The Obamacare Chronicles: 129 laid off from Missouri hospital due to wonderful new health bill

“But at least we won the election! Obama!!”

At this point, there’s not much we can do about it, folks. Losing a Supreme Court decision and the 2012 election guarantees that Obamacare will go into full effect on January 1st, 2014 — Happy New Year!

All we can do for now is observe and take note of the pain (some of it our own) as businesses make their plans to deal with the forthcoming train wreck, plans that include laying people off to cover the new, federally-imposed expenses:

From Channel 41 Action News (1), Kansas City, Missouri:

I’ve reported on the consequences of Obamacare before, and we’re going to see more and more as we approach 2014 and enter our Brave New World of government-controlled health care. The PPACA imposes immense burdens on businesses, and they will have to act rationally in response, whether by passing on costs to the consumer or cutting costs elsewhere — by layoffs, for instance.

People who voted for the Democrats since 2008 are, in effect, getting exactly what they voted for, even if they refused to see it at the time.  (2) To use the cliche, “elections have consequences.”

But so do bad laws, and the people can always fix their mistakes in the next election. Obamacare is the “Mother of Bad Laws,” and I predict its myriad problems are going to cost the Democrats dearly as voters harmed by Obamacare first get worried, then annoyed, then angry, and then royally ticked off. Democrats are already so worried that some are retiring to avoid facing the voters in 2014.

Elections have consequences for the ruling class, too.

via Jim Geraghty’s Morning Jolt

Footnotes:
(1) For any Obamacare apologists in the audience, before your knee jerks too much, note that Channel 41 is an NBC affiliate, not the evil FOX. When you’ve lost NBC…
(2) No, I’m not saying the people laid off in Missouri all voted for Obama and thus got what they deserved. Some almost certainly did, but we don’t know who or how many. Presuming innocence, they all have my sympathy.  But the broad electorate voted for people who used anti-constitutional means to pass a horrendous law in expectation of getting Free Stuff(tm), in violation of all the laws of economics. To them, I can only quote the words of the late, great Mayor Ed Koch: “The People have spoken … and they must be punished.”

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Raytheon Moving California HQ to Texas

Reblogged from California Briefing:

Looks like Texas has poached at least one California-based company out of the Golden State.

Raytheon, a major defense contractor and manufacturer, announced Thursday that it is moving one of its businesses' headquarters, currently located in El Segundo, California, to McKinney, Texas.

The business, Raytheon's Space and Airborne Systems, is worth $6 billion, and is reportedly bringing about 170 jobs to the Lone Star State.

Read more… 92 more words

And California, one of the most self-destructively governed states in the Union, loses another company, its jobs, and its tax revenues. Really, if I didn't live here, it would be fascinating to watch an "economic super-power state" drive itself off the cliff chasing Thelma and Louise. Thank you, Jerry Brown and the legislative Democrats.

The April jobs report and the part-time recovery

“But at least we won the election! Obama!!”

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released it’s report for April today, showing numbers that should at least be slightly good news for the administration: unemployment down to 7.5% and 165,000 jobs added. Recovery!!

AEI’s James Pethokoukis says “not so fast:”

US job growth in April beat economist expectations as nonfarm payrolls rose 165,000, and the jobless rate fell to a four-year low of 7.5%. But the report contained worrisome signs that President Obama’s health care reform law is hurting full-time, high-wage employment.

While the American economy added 293,000 jobs last month, according to the separate household survey, the number of persons employed part time for economic reasons — “involuntary part-time workers” as the Labor Department calls them – increased by almost as much, by 278,000 to 7.9 million. These folks were working part time because a) their hours had been cut back or b) they were unable to find a full-time job. At the same time, the U-6 unemployment rate — a broader measure of joblessness that includes discouraged workers and part-timers who want a full-time gig – rose from 13.8% to 13.9%.

What’s more, there wasa  0.2 hour decline in the length of the average workweek. This led to 0.4 percentage point drop in the index of average weekly hours, “equaling the largest declines since the recovery began,” notes economist Dean Baker of Center for Economic and Policy Research.

