Minnesota Appeals Court Decides Homeless Woman Should Pay Her Multi-Millionaire Husband Child Support

Grazzini-Rucki Appeal (1) by mikekvolpe on Scribd

Notice the judge who made this decision, Judge Jill Halbrooks. She has been on nearly all of the Grazzini-Rucki appeals- for both civil and criminal cases, and has found against Sandra Grazzini-Rucki in each case. The corruption continues.

More information on the Grazzini-Rucki case:

1) The definitive dossier documenting David Rucki's violence: 99 pages of police reports, orders for protection, letters, affidavits, and more...

2) The propaganda of 20/20

3) The court created horror of the five Rucki children

4) Dakota County disallows nearly all Sandra Grazzini-Rucki's evidence and only then is she convicted

5) Dakota County slaps destitute Sandra Grazzini-Rucki with $975 per month in child support, $14,000 plus bill

6) Missing in Minnesota: Michael Brodkorb's blog

7) Find the book, Sandra Grazzini-Rucki and the World's Last Custody Trial here.

The Green Economy of HIlda Solis

Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis knows the answer the our sluggish economy.

This Labor Day, many people throughout Indiana are struggling just to get by. Families that have played by the rules are being forced into incredibly difficult decisions. Do they pay for their children's college tuition or make that mortgage payment?

These people are on my mind every single day and, like President Obama, I am hard at work ensuring they have a real opportunity to succeed.The recession has caused a generational restructuring of America's labor market, and our future now depends on what we do to retrain and retool for the 21st-century work force.

The Department of Labor already has given $223 million to help meet the needs of workers in Indiana, including Recovery Act funds. Our investments are aimed at training for in-demand jobs in high-growth industries, like energy efficiency and renewable energy generation. Other grants have gone to YouthBuild and youth work- force activities, assistance for dislocated and trade-impacted workers, and career counseling.

Businesses are leaner and more selective about hiring these days. We recognize and are meeting this challenge in many Indiana communities -- and across America -- by helping workers upgrade their skills. People will have the skills they need to get good jobs, and businesses will have the trained employees they need to succeed. That's what I call win-win.

The president is all about protecting the environment and he has a cabinet full of like minded people. Don't get me wrong. We should all be stewards of the economy. Furthermore, if someone wants to make money providing green energy, green jobs, or anything else that's green more power to them.

If they're using their own money, I wish them luck. That's why I like T. Boone Pickens. He's not only championing the green economy but he's putting a significant portion of his seven billion dollars behind it.

The problem here is that the president has a vision of our society, and he's determined to see it transformed into that vision. That's one thing. The problem is that he's determined to use nearly unlimited government resources to accomplish the green economy. That's the government picking winners and losers.

Wind farms like this are popular in some parts of Indiana. That's because the level land makes the area perfect for wind energy. The reality is that most of the U.S. is not fertile for wind energy.

That's the problem with most alternative, or green, energy sources. They are simply not ready for any mass scale usage. Yet, the president and his team are determined to jam the green economy onto the economy no matter how ready it is for it.

A Fannie/Freddie By Any Other Name

Politicians are now paying lip service to reforming Fannie/Freddie. I wouldn't expect anything to actually get done but be prepared for all sorts of hair brained ideas. The first is by Congressman Barney Frank.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Take the case of Barney Frank, Chairman of House Financial Services Committee. In an interview with FOX Business’ Neil Cavuto, he called for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to be abolished. “The only question is what do you put in their place,” he said.

...

What would he propose? He said, “I’ve worked closely with the Financial Services Roundtable… They are talking about the following: first of all, you separate it out, so there’s no more hybrid public-private. So, Fannie and Freddie and anything like them go out. You have a purely public FHA [Federal Housing Administration]… [that is] fully self-financing.”

Frank added, “If we want to subsidize housing then we could do it upfront and let the budget be clear about that.”

