Mitt Romney, the GOP, Libertarian Philosophy all equal tooth fairy Economics

Are you laughing because your boy lost?

 

That is right. I don't see either party, as a party standing up for small businesses. SMB's are so varied and in every industry. Best thing that can occur is if overall demand picks up. And it has, albeit slowly since the depth of the recession.

I do subscribe to faster better economic recovery by revenue "distribution" more to those who need it than those who don't. The current GOP philosophy is to move income to those who don't need it. The Centrist Dems are for moving income to the 50,60,70, 80% who could better use it, need it, spend it into the economy and thus increase demand.

As to health insurance, lets see. I've read all sorts of reports. But first on our smbs. We have 7 small ones. They are each independent. Each has less than 50 employees. Some have health coverage as a benefit and some don't. The ones that are more profitable have health insurance. Of those one tends to have older employers with more expensive insurance. It is more costly on the employer contribution side. Of course business contribution to health care coverage costs something. The majority of people in the US with health insurance get it through employers. If there are roughly 45 million w/out health insurance that means about 250 million with health insurance. The majority is already through employer insurers and then secondarily through gov programs, most of which is for the elderly or infirm or hurting of some sort. (medicare/medicaid)

Here is what I've read with regard to employer coverage topics.

One thing corporations are doing is putting a cap on salary increases but increasing corporate contributions to health insurance. On the other hand I've seen very wealthy profitable companies cutting on coverage, health benefits, and in place retirement benefits. You know who was doing that? Pipeline companies, primarily owned by Right Wing GOP supporters. Damned generous "hirer's aren't they? Pipeline companies are among the most profitable of any industry as their revenues per employee are the highest of any industry.

On smaller businesses we will see. For our smb's salaries are the highest cost, regardless of what they do. They are all services, versus selling a product wherein we buy something for say $0.50 and resell it for $1.00. We don't have businesses with heavy costs on the inventory side. Our salaries include different types of benefits, on top of our paying employer social security contribution.

The ability to cover all costs is a function of profitability. I think if you dig deep into a lot of the future turmoil with regard to health insurance for the small to mid size smb's with 50+ employees you will find some d!ck head employers who treat employees like slaves, not unlike the couple who were discovered to have written their employees and threatened them about the vote.

The thing is you/we will never know all the things that go on inside a privately owned business with regard to finance. You can only guess. Before we looked at that Ikea situation I did the following: I looked at the salaries of the US factory workers and the prices of the stuff they were manufacturing and selling. Then I went to Sweden, which reported what their Ikea factory workers were earning and looked at the price of the same things for sale in Sweden. I used a then standardized formula for comparing US dollars and Swedish currency.

In the US, just knowing cost of sales and cost of employees...you could see Ikea was making more money per thing sold in the US than in Sweden. On top of that the US bosses were abusing, threatening, and jerking around the employees. I couldn't see everything inside the Ikea finances. Nobody except their inside finance people see that, and since its a privately owned company only various tax entities see some of their summary finances.

The point is, a company can make a lot of claims, but you don't know what is true or not, you can only guess or at best educated estimates. I'm betting a lot of the whiners on health care are the same people whining about other Right Wing stuff. It may be a lot of hot air.

We'll see.

 

@Earl: I agree that no party is the party of small business. This is exactly where the Tea Party came from, and why the Republican party is still going through reform.

You don't seem as elated as I thought you might be this morning. I personally feel pretty good. Much like you, I will make money regardless of the administration in power. If you think California is left wing, try Central America.

To me, it was the poor and the young who lost in this election, and they helped make it happen. The winners were big banks, big corporations, and Democratic political bundlers. It reminds me a bit of a health satisfaction survey conducted across the nations of the world. The US placed number 38, after Costa Rica. I can tell you from first hand experience, those hospitals are filthy with under trained doctors, where patients are more likely to die from a secondary infection than the affliction for which they decided to seek out health care. Despite all that, on the satisfaction survey, they say they are happier with their health care than Americans are with theirs. For us to score higher on these tests, all we need to do is lower everyone's standards. The process is already well under way.

 

No.


Very scared for America and the further hurting Obama can put on the country. Time will tell.

 

Anyone notice the DJIA sell off today? 319 points down as of right now. I guess Wall St. isn't seeing the bright economic hope in Obama's reelection.

 

@EarlPearl

It seems like you're dismissing that it's a burden to require businesses to provide health insurance to full-time employees. Many businesses have flat out said they plan to reduce hours and/or only hire part-time workers. It sounds like you just believe they're just saying that. To me, I can totally see that happening. The government has made this requirement. Businesses that are trying to squeeze out a profit are going to try to get around it. They can easily. Just change full-time workers (40 hrs) and make them just under full-time (30 hrs). Or, hire part-time. For many, it's tight in this economy. The lost money is going to come from somewhere. Not only will they not get health insurance, they will have reduced hours. The turnover may be a little higher. Not that much. It's a bad economy with high unemployment. They probably wouldn't do that at the type of job you qualify for. Yet, it would be common in jobs that are typically taken by the lower middle class or working poor.