Let’s see, more part timers and fewer hours worked. Economist Douglas Holtz-Eakin says what we’re all thinking: “This is not good news as it reflects the reliance on part-time work. … the decline in hours and rise of part-time work is troubling in light of anecdotal reports of the impact of the Affordable Care Act.”

Jim adds that, if the Labor Force Participation Rate were the same now as it was when Obama took office, then BLS would be reporting unemployment of between nine and ten percent. (And see this for a graphic chart of how the LFPR has gone down under Obama)

It’s not that unemployment is going down, it’s that the number of people who’ve given up looking for a job is growing, and an increasing number of those who have a job are limited to part-time work, thanks to Obamacare.

Such is the nature of the Obama “recovery,” the worst since the Great Depression.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Why Are Young Americans Supportive of Obama When His Policies Are So Bad for Them?

Reblogged from International Liberty:

• 

Young people voted for Obama in overwhelming numbers, but the question is why?

As I explain in this interview for Blaze TV, they are being hurt by his policies.

It's not just that youth unemployment is high. Obama's policies also are hurting those who found jobs. Simply stated, these "lucky" folks are getting below-average pay.

I specifically explain that academics have determined that those entering the labor market in a weak economy will suffer a long-run loss of income.

Read more… 522 more words

Ya got me. Talk about voting against one's own interest. Click through to see interesting analysis of how entering the job market in a bad economy sets a young person on an underperforming path for a long time to come.

Quote of the Day: Doing business in Texas vs. California edition

An observation on why Texas might have more appeal to business owners, from John Harrington, owner of Shield Tactical, who recently relocated his company from Orange County, California, to Austin:

In Texas, he said, “it’s an iota of bureaucracy.” In California, “it’s like before you put up your range you have to be worried about whether the noise level is going to bother the 10-headed duckmouse.”

That made me laugh, but it’s also so very true. One company found the regulatory environment here so burdensome, it wrote California a “Dear John” letter.

Oh, and if you think “duckmouse” was a joke, consider that Sacramento would rather let Central Valley farms die of thirst than fight the EPA over a two-inch bait fish.

BTW, the first linked article is a good one on how Texas is working to encourage firearms manufacturers to move to Texas from states that are imposing more and more restrictions. Smart man, that Governor Perry.

via Moe Lane and Rick Wilson

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

The death of common sense in America

Writing on the rolling global financial crisis, the Diplomad shakes his head at the foolishness reigning in the US today:

The western world continues on a totally unnecessary suicidal path. What was once common sense is no more. Everywhere one looks, the insanity is evident: The refusal to deal with real issues and the insistence on taking up marginal or even totally extraneous issues instead is stunning. Here in the USA, our economy remains stagnated for no logical reason. Instead, for example, of freeing up the exploitation of our vast fossil fuel resources, we continue to push money at phony green industries, throw road blocks in the way of our private sector’s ability to get those fuels, block importation of fuel from our friends in Canada, and blather on and on about discredited, voodoo science global warming. Our leaders rulers take lavish vacations on our dime, push ruinous tax and spend policies, including the criminally destructive Obamacare, and avoid cutting even a bit of our bloated spending. A hypothetical “threat” to reduce ever so slightly the rate of growth in spending is declared disastrous and the equivalent of a nuclear attack. 

Well, when you put it that way…

Instead, we allow ourselves to waste our energies on issues of far less importance, such as same-sex marriage (1) or “assault weapons bans,” or whatever false crisis the left raises to distract us from their near-criminal mismanagement of the nation’s affairs.

And the truly frustrating this is that it often works. At least for now, common sense is truly dead.

Read the rest for a discussion of Europe even-worse state and for an explanation of how the Greek banking crisis lead directly to the Cyprus bailout.

Footnote:
(1) My apologies to supporters of allowing same-sex marriage (I’m one, too), but I simply do not believe this is one of the crucial issues facing our country, today. Not when our national debt is astronomical (and growing), our national borrowing to support out of control entitlements resembles a heroin addict needing his fix, Islamic jihadists want to reach paradise over our corpses, and crazed dictatorships that hate us are desperately seeking nuclear weapons. There are far, far more important things demanding our attention as a nation.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Huzzah!! Another @BarackObama milestone!