Clearly, Barney Frank hasn't been paying attention to me. Beyond that, Frank clearly doesn't understand why Fannie/Freddie are such a problem. It's as though the problem is the names. They've become too toxic and so if we change them and have another mechanism that does the exact same thing everything will be fine.

Let's start at the beginning. Mortgage securitization is a very complicated process but, in my opinion, it's a necessary one. It provides liquidity in the market and it transfers risk from banks to speculators. All of that is good. That means more people get loans and rates will be lower.

The problem is that in loan securitization there's only two games in town, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. That's duopoly and those never work. The second problem is that both are extensions of the government. So, what we had was a government run monopoly on securitization. Fix both problems and you fix Fannie/Freddie.

Instead, Barney Frank wants to go the other way. He wants to stop simply having an implicit government guarantee and just have an explicit government guarantee. Of course, that perpetuates the problem.

Shirley Sherrod's Statement on FNC

In an interview with Media Matters, here's what Shirley Sherrod said about Fox News Channel.

they (Fox News) are after a bigger thing, they would love to take us back to...where black people were looking down, not looking white folks in the face, not being able to compete for a job out there and not be a whole person.

On the O'Reilly Factor tonight, Bill O'Reilly pointed out that this story is only getting started. Meanwhile, Dick Morris said the administration now owns this woman. The woman was taken totally out of context but she's far left and I suspect that, once fully examined, we're going to find all sorts of language like this particular quote.

This will be a long term problem for the administration and the gift that keeps on giving for those that love political theater.

With Future Bleak: Obama Looks to the Past

If you've been following along recently, you know that the administration is attempting to frame November of 2010, not as a referendum of their own policies but as a choice.

"We already tried the other side’s ideas. We already know where their theories led us. And now we have a choice as a nation,” Obama said. “We can return to the failed economic policies of the past, or we can keep building a stronger future. We can go backward, or we can keep moving forward. I don’t know about you, but I want to move forward."

President Obama has even taken to using his ditch metaphor again.

Republicans Drove the Car into the Ditch and Now They Want the Keys Back and, When They Get Them, Next Time They'll Drive it Off a Cliff!

It's a sign of his panic and desperation that this is happening. By November, the president will have been in office for nearly two years and he hopes the voters will choose Democrats because they hated Republican policies until 2008.

With deficits at astronomical levels, unemployment hovering at 10%, and the economy barely growing after a very deep recession, I'd want to talk about anything but my own performance as well. Still, does President Obama really think that the Democrats can win by running against the Republican record of 2008. If that were true, Republicans, following 1928, would have never won.

No one doubts that Republican performance circa 2008 was awful but that's much of the reason he was elected. He promised better days and things have only gotten worse. Now, he wants to run against the past. I guess that's all he has left.

JUstice Department Responds Vis a Vis Sanctuary Cities

When the Justice Department first brought a suit against Arizona over its new anti illegal immigration law, Governor Jan Brewer said this.

The irony is that President Obama’s Administration has chosen to sue Arizona for helping to enforce federal immigration law and not sue local governments that have adopted a patchwork of ‘sanctuary’ policies that directly violate federal law. These patchwork local ‘sanctuary’ policies instruct the police not to cooperate with federal immigration officials.

This became a common criticism of the suit. If the government believes that immigration is strictly a federal issue what are we to make of so called sanctuary cities, like Chicago, that refuse to enforce federal law. In fact, sanctuary cities openly flaunt their refusal to follow federal immigration laws. On the other hand, Arizona passed a law that would help the federal government enforce its law.

The administration stalled in responding. Robert Gibbs was asked once during his normal daily White House briefing and he said he get back on it. Now, the Justice Department has issued this statement.

There is a big difference between a state or locality saying they are not going to use their resources to enforce a federal law, as so-called sanctuary cities have done, and a state passing its own immigration policy that actively interferes with federal law. That's what Arizona did in this case.

