Monday, February 16, 2015

Barker's Newsbites: Monday, February 16, 2015


We've all heard, "Blah, blah, blah... the 1%," right?

Do you know who makes up the 1%? (I'm talking at what income level one enters "the top 1%.")

First... before I tell you... can you guess where "top 50%" starts?

How'bout the "top 25%?" The "top 10%?" The "top 5%?"

Well...???

OK... here's what I'm gonna do: I'll insert the answers into my initial posting within today's newsbites comment section.

(*WINK*)




6 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://www.financialsamurai.com/how-much-money-do-the-top-income-earners-make-percent/

Top 1%: $380,354

Top 5%: $159,619

Top 10%: $113,799

Top 25%: $67,280

Top 50%: $33,048

William R. Barker said...

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20150216/ml--islamic_state-copts-58958a0015.html

A video purporting to show the mass beheading of Coptic Christian hostages was released Sunday by militants in Libya affiliated with the Islamic State group.

* THANK YOU FOR LAYING THE GROUNDWORK FOR ALL THIS, PRESIDENT OBAMA AND FORMER-MADAM-SECRETARY HILLARY CLINTON!

The killings raise the possibility that the Islamic militant group — which controls about a third of Syria and Iraq in a self-declared caliphate — has established a direct affiliate less than 500 miles (800 kilometers) from the southern tip of Italy. One of the militants in the video makes direct reference to that possibility, saying the group now plans to "conquer Rome."

* I'D LIKE TO SEE 'EM TRY...

The militants had been holding 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians hostage for weeks...

* FOLKS. OBAMA AND CLINTON CREATED PRESENT DAY LIBYA. THEY ALSO BACKED THE ARAB SPRING... AND ISIS ORIGINALLY... AND ORIGINALLY VIEWED OUR LONGTIME ALLY EGYPT AS THE ENEMY. (RIGHT...?!?! I'M NOT MAKING ANY OF THIS UP, AM I...?!?!)

William R. Barker said...

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/02/scott-walker-correction-new-york-times-115229.html

In hindsight, perhaps the headline ‘Scott Walker Needs An Eraser’ wasn’t the best idea.

In a recent column about the conservative Republican Wisconsin governor, New York Times columnist Gail Collins wrote that Walker had cut state aid to education, causing teacher layoffs in 2010.

But...

* WAIT FOR IT... WAIT FOR IT...

(*DRUM ROLL*)

But Walker didn’t take office until 2011.

* BAM!

Whoops.

Collins did not reply to a Politico email seeking comment.

William R. Barker said...

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/feb/15/stephen-moore-affordable-care-act-isnt-affordable/

If there were a contest for the biggest lie in Washington over the past 30 years, it would be hard to compete with President Obama’s boast that he would put 30 million more Americans on Medicaid and ObamaCare subsidies and this would reduce the budget deficit.

A new Congressional Budget Office report has blown the lid off the Obama whopper. The CBO reports that through the first four months of fiscal 2015, federal spending is rising at an 8.2% clip.

* GEEZUS...

Medicaid spending is up a stratospheric 23% so far this year thanks to massive new enrollments.

In addition, the $7 billion in ObamaCare “exchange subsidies” so far this year brings the rise in costs of the “Affordable” Care Act to nearly 30%.

* THAT'S 1) "SO FAR..." 2) "THIS YEAR..."

This stampede of rising health costs was so predictable that most budget experts acknowledged — even liberals, privately — costs would spike when the new health law insurance subsidies kicked in. It had to happen. How could we possibly put tens of millions more Americans on Medicaid and other taxpayer assistance and also save money at the same time? It was a laughable claim that Team Obama somehow reiterated time and again — and they even managed to keep a straight face.

* WHEN YOU HAVE THE MEDIA PROVIDING COVER FOR YOU...

(*SHRUG*)

Now that ObamaCare is the law of the land, the White House openly boasts about how many people are relying on taxpayers for health coverage. ... How is putting more people on Medicaid a triumph? Medicaid is a welfare program. If this were a well-functioning economy with good jobs, Medicaid rolls would be shrinking and Americans would be coming self sufficient!

* OBVIOUSLY!

Mr. Clinton used to boast — justifiably so — after [finally] signing [Newt Gingrich's] welfare reform about the millions of people that were taken off welfare during his watch.

This president perversely boasts about how many people he puts on welfare!

(*BANGING MY HEAD AGAINST THE WALL*)

A major reason more people are on Medicaid is that a near-record number of Americans of working age don’t have a job. They can’t get health care through their non-existent employer. At the same time, employers are also dropping their health coverage and dumping employees and their families on Medicaid and the ObamaCare exchanges. How is this a victory?