Admit it, you’re impressed:

That’s right, kiddies: we’ve had more high unemployment under Barack Obama than under any president since Harry S. Truman… combined.

Well done, sir. Well done.

But, still, his fans are happy:

“But at least we won the election! Obama!!”

Sigh.

via Denis through AH Malcolm

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Leftists Propose Plan to Reduce So-Called Global Warming by Deliberately Lowering American Living Standards

Reblogged from International Liberty:

• 

Regular readers may remember last year when I shared some remarkably silly data from the "Happy Planet Index," which supposedly showed the United States ranked below very poor nations such as Cuba, Albania, and Venezuela.

It turns out that nations got lower grades based on their energy consumption. And since energy usage is one of the key indicators of prosperity, that explains why the United States also trailed such global garden spots as Pakistan, Palestine, Iraq, Moldova, and Tajikistan.

Read more… 449 more words

So, let's make ourselves poor in order to fight a problem that does not exist. Right. If you look at it, this "idea" is at its heart misanthropic.

More #Obamacare job losses. This thing needs to be killed.

“But at least we won the election! Obama!!”

And the good news (1) keep rolling in:

Hospital layoffs and the Affordable Heath Care Act

The Affordable Care Act is designed to make health care easier to get, but now, one local hospital says Affordable Health Care is the reason it is laying people off.

Clifton Springs Hospital let almost 60 non-clinical employees go last Friday. Hospital officials says it’s all because they’re trying to get ready for the impact of the new health care act. The act changes the way health insurance is run and the way hospitals are paid.

The Affordable Care Act means many of you will be making more decisions when it comes to your own health care. Health care workers say co-pays and deductibles will be higher, that means things like x-rays and MRI’s will cost you  more. So people will be forced to decide if they really want them. That might mean fewer people in the hospital.

Clifton Springs Hospital is preparing for that now. Last Friday, Clifton Springs Hospital laid off 58-full time employees. The reason is to get ready for the Affordable Care Act that will unfold over the next four years.

Lewis Zulick, Interim CEO of Clifton Springs Hospital, said, “That was something that we realized, especially over the last 6 months or so, that we had to do something to really match up our revenue to our expenses. That really had to do with the kind of volume we were experiencing at the hospital.”

In other words, from reading the article, it’s due to Obamacare’s refusal to allow insurance companies to pay for certain procedures, pushing that cost off on the consumer. It’s not a decision the doctor and patient make together (“Do I need this?”), but one forced on the consumer by government regulation — and that written by supposed “experts,” bureaucrats who know nothing about individual patients and their needs. The hospital anticipates fewer people opting for such procedures, thus leading them to make the logical business decision to lay people off.

Ergo, Obamacare costs jobs.

One can argue, of course, that some at least of these were unnecessary procedures that drove up insurance costs, and I wouldn’t disagree with you. That’s what’s been called “defensive medicine,” in which doctors will order “just one more test” not so much out of medical need, but to avoid being sued in our litigation-plagued society. Conservative reformers have long complained of needless malpractice suits that drive up costs for everyone.

But the solution is tort reform, dealing with the abuse of the legal systems, not top-down command-and-control rationing and regulation of the insurance and medical industries. (Ironically, uber-progressive California was the first state to introduce major malpractice reform. In 1975, under Jerry Brown!) And certainly government should never come between a doctor and patient in deciding treatment.

Meanwhile…

A global medical technology company has laid off nearly 100 employees at its offices in Tennessee and Massachusetts and is blaming the layoffs on the medical device tax tied to ObamaCare.

London-based Smith & Nephew said Thursday it laid off fewer than 100 employees between the two offices, which operate as the company’s advanced surgical devices unit, according to The Commercial Appeal.

The company specializes in developing orthopedic reconstruction products, has nearly 11,000 employees and operates in over 90 countries, according to its website.

The Affordable Care Act includes a 2.3 percent tax on medical devices, which is expected to raise nearly $30 billion over the next decade. The tax is applied to gross sales revenues.