That statement will be hyperanalyzed as it is totally without logic. In fact, it is sanctuary cities that actively interfere with federal law. Arizona's law mirrors federal statutes. On another note, fifteen states lead by Michigan have joined in the suit in support of Arizona against the feds.

Financial Reform Back on the Brink

Only a couple days after announcing a big breakthrough on financial reform, the same package may be back on the brink. First, Senator Feingold announced that he would vote against the measure.

In case you haven't caught this bombshell yet, Senator Feingold announced that he won't support the FinReg bill as negotiated. This means the bill needs to go back to square one unless there's a Republican defector in the next day or two, which is extremely unlikely.

Hours later, Senator Scott Brown announced the same.

I am writing you to express my strong opposition to the $19 billion bank tax that was included in the financial reform bill during the conference committee," wrote Brown. "This tax was not in the Senate version of the bill, which I supported. If the final version of this bill contains these higher taxes, I will not support it."

This only leaves four undecided Senators: Grassley of Iowa, Snowe and Collins of Maine and Senator Cantwell of Washington. All would have to vote for the measure for it to get sixty votes.

Dow Futures Down: Progressive Economics Feared

The DJIA will test four digits again as its hovering near 10000 again today. The Eurozone is again worried that everyone will be bankrupt soon.

Two days of little movement for U.S. stocks is likely to end Tuesday, with renewed worries over euro zone debt pushing overseas markets lower, as well as U.S. stock index futures.

The Dow, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq all registered single-digit moves both Friday and Monday, but this morning's worries likely mean a sharply lower opening, and those worries have also sent many investors to U.S. Treasuries. The 2-year yield hit a record low in overnight trading, while the benchmark 10-year note's yield hit a 14-month low.

Let's all remember that the president attended the G20 and demanded that everyone else continue to spend.



Yet, the entire rest of the G20 rejected this idea wholesale. The only person at this point that thinks that Obama should continue to borrow and spend, besides Obama, is Paul Krugman.

We are now, I fear, in the early stages of a third depression. It will probably look more like the Long Depression than the much more severe Great Depression. But the cost — to the world economy and, above all, to the millions of lives blighted by the absence of jobs — will nonetheless be immense.

And this third depression will be primarily a failure of policy. Around the world — most recently at last weekend’s deeply discouraging G-20 meeting — governments are obsessing about inflation when the real threat is deflation, preaching the need for belt-tightening when the real problem is inadequate spending.

The rest of the world has realized that endless spending of money the government doesn't have is not only inefficient but leads to borrowing and/or taxation and both of those are contractionary. As such, the rest of the world gave Obamanomics a chance and now it's being rejected entirely.

The Worst Week of the President's Term?

How many times have you heard a pundit make that proclamation about the president in the last year? I can think of at least five times in the last year when someone has made that proclamation. That doesn't say much for the president, but I also expect someone to make that proclamation again.

The nuclear bomb, pardon the pun, left by General McChrystal today has left the president with few options. If he doesn't fire McChrystal, he looks weak. Meanwhile, if he does, Afghanistan goes into even greater chaos. No matter what he does, McChrystal's words have left the impression that the Obama administration is in complete chaos.

Then, today a U.S. District judge ruled that the Obama administration's six month moratorium is illegal.

In a victory for drilling proponents, a federal judge struck down President Obama's six-month moratorium on

deepwater oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday, saying the administration rashly concluded that because one rig failed, the others are in immediate danger, too.

The White House promised an immediate appeal. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the president believes strongly that drilling at such depths does not make sense and puts the safety of workers "at a danger that the president does not believe we can afford."

The Interior Department had halted approval of any new permits for deepwater drilling and suspended drilling of 33 exploratory wells in the Gulf.

The policy is already unpopular and now a judge has ruled it illegal. Just think about that. General McChrystal claims that Obama knows nothing about war policy and a judge says he knows about as much about the law.

The announcement by the administration that they'll sue Arizona, which went over about as well as all their policies, was immediately followed by Jon Kyl's shocking accusation that Obama is holding the border hostage to comprehensive immigration reform which is about as popular as Obamacare.