 

@Rebecca: I'd like to see wide spread analysis on hard costs. We have a couple of different policies. 2 are expensive, but salaries are also higher. It works. But deep down we always work hard on profitability.

One is less expensive. In all cases for those businesses we had enough profitability to take on health care.

I know it will hit certain businesses. If you have a sort of marginally profitable restaurant chain or retail chain with a lot of part time employees and/or relatively low paid full time employees and profitability is tight it will hurt. Businesses running on low profitability and lower salaried employees will get hit. Some will get hit, others won't. Not arguing with that. Frankly, the one's with low profitability are never going to be huge sources of hiring. On the other hand the health care act has some fed help for certain firms.

It is complicated, and what it will do is increase costs in some places but it will decrease costs in others on a grand scale. If a lot of people who were using hospitals without healthcare are reduced that will end up in savings elsewhere.

Maybe the best answer to this future situation comes out of Massachusetts which probably has some experience in exactly what you are worried about. Was health care responsible for not for causing people to lose jobs. I never read about that, and after all Mitt Romney told us the process worked in Massachusetts.

I will say this, for a small smb, buying health care is an additional burden into an area in which most owners are inexperienced. There are going to be many resources to help/guide/cheat employers in trying to deal with it though, as with every other service.

@O-Nation: I'm elated. Would you enjoy it if I went around to a lot of your old posts and updated them with YOU WERE WRONG new posts in those threads???? If I have the time, and feel like gloating I might do that.

 

Have at it . I'm not above admitting I am wrong when I am. In most cases where there is doubt, I plan for that exact eventuality.

 

@Rebecca:

I don't discount your comments. As a business person when faced with higher costs its a challenge and a problem. There are revenues, and there are costs. The trick is in bringing in more money than you are spending.

The only possible hard facts that can deal with the issue is the case with Massachusetts.

To tell the truth I tried to find data one way or the other, but couldnt' decipher hard information:

Here are some links to try and look at this stuff:

A review of Romney Care: https://www.mahealthconnector.org/p...form/Overview/BlueCrossFoundation5YearRpt.pdf

Page 14 describes the summary impact of smb's that weren't abiding by the law. Very few weren't. Those that weren't, for the most part were restaurants. By implication or specifically both you and I referenced that type of business.

I don't want to read the specifics of health care for employees unless I have to. Its a bear. But, having done so it is as doable as every other facet of an smb with which I have not been familiar.

The above report referenced some cost numbers for smb's per employee. Some of them are in the $hundreds of dollars per employee. Hey look if you can find some kind of health care as a small smb that is in that range...that is not going to put the business out of work and really shouldn't mean cuts in employment.

but I'd have to study that stuff in detail. We don't run restaurants and we aren't in Massachusetts. I don't know all the specifics.

The second data as to whether or not it affected employment would come from state wide employment data such as :http://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet

Check out Massachusetts. It might be hard to figure out though. Romney left office at the beginning of January 2007. Romneycare was going into effect. Then the nationwide mass firings started occurring during 2008.

Probably too much overlap to get a good overall perspective on the impact. That only leaves anecdotal evidence.

As an employer I'll say this and with all the smb's being services: The number one cost and the number one resource of these little businesses are the people. Nothing else comes close. When they are good we thrive, when they are bad, we do poorly and have to fire them. When they start we have to "coach em up" to ensure they are good.

Other things change. Market conditions and competition changes things all the time. But because the people are the number one resource when we have to cut expenses we'll find all sorts of other things before we cut or layoff or limit hours of people.

Ruthless employers act and think differently. Ikea's factory in Danville Va, which we looked at last year, purposefully harrassed its employees to cause turnover and keep their salaries low. If all you looked at were salaries and costs of goods manufactured that factory HAD to be more profitable than a similar factory in Sweden...and it had to be working because it was operating on overtime.

If you want to be a d!ckhead of an employer I'm sure you'll complain about the costs of employee insurance if you are required to pick it up. I'm also sure there will be some cases where it will be a serious burden.

The overall perspective from the Massachusetts data does not give us a clear picture yet...but there is nothing to suggest mass layoffs or huge business failures because of the law.

 

I just read an article on the HuffPost about Obamacare. They keep bringing up Romney too. They said, "The Massachusetts health reform law, enacted by current Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in 2006, also enforced requirements on the state's employers." But they failed to mention that Romney was personally against the requirement for employers to buy health insurance. Anyway, it doesn't even matter. This has nothing to do with Romney. Maybe the media believes Obamacare will be an easier sell if they just keep saying, "Romney did it too!!!" I dislike Obamacare, even just for the fact the government is going to fine me if I don't "choose" to buy health insurance. Almost half of all Americans are against it. And of course it's going to be a burden on employers. It's common sense they will try to work around it by cutting hours and hiring part time workers. Especially jobs in restaurants, hotels, convenience stores, call centers, retail stores, etc. At any rate, I only brought this up as an example of a government regulation that makes it more difficult for businesses.

 

If Obamacare doesn't work, will it be Romney's fault?

Something tells me, they'd try to ignore it and move on...



It's hilarious what politics are now turning in to. Zero accountability for anything Obama does / says, continue to blame and compare him to the other guy!