A tax is a cost of doing business. When you raise costs, the company has three choices: it can eat the lost profits, harming the owners — perhaps a small businessman and his family, or shareholders, which may include employees and pension funds; it can pass the higher cost on to the consumer, running the risk of pricing themselves out of the market; or, they can cut other costs to balance things out. Materials are one cost, but using cheaper materials is one sure way for a medical company to be sued out of business.

But, guess what? Labor is a cost, too!

And so, thanks to the medical device tax in Obamacare, nearly 100 (more) people have lost their jobs.

Eventually, the problems are going to accumulate and annoy and outright harm enough people that they will demand something be done. Democrats and weak-kneed Republicans will want to just tinker with it, promising “fixes.”

But there is no way fix the problems with Obamacare, because Obamacare is the problem. From its most basic concepts to its details, it is one huge, honking, accelerating disaster. However long it takes, it must be repealed, destroyed root and branch. Do to it what Rome did to Carthage.

Sigh. We had our chance in 2012 to take the monster out before he did too much damage. But, we blew it then, and people are suffering for it.

And so we fight on.

via Brian Faughnan and ST.

RELATED: Stephen Green on “How to ruin healthcare in just 2000 easy pages!”  Meanwhile, the cheapest plan for a family of five under Obamacare will cost up to $20,000 per year, per the IRS. That’s almost half the median family income in the US. What was that about “affordable, again?”

Footnote:
(1) For Orwellian definitions of “good,” that is.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Another reason to like Tim Scott

Aside from the fact that the current representative and senator-designate from South Carolina has a good character, the right politics, and a clear-eyed view of our real problem, he worries all the right people:

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People isn’t too excited about the appointment of Rep. Tim Scott to South Carolina’s soon-to-be-vacated U.S. Senate seat.

(…)

Hilary Shelton, senior vice president for advocacy and policy at the NAACP, told The Daily Caller Monday afternoon that the group welcomed diversity in the Senate, but expects the new senator to work against the NAACP’s agenda.

“It is important that we have more integration in the U.S. Senate,” said Shelton in a phone interview. “It’s good to see that diversity.”

“Mr. Scott certainly comes from a modest background, experience, and so forth, and should be sensitive to those issues,” he said, referring to Scott’s impoverished single-parent upbringing in Charleston, SC.

“Unfortunately, his voting record in the U.S. House of Representatives raises major concerns,” Shelton said.

Shelton explained that the NAACP platform is crafted through an annual voting process which engages grassroots-level delegates who vote on the group’s national agenda. That agenda calls for an expansive role for federal government spending in black communities.

Because federal intervention has done such a bang-up job for Blacks. Just ask any beneficiary of the Great Society’s urban policies. And that War on Poverty? We fought it, and poverty won.

While Ms. Shelton does have some nice things to say about Congressman Scott, it’s clear her views are trapped within the statist, dependent, and identity-group paradigm that dominates the Democratic party. And yet Blacks are far worse off under Obama, who is pursuing those very policies the way an alcoholic chases a beer wagon.  But, to be honest, the NAACP stopped being an organization seeking the best interests of African Americans at the same time they entered into a monogamous relationship with the Democratic party. (Helpful tip: if you’re an interest group and you give yourself wholly and forever to one political party — they no longer have to take you seriously, because they know they have your votes no matter what they do.)

Meanwhile, here’s hoping that Mr. Scott has a long and fruitful career in the Senate and that, rather than coming round to the NAACP line, he encourages NAACP members to realize there’s another, better way to help Black Americans prosper.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Yikes! Student loan bubble bursts.

“The next subprime crisis.” This is bad.

California: We’re the best worst state! Yay? Updated.