* YES... HOW IS THIS "VICTORY...???"

Meanwhile, families are reporting hikes in premiums and fees. Premiums for ObamaCare plans are on average between 7% and 15% last year for the broad coverage plans.

So, no, ObamaCare has not saved families $2,500 a year.

No, it hasn’t “bent the cost curve for health care down.”

[What ObamaCare has done is make] the budget deficit much worse.

William R. Barker said...

* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/398653/obamacare-you-will-love-obamanet-deroy-murdock

In his relentless drive to leave no aspect of American life unmolested, Obama’s next stop is cyberspace.

Having “reformed” U.S. medicine, Obama now aims to “repair” the World Wide Web.

If you like ObamaCare, you will love ObamaNet.

On February 26, the Federal Communications Commission will vote on a “net neutrality” proposal to regulate broadband networks as if they were telephone monopolies from the days when copper wire was high tech. ObamaNet would let Uncle Sam intervene in the price, product-innovation, and capacity decisions of Internet Service Providers (ISPs).

* RINO REPUBLICANS CONTROL BOTH HOUSES OF CONGRESS. THEY CAN STOP THIS. THE QUESTION IS... WILL THEY?

Like ObamaCare, ObamaNet would impose complex rules via Title II of the Communications Act of 1934. FDR signed that legislation seven years after The Jazz Singer — the first feature-length talking picture — and seven years before Pearl Harbor. Astride this 81-year-old steed, Obama would lead the Internet’s charge into the 21st century.

Once ObamaNet ropes ISPs into Title II, they would need FCC approval for new products, business models, data-traffic operations, and more.

(*HEADACHE*)

Rather than focus on inventions and improvements, Silicon Valley executives would have to machete their way through Title II’s 682 pages and 987 rule sections. They could ask “forbearance” from these regulations. (Good luck!)

(According to the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, the FCC makes the average applicant wait 372 days — one year and one week — for an answer. Since 1996, about 69% of such requests have failed, at least partially.)

This is heaven for attorneys...

...and hell for software coders, entrepreneurs, and consumers.

* TO BE CONTINUED...

William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)

Like ObamaCare, ObamaNet also would pick pockets. “For the first time, billions of dollars in fees will be attached to the Internet service, just like they are to telephone service,” warns Senator Mike Lee (R. Utah). ISPs then would “pass them on to you, the consumer.”

* YOU'RE READING THIS... RIGHT...???

Liberal-think-tank scholars Robert Litan of the Brookings Institution and Hal Singer of the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) calculate annual increases in state fees of $67 for landline-broadband accounts and $72 for wireless subscriptions. Federal taxes per household will rise $17. They predict that “the new fees could reach $15 billion per year.”

Why does Obama want to squeeze $156 annually out of each typical broadband customer? Is any American so inclined unable to go online? Cheap computers with built-in browsers grant instant access to the Internet’s treasures. If one cannot buy an Internet-capable computer or smartphone, federally subsidized libraries offer free gateways to Amazon, eBay, Hotmail, Wikipedia, YouTube, and virtually every recorded example of human wisdom and folly via Google.

Obama claims that evil ISPs are delaying faster connections and denying consumers access to their speediest networks. “You’re watching the loading icon spin,” Obama complained on January 14 in Cedar Falls, Iowa. “You’re waiting, and waiting, and waiting. And meanwhile, you’re wondering why your rates keep on getting jacked up when the service doesn’t seem to improve.”

* HE'S FULL OF SHIT!

Obama really should escape his socialist bubble.

As PPI’s Lindsay M. Lewis explained in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal, “More than 90% of American households are now served by connections capable of neck-snapping speeds of 100 megabits per second. (Streaming a movie from Netflix on the ‘ultra high-definition’ setting requires a connection of only 25 megabits per second.)” This very op-ed reached NRO’s editors via a connection that Time Warner Cable upgraded last month. My former 100-megabit line now can handle 322 million bits every second - at no extra cost.

The once-gleaming “Digital Divide” now rusts in the Left’s political-slogan junkyard. ObamaPhone.com (for real) reports that ISPs offer “high-speed broadband to the very same people that [sic] qualify for the Obama Phone. Only $9.95 a month. There are cheap Internet plans for both cable and DSL.”

ObamaNet is a monstrous “solution” desperately seeking a problem.

ObamaNet is as urgently needed as a fire engine at the base of Niagara Falls, poised to battle any blaze that might erupt.

The Internet is not broken. Obama should not “fix” it.