This all happened this week. It's yet another bad week in what is quickly turning into a disastrous Presidency.

Dr. Chacko Resurfaces

Dr. Chacko is making more allegations against the Pittsburgh VA. This time it is in the form of what can only be described as a manifesto on this web site.

1. Fraud and negligence in acquisition and procurement of high dollar value equipment.
At the VAPHS and VISN 4, during my tenure as Program Leader in Radiology, the composition of the High Dollar and High tech Committee was chaired by an Internist (Dr. Glenn Snyder COS at Clarksburg VA), who had neither knowledge of the need for nor the elements that defined the purchases in Radiology in the VISN. This accounts for the unnecessary purchases of a third linear accelerator, the fifth Gamma Camera or the low field strength Orthopedic Scanner.

2. Oversight by the VACO.
This was not evident in any judgment exercised in the equipment purchased.
For instance,
a) when the 1.0 T Orthopedic Unit was acquired and upgrade to the 1.5 T unit was available and could have been purchased. Currently with the 1.0T scanner, few if any scans are performed. Patients who have been scanned in the 1.0T unit are then rescanned in the higher strength units. This translates to a wasted sum of ≈ $600,000 for the purchase of the unit and an expenditure of 10% of the purchase price for maintenance.
b) A second example is the acquisition of a fifth SPECT scanner when the need is for a SPECT-CT unit was clearly obvious. This has resulted in a number of cases being “fee-based” to UPMC or elsewhere for SPECT-CT scanning.

This goes on and on. The site's proprietor, Dr. Vijay Mehta, says that I am in an internet war against the good doctor. I would challenge that assertion.

Dr. Chacko again attacks the Pittsburgh VA and Dr. Mona Melhem specifically. This has been her mantra since before I was even introduced to her. This is the largest detail to her charges, at least publicly.

I can't speak to the whole piece, but I can speak to the part about me.

On September 2nd, a blogger (Michael Volpe) called me at my office and told me that he would be writing up slanderous and very injurious articles about me on the Internet. Since I did not know Mr. Volpe personally, I asked him what his sources of information would be. He claimed and subsequently has stated on his blog that his sources of information would be the VA.

The conversation Dr. Chacko speaks of was entirely off the record however I never used the term "slanderous". I also never said my sources were the VA itself but folks within the Pittsburgh VA. Now, I also have sources outside the hospital as well. Once again Dr. Chacko claims that I am being investigated by the FBI. If this is happening, it's happening without my knowledge. No one from the FBI has ever contacted me about this matter.

UPDATE:

After a conversation with a little birdy, the thread appears to have been taken down.

The Corrosive Power of Entitlements

I was at a diner yesterday morning for breakfast when the subject of Greece came up among the staff. One of the staff suggested that the way to have averted the crisis was to have benefits to many of their public employees benefits packages long ago. After all, the employee reasoned, the budget deficit that is causing the country to be on the verge of collapse is due in large part on sweetheart deals to public employees.

It's a simple solution and it would also solve many of our own "unfunded liability" issues in Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. They are taking in less and less in revenues and paying out more and more in benefits. So, we must raise the age of benefits, cut the amount of benefits, and/or raise the taxes on benefits.

I listened as the employee presented a perfectly reasonable idea and I couldn't listen any more. This idea, while perfectly reasonable on a policy level, has no political viability. That's because whenever any politician proposes any cuts to benefits, there is another politician ready to demagogue the issue and claim you're going to take what is rightfully someone's right. Those politicians will proclaim that said entitlements are perfectly solvent and under their plans everyone will get their benefits. That's exactly what happened during the Social Security debate in 2005. Any proposed change to Social Security by Bush was met with attacks by Democrats that he "was taking away your social security".

Furthermore, you can bet your opponents will find some $2000 campaign contribution from some donor that they will then claim will benefit from your cuts. Now, suddenly, you're no longer proposing a fiscal solution but a corrupt politician.