 

WELL said. Talk about a tax increase on the poor and middle class, ObamaCare basically forces the young and healthy to pay fines or buy insurance in hopes insurance companies will charge less to insure the elderly. Considering the costs to insure the elderly have skyrocketed, not dropped, its a lose/lose. The really sad part is, there are parts of ObamaCare that would have had wide bipartisan support, including regulations to prevent insurance companies from driving sick people off of coverage, standardized packaging and labeling of benefits, and a country wide exchange that allows sale of insurance across state lines.

ObamaCare's popularity is a classic example of what you get from one party rule. Obama imagines he represents 100% of America, or at least knows what is best for them, so he passed legislation without a single Republican vote. What he, and most liberals don't get is this. The Republican party exists because 50% of America has different ideas and values than the people who blindly support Obama, and as long as he continues to govern like the other 50% of America doesn't matter, he will remain wildly divisive and unpopular.

I couldn't believe it when I saw reports of college riots and protests of his relection. Even Bush didn't evoke that kind of division.

 

When you work for a big company that provides health insurance there is nothing to decide. You take it.

When younger, and single it is easy to want to avoid health insurance. A) Its an expense. B) the risks seem minimal.

In fact, statistically, of course relatively fewer young than old face major medical problems.

In fact, that is why insurance works as a business. If the young faced as many major health issues as the old, insurance premiums would skyrocket. We bought two types of policies for several businesses. The policies that cover a much much younger staff are dramatically less expensive than those covering the older folks.

Regardless if some calamity hits, and you can't cover major medical bills, you are f*cked. No ifs and or buts.

And that is why there is insurance. You may not like being "told" to get insurance...but its there to defer major medical emergencies.

As to the businesses you cite...yep they are the one's on the edge with low paid workers that will try and work around insurance. The links above cite that in Massachusetts, the smb's that were fined, included a high number of restaurant chains.--probably smallish local chains.

Rebecca, most of the major hotel chains provide insurance to people working at 40 hours or close to it...at least the ones I see. Large restaurant chains also provide insurance. Smaller don't.

What I suggest is if you value insurance coverage on a wide spread basis, elimination of an insurers ability to deny coverage for certain issues, and control the availability of coverage; there are huge benefits to enormous populations.

Whether Romney personally was for that aspect of the coverage or not is not the issue. The ruling on forcing businesses of 50 or more to provide coverage was probably a "compromise" of some level to spread coverage to greater numbers in an effort to approach full coverage.

Per statistics, the number of businesses that have over an "equivalent" of 50 full time workers (say that equals 120 half time workers) AND DONT have insurance is relatively small.

That smallish number of businesses will struggle with this issue, no doubt, as it is a cost issue. Every time we have a cost issue of any type on any of the businesses we struggle with it.

As House Majority leader Bohner, acknowledged, its now the law of the land. Of course, he like all members of Congress, have great insurance. I'm guessing it hits you a lot more directly than it does all the politicians pro and con.

 

So true!

And, oh look, the "bi-partisanship" begins... http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/09/politics/obama-fiscal-cliff/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

"I failed, so I need to start taxing the rich and can't create jobs"

 

Here's another article listing the effects of Obamacare: Thank Obama for Your Pink Slip

 

How funny. It reminds me of one of Earlpearl's quotes, where he goes on about how regulations aren't bad for business. He correctly pointed out that businesses simply factor them in, plan for them, make contingencies for them.

Reading your article, it seems the contingency many businesses are putting in place for ObamaCare, is to chop everyone's hours to the under 32 hour mark, thereby avoiding the regulation altogether for the bulk of the workforce. As usual, it will be small to medium businesses that get hit the hardest, with the employees of smaller restaurant chains and grocers taking the hit.

Thankfully for Obama, these people will still be working some hours during the month, which means they will not be factored into the unemployment number. He can gloriously declare a 7.9% unemployment rate while the real number of people lacking full time jobs is something closer to 15%, and some of them specifically because of his regulations.

 

Americans are not the smartest people in the world and part of it is because they don´t travel and read about other countries. Do you know that almost all the industrialized world has national health care?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_health_care

We should not ask when Americans are going to enter the 21st century, we should ask when Americans are going to enter 20th century?

 

I don't know what is more ignorant, saying this, or actually believing it.

Hmmm....

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum

The US is unique for a myriad of reasons. True separation of church and state sets it apart even from the UK and the countries which still carry the union jack on their flags. That aside, the US has the most religious population in western civilization. The most individual freedom, especially when it comes to gun ownership,

Trying to sell us on why we need to be more like the rest of the world is an argument that has historically fallen flat on it's face, though people like Obama seem to be getting traction with it. Our many differences all contribute to the FACT we remain the world's sole super power. Get over it.

 

True. While they won't be in the unemployment rate, they'll be part of the numbers of food stamp/welfare recipients.

Restaurant, grocery, retail, etc. positions don't normally have a set schedule. The days and hours scheduled may vary slightly every week. If they cut the hours to 30, makes it almost impossible to find a second job. Who would hire them if they can't even say when they can work with certainty? If they're not qualified for other types of work, life may become even more difficult.