The new flag of California

Now here’s something to be proud of. Thanks to nearly 50 years of  Democratic control of the legislature and the legislators’ kowtowing to public unions in return for donations and  support, the state of California –the Golden State, the land that inspired untold millions of dreams and created unheard of prosperity for its people– is officially the worst-run state in the nation:

50. California

Debt per capita: $4,008 (18th highest)
Budget deficit: 20.7% (17th largest)
Unemployment: 11.7% (2nd highest)
Median household income: $57,287 (10th highest)
Pct. below poverty line: 16.6% (18th highest)

California is 24/7 Wall St.’s “Worst Run State” for the second year in a row. Due to high levels of debt, the state’s S&P credit rating is the worst of all states, while its Moody’s credit rating is the second-worst. Much of California’s fiscal woes involve the economic downturn. Home prices plunged by 33.6% between 2006 and 2011, worse than all states except for three. The state’s foreclosure rate and unemployment rate were the third- and second-highest in the country, respectively. But efforts to get finances on track are moving forward. State voters passed a ballot initiative to raise sales taxes as well as income taxes for people who make at least $250,000 a year. While median income is the 10th-highest in the country, the state also has one of the highest tax burdens on income. According to the Tax Foundation, the state also has the third-worst business tax climate in the country.

The best run state? North Dakota. In fact, the top five are run by fiscally conservative Republican governments, while the three worst of the bottom five are dominated by liberal Democrats.  I detect a pattern here, and it has much more to do with governing philosophy than with the letter after the politician’s name.

The analysis given after the data is horse feathers, though. Yes, California did suffer heavily from the economic crisis that hit in 2008 and the resulting recession. But that does not explain the slowness of our recovery. That, instead, is explained by the poor policies followed by the government in Sacramento, which has done everything right — if the objective was to choke of economic growth and job creation. Borrowing too much money, then spending it on on padded public pensions and useless projects like high-speed rail; raising already-high taxes on the very people who create the jobs we desperately need, thus leaving no money for reinvestment and driving those people out of the state or out of business; and a regulatory environment that can only be described as miserable. Our “leaders” have taken us straight into the pit and they show no sign of changing course.

Well done, California. Well done!

via Legal Insurrection

RELATED: Other measures of our success: California now leads the nation in poverty, or, as my friend Teach puts it, we’re “Brokefornia.”

UPDATE: Walter Russell Mead explains far better than I did why California’s recovery is so weak:

The problem with California has never been that bad policies put the state in a permanent recession. Rather, bad policies have meant that the state and its residents suffer more than average when recessions come, and that they benefit less than they should when the good times return. Some of the world’s most dynamic people and industries are found in California, but poor governance means that the state as a whole keeps losing ground when compared with the country as a whole. That is California’s real problem, and the Times would serve its readers better by analyzing the forces holding California back from achieving its magnificent potential instead of hailing a modest and cyclical economic recovery as some kind of proof that the state’s model ‘works’.

Left unspoken: We keep electing those responsible for the poor governance.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

PA college to cut hours to avoid Obamacare

“But at least we won the election! Obama!!”

Don’t say we didn’t warn you:

Pennsylvania’s Community College of Allegheny County (CCAC) is slashing the hours of 400 adjunct instructors, support staff, and part-time instructors to dodge paying for Obamacare.

“It’s kind of a double whammy for us because we are facing a legal requirement [under the new law] to get health care and if the college is reducing our hours, we don’t have the money to pay for it,” said adjunct biology professor Adam Davis.

On Tuesday, CCAC employees were notified that Obamacare defines full-time employees as those working 30 hours or more per week and that on Dec. 31 temporary part-time employees will be cut back to 25 hours. The move will save an estimated $6 million.

I don’t know how Professor Davis voted, but I’m sure some at least of his affected colleagues voted to reelect Obama and a senator who voted for Obamacare.  Maybe they should have thought more (or at all) about the perverse incentives built into the bill.

‘Cause, y’know, elections have consequences.

PS: The article continues with a representative of the Steelworker’s Union saying the answer to these cuts is to… Wait for it… organize!! Economic reality shall bow before the power of the Almighty Strike!

After all, that did the Baker’s Union so much good with Hostess.

PPS: Yes, this is news from before the holiday. I’m catching up on some interesting stuff.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Food-Stamp Nation: another proud moment for Barack Obama

Currency of the Obama economy

Here’s something that jumped out at me over the holiday weekend — there are more people on food stamps than the  total population of 24 states combined:

In November, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that a record 47,102,780 individuals receive food stamps.