The idea proposed assumed that voters are logical. Voters can see when a program has no long term fiscal viability. Of course, if that were true President Obama would never have been president. He promised everything to everyone: free health care, student loans, to pay your mortgage, and only the really rich would pay. That's not viable and yet he won overwhelmingly.

That's what happens as soon as you give out an entitlement. People feel entitled and anyone that dares to take it away gets eliminated.

IRS Hits a Nerve with Liberals

Eric Zorn, of the Chicago Tribune, is the latest to downplay the role of the IRS in Obamacare.

Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk, of Highland Park, was a tiny bit closer to reality during a March 21 floor speech in the House when he said, "According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the IRS would need to hire over 16,000 people ... to audit the American people and impose the new taxes and mandates."

It's tempting to point out that Republicans have spent much of the last month scoffing at CBO estimates — particularly the ones that say new health care regulations will reduce the federal deficit by $138 billion in the first decade and $1.2 trillion in the second decade.

But it's even more tempting to point out that CBO made no such estimate at all.

As the nonpartisan FactCheck.org and the Pulitzer Prize-winning PolitiFact.com both explained in their lengthy analyses of the popular claim about an army of new IRS employees, the estimate was generated by the Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee and released on March 18. (See supporting documentation and fact-check links here)

As soon as Republicans began to attack Obamacare by pointing out that the IRS would get more power under Obamacare, liberals have tried to downplay that increase in power. Anthony Weiner famously wouldn't answer Bill O'Reilly when O'Reilly pointed this out. The latest is Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, who claimed that there is no requirement to get health insurance.



It's true that many have overblown the involvement of the IRS for the sake of politicization and hyperbole, however there's no doubt that the IRS will have more power under Obamacare. There's also no doubt why the Democrats are so keen to downplay this increase in power. Charles Krauthammer said it best. He said it didn't take a psychologist to figure this out. (Krauthammer is himself a psychologist and thus the reference) People dislike the IRS and they don't want to see the IRS with anymore power.

So, folks like Zorn focus on the hyperbole. It's true the IRS won't be sent with guns to your home. It's true they won't garnish your paycheck or put liens on your home. They will do something. They'll have to. Health insurance will now be required. That requirement will be enforced and it will be enforced by the IRS. Unless it's enforced properly it will hold no weight. Without that requirement, Obamacare falls apart. People have to get insurance or they'll wait until they're sick to get insurance under Obamacare. The likes of Eric Zorn want to get into minutae but it isn't the minutae that's important. What's important is that the power of the IRS will be expanded. That people dislike.

Get Ready for VAT

Paul Volcker has spoken.

Acknowledging it would be a highly unpopular move, White House economic adviser Paul Volcker said yesterday the United States should consider imposing a "value added tax" similar to those charged in Europe to help get the deficit under control.

A VAT is a national sales tax that, like state and city sales taxes, would be collected by retailers.

Volcker, at the New-York Historical Society, told a panel on the global financial crisis that Congress might also have to consider new taxes on carbon and energy.

One guy that is likely sticking his chest out is Charles Krauthammer. He's been predicting this for weeks.

That’s where the value-added tax comes in. For the politician, it has the virtue of expediency: People are used to sales taxes, and this one produces a river of revenue. Every 1 percent of VAT would yield up to $1 trillion a decade (depending on what you exclude — if you exempt food, for example, the yield would be more like $900 billion).

It’s the ultimate cash cow. Obama will need it. By introducing universal health care, he has pulled off the largest expansion of the welfare state in four decades. And the most expensive. Which is why all of the European Union has the VAT. Huge VATs. Germany: 19 percent. France and Italy: 20 percent. Most of Scandinavia: 25 percent.

In fact, Krauthammer pretty much nailed it besides its introduction after the election. The VAT is great if you're trying to raise revenues quickly. It would also put us one step closer to a Western Europe style Social Democracy. The VAT is very popular there. It helps to pay for the plethora of government entitlement programs.

