Muslims like bloated figures because it gives them a sense of power) “…you don’t see all of them killing or trying to kill non-Muslims”. It is true. Not all Muslims, heck, not even the majority of the Muslims are seen out killing people. But does that prove that they’re peace-loving? Not by a long-shot.
Consider this example: If I wanted my business rival dead (I don’t have one, but just consider it for a moment) I would most probably not want to kill him/her myself. I would hire an assassin. Why? Because I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in prison. Does that mean I am peace-loving when I clearly support the killing of another human being? No, of course not. All that says is that I am party to someone’s murder and hence as guilty, if not more, as the person that actually carries out violent attacks.
Consider another example: If my brother is planning on carrying out an attack on a Western embassy and I have full knowledge about it yet I don’t do anything to stop my brother. In fact, instead of stopping him, I am providing him with the funds to buy the bombs and whatever else he would need. Along with all that, I am also praying for his safety and protecting him in case anyone asks about what he’s up to lately. I don’t ever take part, physically, in any of this, I just support him with words, at times with silence, funds etc etc. Am I not party to it just as much? I mean, who here fails to see that I am involved and support what he’s doing?
How does this relate with the moderate Muslim discussion? Because I know, and I hope others know too that there is no MODERATE MUSLIM out there. I can tell you from personal experience that every single Muslim that I have ever met (and that is a lot of Muslims, I have lived all my life in 3 of the most Muslim countries in the world) supports terrorists (whom they regard as Mujahids, or fighters in the way of Allah). There are many that go on about their daily lives, not ever worrying about killing infidels but they always support these movements in one way or another. Mostly it is done through funds that are given to charity organizations that have those posters saying “For the freedom of Palestine” or something to that effect.
My family loves Islam, Allah and Mohammed. Yet they have never killed an infidel. I know its surprising but they haven’t killed a single one. They even have friends here that are Christians, Hindus, Buddhists etc (not a Jew though, that’s just too much). Do you think they are all out in love with infidels? No! That would be preposterous. And also do you think whenever they meet their “friends” they say, “Hello, I want to kill you!” Again, No! They believe in every word of the Quran as directly from the Almighty (not) Allah. Yet they don’t kill infidels (even though the Quran commands them to). Why not? Because they also want to be part of the society, its that simple. But does that mean they think it ideal, having to live with infidels and deal with them on an equal level or would they prefer to be in power one day just for the fact that they’re Muslims and have a free hand over infidels? Well, they would like the latter a lot. How do I know that? Because I have been part of that kinda discussions a lot.
Muslims are moderate only in public. Behind closed doors they want power, and they want control over infidels. They would never tell on their jihadist brethren because they feel that bond. That bond as though you are family. You never tell on your brother, and you never betray family. And since Muslims are all family, you stand up for each other and lie for each other. That is why they never condemn terrorism. It never perplexes me the way it does some in the west why Muslims don’t come out to condemn terrorism. They don’t because they got nothing against it and in the end it will work out in their favor anyway because if Muslims are in power, Muslims have a higher status as humans than infidels…plain and simple.
So called moderate Muslims are also important for Islam. How do you think these jihadists are going to make money if all Muslims pick up arms and start attacking the West? How are they going to buy arms in the first place? It’s the moderate Muslims. The ones that are such an integral part of your society that provide them with funds to buy guns and bombs. Those nice Muslims that even join the army (!) get paid by your government and then send part of that salary to their jihadist brethren to blow the government officials and their “fellow” citizens to bits. It makes sense that way. They would never come out and cry out against Jihad. It is a part of their religion and their religion is more important than anything else in the world and the hereafter.
And don’t give me that bullcrap about them being afraid for their lives and crap. I am always afraid for my life, yet I take action against Islam the best I can. My wife and I don’t even buy stuff made in the middle east because we know that each product sold means more money to Hamas and Hezbollah and Al Qaida. I speak up. Even though its on blogs and one on one conversations, I speak up against the evil of Islam. If a Muslim’s life is threatened than mine, who used to be a Muslim and now isn’t, is threatened a million times more. People that think we should give Muslims a break should shut the heck up because they have no idea what they’re talking about.
I remember 9/11 very vividly. Mostly because I still hate my reaction to it. I was a Muslim back then and didn’t know any better. But I also remember the reactions of others around me. Imam and normal, clean-shaven Muslim alike. They all celebrated the death of over 3000 innocent people. There is no moderate Muslim. They all believe in Islam and they all believe in achieving the supremacy for Islam. Whether they carry out action themselves or help others do it (and most of them help others, financially or in prayers or other ways), they are equally responsible.
Violation Of Rules On The House Floor
“There's nothing about -- because it's all rigged," Bennet said. "I mean, the whole conversation is rigged. The fact that we don’t get to a discussion before the break about what we’re going to do in the lame duck -- is just rigged. This stuff’s rigged.”
How do we deal with these weasels on Capitol Hill?
Obamacare Constitutional? Federal Judge Rules Against Virginia's Challenge To Individual Mandate
Am I the only one who is noticing that our government has stepped way beyond the line, way beyond what the British government did to those who started the American Revolution?
Here's my individual mandate: The government will not tell me what to do with regard to my body. My body is mine. It does not belong to the government.
From the Hill:
(The Hill)- A federal judge in Virginia on Tuesday rejected a legal challenge to the healthcare reform law, the second time the law’s mandate that people buy insurance has been ruled constitutional.
The lawsuit was brought by Liberty University, which also argued that the law violates the First Amendment by requiring people to buy insurance that could cover abortions.
“I hold that there is a rational basis for Congress to conclude that individuals’ decisions about how and when to pay for health care are activities that in the aggregate substantially affect the interstate health care market,” ruled U.S. District Judge Norman Moon, a Clinton appointee.
“Nearly everyone will require health care services at some point in their lifetimes, and it is not always possible to predict when one will be afflicted by illness or injury and require care.
“Far from ‘inactivity,’ by choosing to forgo insurance, Plaintiffs are making an economic decision to try to pay for health care services later, out of pocket, rather than now, through the purchase of insurance. As Congress found, the total incidence of these economic decisions has a substantial impact on the national market for health care by collectively shifting billions of dollars on to other market participants and driving up the prices of insurance policies.”
A federal judge in Michigan ruled the same way last month. And in August, a California federal judge rejected a similar lawsuit on the grounds that the plaintiffs had no standing.
Infidel Babe of the Week
Endangered Species
Pastorius cutting in:
Oh my God, this woman is beautiful, and very talented. My heart is all a-pitter and a-patter.