According to US. Census Bureau data, that figure exceeds the combined populations of: Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

Since January 2009, the number of individuals on food stamps has skyrocketed from 31.9 million to the current record high 47.1 million. By comparison, in 1969 just 2.8 million Americans received food stamps.

Wynton Hall’s article also points out the hundreds of millions in revenue (tax dollars or borrowed money) being made by companies such as J.P. Morgan that handle the processing of EBT cards, the meteoric rise in the program’s cost (more than double from 2008), and the inevitable corruption.

Meanwhile, it was noted earlier this month by the Republican minority (1) on the Senate Budget Committee that, since 2009, the number of people on food stamps has grown at a rate 75 times that of  job growth.

But then, what do we expect from a president and a party (that would be the Democrats, for those of you without a program) who are obsessed with reform and redistribution, rather than on creating the conditions for economic recovery and growth, which would in turn create productive jobs and help people get off food stamps and other forms of welfare?

Ah, the light goes on!

The whole point of getting as many people on food stamps as possible is to create dependency on wealth redistributed by the government, that dependency then making the “beneficiaries” more likely to vote for the candidates and party that promises to keep the crack money coming. Clients and dependents, in other words, as opposed to free citizens. It’s a time-honored Democratic strategy, as LBJ made clear when he mentioned one of the benefits of the Great Society. For the more radically-inclined among the Democratic leadership and its allies on the Left, this vast expansion of the food stamp program could also be seen as an implementation of the Cloward-Piven strategy.

Whichever is true (and both can be at the same time), this nauseating milestone really is a gold-star achievement for the Obama Administration. Well done.

Footnote:
(1) In the “to be fair about it” department, the libertarian Cato Institute points out the Republican role in expanding the food stamp program in the 2002 pork fiesta farm bill. In short, the “Party of Stupid” sold the Left the rope they’re using to hang us all. There’s also an interesting chart there illustrating the growth in food stamp use.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Now that the Election Is Over, the Washington Post Admits that the Obama Recovery Has Been Terrible

Reblogged from International Liberty:

I agree that Obama inherited a crappy economy, and I think it is silly to assert that he bears any responsibility for the severity of the 2007-2009 recession.

But it is very fair to hold him responsible for what's happened since the recession ended. I've cited data from the Minneapolis Federal Reserve on both employment and gross domestic product to show that…

Read more… 305 more words

But don't you dare call it a "biased media."

Obama donor lays off employees because of ObamaCare

“But at least we won the election! Obama!!”

Nancy Pelosi said we’d have to pass the health-care reform bill in order to find out what’s in it.

Surprise!

Stryker Corporation has announced that it will close its facility in Orchard Park, New York, eliminating 96 jobs next month. It will also counter the medical device tax in Obamacare by eliminating 5% of their global workforce, an estimated 1,170 positions.

Jon Stryker is heir to the Stryker Corporation, one of the largest medical device and equipment manufacturers in the world. Stryker’s grandfather was the surgeon who invented the mobile hospital bed. The company now sells $8.3 billion worth of hospital beds, artificial joints, medical cameras, and medical software every year.

Stryker, a member of the Forbes 400 list, was one of the top five donors to the Obama campaign. Having donated $2 million to the Priorities USA Action super PAC, Stryker also gave $66,000 in contributions to Obama and the Democrat Party.

(…)

Stryker’s corporation is part of an industry that has been a big loser at the hands of Obamacare. Having refused to get on board with the White House and the Senate Finance Committee when the law was being crafted in 2009, the medical device industry was punished with an excise tax of 2.3% of their revenues, regardless of whether they make a profit.

My sympathies to anyone losing their job at Stryker, or elsewhere. Except to those who voted for Obama. All I can say to them is this is what you voted for.

Elections have consequences.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

New blog category: “Elections have consequences,” and more ObamaCare layoffs

I’ll not hide my feelings: I think the United States made a terrible mistake reelecting Barack Obama and letting the Democrats retain the Senate, and California accelerated its long swirl down the economic drain by approving Proposition 30 and giving the Democrats two-thirds control of the legislature. The problems people want fixed –a sclerotic economy, unemployment, national and state debt, foreign threats– aren’t going to be fixed under the Left’s policies. In fact, things will more likely get worse before they ever get better, and these developments will stem from the choice Americans and Californians made last November 6th.