It would also mean that President Obama would go back on his most famous campaign promise not to tax anyone that makes under $200,000 in income. He may try and pull some misdirection and pretend as though this won't be that type of tax or that he wasn't talking about this type of tax. It won't work. If he does anything to try and implement the VAT, he will lose significant support and never get it back.

Break Up the Banks and Presidential Power

This article got me thinking.

By all means, give regulators resolution authority and also impose the tightest regulations possible. But Congress and the White House shouldn’t stop there. Limits should be placed on how big big banks can become.

How big? No one has been able to show significiant efficiencies over $100 billion in assets. Make that the outside limit.

To be sure, smaller banks might still be subject to runs. That’s why the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation was created in the 1930s – to ensure depositors in the event a bank gets into trouble, so they won’t have to run to protect their savings. And why the Glass-Steagall Act was passed – to separate commercial banking (where depositors put their money) from investment banking (where betting is done). We could expand insurance to certain categories of bank creditor, and we should resurrect Glass-Stagall.

But the only way to make sure no bank it too big to fail is to make sure no bank is too big. If Congress and the White House fail to do this, you have every reason to believe it’s because Wall Street has paid them not to.

Teddy Roosevelt created not only a legacy but a near legend by using the power of Sherman Anti Trust.

One of his first notable acts as president was to deliver a 20,000-word address to Congress^[55] asking it to curb the power of large corporations (called "trusts"). For his aggressive attacks on trusts over his two terms he has been called a "trust-buster."

Roosevelt's legend was cemented when he broke up Standard Oil. Yet, post Roosevelt trust busting has been near non existent. The only high profile trust busted was AT&T in the 1980's and that was largely with the cooperation of AT&T itself.

On no level does this make sense. Roosevelt is on Mount Rushmore. His legend was cemented by his high profile confrontations with the likes of Rockefeller. All Presidents worry about their legacies.

Beyond that, there's almost no power grab as large as trust busting. Is there anything more seductive in a presidency than power? Is there a greater power than trust busting? Even the power to wage war isn't as absolute as trust busting. Pop psychology would state that once a president got a taste of that power it would be like crack.

Not so, it worked for Roosevelt and then it went away. There is no logic to it. Almost everything President Obama has done has been one giant power grab yet. Yet, if Obama really wanted a power grab he'd break up the banks. The health care bill is small time compared to the power grab that trust busting the banks would be. It would also be a populist move. Nothing says your a man of the people like dismantling the biggest banks.

Furthermore, trust busting isn't something you can fit into an ideological box. This wouldn't be a clear liberal/conservative move. If the president were serious about post partisan, this is his move. Finally, isn't too big to fail the very epitome of a monopoly or trust? If Obama is trying to fix that problem, isn't this where he starts?

Critical Time in Housing

The most recent housing number shows signs of an improving housing market.

The number of pending sales of existing homes in the US rose in February, giving the real estate market an optimistic outlook for the coming year.

Extended Homebuyer Tax Credit

Much of this recent increase in existing home sales has been attributed to the extended home buyer tax credit, which requires homebuyers to sign a sales contract by April 30th in order to be eligible. Pending sales on existing homes rose 8.2% according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR) Index, which now sits at 97.6, far above where economists thought February home sales numbers would be, with some actually predicting a decline of 0.5%.

There have been all sorts of so called green shoots in housing for months. Prices have steadied. Sales have increased at least slightly. Yet, none of it matters.

All that matters is what will happen over the next four to six months. That's because housing has been carried by two important stimuli and each has gone away or is about to go away. What will be critical is what will happen to the market once both go away.

The biggest stimuli was the Fed's quantitative easing that bought in excess of one trillion dollars of mortgage bonds. That's kept the thirty year mortgage at and below 5%. That ended on the first of April and now we'll see just how high mortgage rates will go without it. The market was barely motoring along while interest rates were at record levels. What will happen when rates go up? What if they only go up 1%. That's about $200 extra dollars a month in mortgage payments on a $200,000 mortgage.

