What just happened to the US in the election???

[ASRG]

wilagro: that little "look what he inherited" gets a wee bit stale? Come on? He had four years to actually do something....what did he do? ZIP.
The fact is he was a lazy dog who cruised through four years playing golf and basketball!
The Republican party nominated a clown who couldn't have been elected dog catcher!

[Fransisco]

I've been reading lots about layoffs. The following is an explanation of why that I got from another website.
...

All these layoffs are because the 2014 Obamacare fines will be calculated using 2013 full-time employee numbers over 50. All these hour reductions down to 29 hours? The bill redefines "full-time" as 30 hours of work a week.

So, if you have > 50 employees and they are full-time, you as a business have to provide health-care for them or be fined up to a max of $3000 per employee. Now, health-care insurance in the US for a business costs a lot of money, generally more than the $3k/year/employee.

So, you have a few choices as a business owner in order of least to greatest cost:

1) reduce all full-time to part-time
2) reduce workforce to < 50.
3) Combination of 1. and 2. to the point where profit > cost including fines.
4) Pay $3000 fine per employee
5) Pay for health insurance.

The most expensive option for a business is going to be least taken. That means that you must net at least $3000 pure profit per FT employee just to keep them on staff. Avg margins usually sit around 8-10%, which means that to profit $1 you need to make sales of $10. The other $9 go into materials/infrastructure/bills/labour. So NET profit to pay for these new costs mean that you must have TEN TIMES the number in NEW gross sales to generate enough per employee to pay the fine. $30,000 new sales per employee.

You wonder why everyone is being laid off? That's why. Business has 60 days to figure out the math. Less if they are large businesses or union businesses that are required to give notice.

But, as we just learned, math is hard for people who have no skin in the game.

There is a lot of hate on for these smart business people for waiting until the election. Political retribution, they call it. No way Romney could have halted or killed the bill without the Senate, so that means it must have been revenge!

Back in reality what the business people were waiting for was State exemptions. That's what Romney was promising and what he could deliver on day 1 because of the previous exemptions granted by Obama. That would have given everyone time to relax and work out the kinks of Obamacare.

[Fransisco]

This is by no means an exhaustive list but in the past 48 hours, the following companies have [apparently] all announced layoffs in the USA:

- Westinghouse
- Research in Motion Ltd.
- Lightyear Network Solutions
- Providence Journal
- Hawker Beechcraft
- Boeing
- CVPH Medical Center
- US Cellular
- Commerzbank

- Iberia
- Momentive Performance Materials
- Brake Parts
- Gameforge Berlin
- Vestas Wind Systems
- Husqvarna
- ING
- Ericsson
- SRA International
- PerkinElmer
- Majestic Star Casino and Hotel
- Center for Hospice NY
- Bristol-Myers
- Lower Bucks Hospital
- Oce North America
- Corning
- United Blood Services Gulf
- Atlantic Lottery Corporation
- Welch Allyn
- Dana Holding
- Stryker
- Boston Scientific
- Medtronic
- Smith & Nephew
- Abbott Labs
- Covidien
- Kinetic Concepts
- St. Jude
- Hill Rom
- Darden Restaurants
- JANCOA
- Kroger
- Caterpillar
- Alcatel-Lucent
- Umatilla Chemical
- Rocketdyne

[wilagro]

Yes, much better to have no health care for those laborers...after all who gives a rat's ass for them anyway. They're all expendable.

Until they get a government-run health insurance plan the health insurance companies will still reap their huge profits. Obama's plan is a stupid plan as far as I can see...it guarantees the insurance companies a comfy edge.

[ColevilleH2S]

Big government, gets bigger. Yea :-(

[Fransisco]

Ahh yes, that magical "government" health care that gets paid for with nothing more than unicorn farts.

[farmaholic]

Agreed Fransisco-no such thing as free health care--anywhere.

[mustardman]

What happened in the U.S? Well when you run on a Taliban Platform don't expect good results.

Anti women
Anti education
Anti Science
Anti facts
More Weapons
Anti immigration
Voter Suppression
Religious Fundamentalism
Literal interpretation of Bible

Gee I can't imagine why they didn't Do better. lol

[chuckChuck]

Many of the northern european and nordic countries have higher taxation rates, better social programs and stronger diversified economies. Canada's "stronger" economy is largely based on growth in the oil sands. Oil executives are starting to realize that the oil sands are very expensive and other sources of oil are currently better investments. They will be cutting back on their capital spending in the oil sands.
Good social programs are a necessity in a downturn. Without some sort of support the unemployed, underemployed and unemployables have little to spend on the basics let alone any extras. Consumers make up a very large portion of the north american economies. Without social supports recessions will last longer and be much deeper and cause a whole lot of social unrest. The current recession was not caused by people not wanting to work. On the contrary most people want a living wage that can support a reasonable lifestyle. But good jobs are disappearing. The US has overspent and not collected enough revenue. You cannot have strong economies without good government that provides a fair living to all and not just a small elite who hold want to hold all the power.

[FarmRanger]

It's just too bad that neither the Democrats nor Republicans were asked/allowed to answer the hard questions on the economy, or anything else of substance. Talk about a totally superficial fluff election.
For all the Obama apologists out there, just compare the media treatment of George Bush to that of Obama regarding <b>any</b> issue. Do you think we wouldn’t have seen 24 hour coverage of the suffering from hurricane Sandy like we did with Katrina? Would the media coverage have been different if a Republican white house had ordered an American Embassy left unprotected from an Al Qaeda attack - would there still have been so little media curiosity about Benghazi. What if GWB had ordered the military overthrow of Qadaffi in Libya, or Mubarak in Egypt, to be replaced with the Muslim brotherhood? What if GWB had spent trillions of dollars of “stimulus” to bail out banks or flush money down the toilet with Republican friendly companies who declared bankruptcy soon after receiving billions of taxpayer money? What if GBW asked Congress and Senate to just trust him and vote for a 1,000 plus page health care bill without reading it? Yet when Obama does it we hear nothing.
Crickets.

The degree of double standard is astounding.
When the news media is neither objective nor fair, unaccountable politicians will become emboldened to ram through increasingly destructive policies.