In fact, it’s already started.

And because I believe in holding people accountable for their actions, I’ve created a new category, “Elections Have Consequences,” to record those developments I think stem from the voters’ bad choices.

Here’s the latest: because ObamaCare and all the increased costs it imposes on business is the law for at least the next four years, Papa John’s Pizza is reducing employees’ hours:

John Schnatter, CEO of Papa John’s Pizza announced he will likely be forced to cut back workers’ hours because of the cost to businesses of the federal government’s takeover of our healthcare system.

Provisions of Obamacare state that employees that work 30 hours a week or more will be automatically considered full-time and must be included in their company’s healthcare insurance program. Currently, the eligibility threshold for health insurance is a 40-hour work week, so adding those who work 30 hours a week will cost businesses exponentially more. The higher cost associated with this change is forcing many businesses, especially those in the food service industry, to consider limiting workers to less than 30 hours a week.

In essence, implementation of Obamacare will cut the weekly take home pay of millions of low-wage workers by forcing companies to cut their hours.

This is part of a growing trend by companies toward part-time employment to control costs imposed by the government.

My blog-buddy Sister Toldjah has a post up on the laughable reaction of lefties to this news, calling for these “evil” companies to be punished with boycotts, etc., for daring to cut costs. This serves as yet more proof of my theory that, to be a good a progressive, you have to surrender all knowledge of even basic economics.

I mean, what do they expect? It’s in the nature of any organism, whether an individual or a corporation, to do what is necessary to avoid pain. If something is too hot, you move away from it. If costs are too much, you do what you can to reduce them — and ObamaCare has a built-in incentive to cut employee hours.

Schnatter isn’t evil for his decision. Quite the contrary, he’s doing the right thing to preserve his business before it’s taken down by unsustainable costs. Better that people have 29-hour jobs than none, right? Of course, living on those 29 hours will be tough, but, well, that’s what people voted for, even if they didn’t know it or refused to believe it.

Elections have consequences.

RELATED: William Teach at Pirate’s Cove has a post on even more layoffs possibly related to ObamaCare or the ObamaEconomy in general.

Welcome to Obama’s America, and here’s your layoff as your prize!

“But at least we won the election! Yay, Obama!!”

We tried to warn people that the costs laid on business by ObamaCare and other burdensome regulations and taxes meant to make things “fairer” would only lead to lots of people losing their jobs. But, did they listen? No. Not nearly enough did. And now… it’s on!

Don’t believe me? Check this, too.

Really, what were you people thinking?

The chart that’s worth a thousand sound bites

Kind of says all you need to know, doesn’t it?

You can enlarge it to get the full effect, but the upshot is that the number of people no longer in the labor force has grown by ten times the number of people who have been added, who’ve found jobs.

This is a function Obama’s obsession with redistribution over recovery, with “reform” over growth. It is the near-inevitable result of combining Keynesian economics and the Progressive love for statist, technocratic solutions, the delusion that an economy can be directed from above and that a nation can borrow, tax, and spend its way out of economic difficulties. Think I’m nuts? Then ask yourself why the Great Depression lasted seven years longer than it had to. We saw the same hubris then as now, and once again the American people are suffering for it.

So, tell me again, why anyone with a lick of sense would vote to reelect Obama?

via Blue Crab Boulevard

PS: Romney-Ryan 2012, because it’s past time for the non-delusional to be in charge.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

John Stossel Exposes the Fraud of Government Job Training Programs

Reblogged from International Liberty:

There have been lots of studies showing that there's no benefit to job training programs. People who sign up with these government schemes are not more likely to either get jobs or to earn more money.

Heck, even the New York Times was forced to acknowledge that these programs are a costly failure.

To really understand how these programs operate, John Stossel put together an investigative mission.

Read more… 800 more words

It's amazing how willing, even desperate, statists are to put money into programs that are shown not to work, because they cannot conceive of any "solution" that does not originate with government.