Second, the first time home buyer credit incentive is about to expire at the end of the month. That gave first time homebuyers $8000 which could be applied directly to the down payment. That's no small amount. In fact, that largely drove the health March home sales numbers. So, what will happen to housing once these two go away?

In fact, it's scary to think just how weak the housing market has been considering the enormous stimulus that's been driven into the market. In fact, we've had near record low mortgage rates for more than a year and still the housing market has done little to recover. For almost nine months, first time home buyers were given an enormous credit and still the housing market was still not moving. So, we'll see where housing will go now that both will go away.

Alan Greenspan States the Obvious

Alan Greenspan says that if the CBO is wrong about the cost of Obamacare that may be a problem.

Former Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan warns the economic impact of the new healthcare reform law could be disastrous if the Congressional Budget Office’s
(CBO) projections prove inaccurate.

Greenspan told ABC News’ “This Week” on Sunday CBO is a “first-rate” operation, but significant danger exists should their projections prove inaccurate over time.

“And when you're dealing with an economy in which debt is becoming, federal debt is becoming ever increasingly a problem, it strikes me that when you're dealing with public policy and you're in a position where you have to ask yourself, ‘What happens if we are wrong?’” Greenspan said in response to a question from ABC’s Jake Tapper
regarding his thoughts about the newly passed healthcare reform act.

Medicare was supposed to cost less than $100 million when it was rolled out. It was supposed to quadruple in price by now. It's in excess of $100 billion yearly now. That should give everyone an idea just how out of control Obamacare may be.

Private Payrolls Portend Problems

This months' BLS number will be especially exciting. The consensus is a solid growth of 190,000 jobs. Meanwhile, the projections range from negative 40,000 to positive 300,000. To top it all off, the private payroll just came in.

U.S. private employers cut 23,000 jobs in March, missing expectations for an increase in jobs although fewer than the adjusted 24,000 jobs lost in February, a report by a private employment service said on Wednesday.

"It throws a little cold water on the idea we were going to be adding jobs in March, which is a little disappointing, people thought finally this might be the month," said John Canally, investment strategist and economist for LPL Financial in Boston.

That should scale back most predictions. There's only six months of employment data left after this.

Republicans Winning the PR Healthcare Battle

Repeal and replace

As soon as I heard that slogan, I knew the Republicans had a winner. That's because live in a soundbite world. You need to explain yourself in ten seconds or less. That fits the bill. It's short, sweet, and to the point. That's perfect on our sound bite age.

When he was running for president, candidate Obama had exactly that kind of a slogan.

Tax cuts for 95% of Americans

Again, it was short, sweet, and to the point.

Now, the Democrats are struggling to try and explain the benefits of health care reform in the world of the ten second sound bite. We hear something about how now insurance companies won't be able to deny coverage to someone with a pre existing condition, kids will be on their parents insurance until they're 26, and we'll be closer to the dream of health care for all. That's not a sound bite but a long and confusing explanation. It's even more confusing since none can explain why 2700 pages were necessary to accomplish these goals.

In fact, not everyone is all that excited about keeping kids on their parents insurance that long. It creates more dependency when much of the population wants an environment of independence. So, until Democrats can sell health care reform in the soundbite age "repeal and replace" will win out.

As an aside, I've noticed that whenever defenders defend this bill they say, "there are parts of this bill Americans like". That's an interesting admission. None will say people like the bill itself but simply parts.

Catching Up with Chad Harris of No Insurance Club

I recently had a chance to catch up with Chad Harris of No Insurance Club. Harris runs a service in which basic medical services are provided without getting insurance. Instead the doctor and patient enter into an agreement in which the doctor agrees to provide basic health care for a year and the patient pays for each year up front. So, for $499 a single person gets up to 12 basic visits as well as all related medical tests for an entire year as well. There are no forms, no insurance approvals, no waiting, because it's not insurance. Instead, it's an agreement between the patient and doctor. It's a $799 for the same set of services for a family of four.

I wanted to catch up with Chad Harris because when we spoke last summer he told me that Obamacare would likely put him out of business. Harris was feeling a lot more confident these days. He's now become Obamacare's biggest fan. That's not necessarily a personal belief but rather a business decision.

With the passage of Obamacare, everyone involved in health care must adapt and that include Harris' No Insurance Club. In fact, Harris was very confident that No Insurance Club would thrive within Obamacare. For starters, he believes that the niche of so called concierge medicince would expand. Concierge medicine is when you the patient have all your needs catered to you.

That view is borne out of the conservative belief that adding thirty some million new patients without adding more doctors will increase waits and decrease. With No Insurance Club, that won't happen. For the annual fee, you are guaranteed a minimum number of visits with no waiting.

In other words, when invariably medical service goes down under Obamacare, you'll want to move outside the system and that's the niche that No Insurance Club will explore. Second, so far at least, so called strict catastrophic coverage won't be outlawed. Harris sees an opportunity. He believes that it will be much cheaper for most to pay the fine, get his service and then catastrophic coverage and it will be much cheaper than getting the necessary insurance.

That's not only ironic but a sign of just how rudimentary our health care debate is. Such services were never a part of any debate. If the combination of No Insurance Club, a fine, and catastrophic is cheaper than full insurance service, wouldn't it mean that it's exactly these types of services that could bring down health care costs? Yet, the debate centered around universal coverage. Worse yet, this sort of idea would cost the government absolutely nothing. Yet, health care reform had to pass because we're at a crisis.

Furthermore, Harris is making contingencies to attach No Insurance Club to larger insurance platforms. Why? It's because Harris understands that Obamacare greatly expands government control and power and the feds can at anytime outlaw anything that isn't health insurance. So, No Insurance Club will be prepared for that day.

Finally, Harris is even prepared for Armageddon. In the event that Obamacare makes our health care system a complete disaster, No Insurance Club is building a hospital center in a resort town in Mexico 45 miles from the Arizona border. It's concierge medical care on steroids. The patient would be able to get all sorts of elective medical procedures and they'd stay at a resort. So, they could play several rounds of golf, spend the day at the pool, and then go to the doctor. All these doctors would be Americans. It's an idea that has a market under any health care scenario. In other words, there's plenty of people that would want to be catered to like this in any health care environment. Yet, if Obamacare totally destroys our health care system, this resort town would be a beacon for Americans to still receive top notch service from American doctors without dealing with the Obamacare disaster.

The Three Views of Health Care Reform

Bernie Goldberg was on O'Reilly last night talking about the media reaction to the passage of health care reform. Goldberg explained it like this. Liberals believe that health care is a moral issue. In other words, health care is a moral imperative and thus we need legislation that will expand health care coverage to all.

Meanwhile, conservatives view health care as an economic issue. We can't expand health care coverage to 30 million more people and be able to afford. Health care reform won't work because we simply can't afford it.

Then, there are those that view health care reform as all part of a plot to turn America into a European style Social Democracy. Those are the folks that Goldberg and O'Reilly said were absolutely lighting up talk radio in a near uncontrollable rage. They are the Tea Party types. Who are they? They are the libertarians. They see health care reform as a philsophical issue. They hate government and this expands government. That's why they go into a nearly uncontrollable rage at the thought of Obamacare. It is opposite of their core philosophy.

There is a small and nuanced difference between a conservative and a libertarian. For sure, they have many similiarities. Think of it this way. Conservatives hate government regulation. Yet, if you asked the typical conservative if they thought that we should have an FDA, they'd likely say yes. A libertarian would want the FDA abolished. That's what drives the uncontrollable anger. Conservatives believe that Obamacare simply doesn't make economic sense. Libertarians believe Obamacare is the antithesis of the core of their world philosophy.