There have been 21 total census done by the United States Government. Of those only 14 are available for public review as the law says a Census can't be released for 70 years after its taken.
That leaves 14 Census open to public review. The first six of those 14 addressed property owing white men an how many slaves they owned. in other-words 43% of all the available data about American citizens cares only about white men and slavery.
In 1848 Zachary Taylor was elected president. His grandson is still alive!
As you all probably realize John Tyler had a LOT of children (15 by two wives) and many of these rather late in life. So if you work out the math, it isn't that surprising that Tyler still has a living grandson.Harrison Tyler, 81, the grandson of John Tyler, still resides at Tyler's plantation, Sherwood Forest. There are tours of the house by appointment even though the family still lives there. In addition, you can take a virtual tour.
If you are interested in the genealogy, here is the breakdown and some information on Harrison Tyler:
Let's back up. John Tyler was president from 1841-45. How can a guy who became president 168 years ago have a living grandson?
It helps if he's a distinguished horndog who keeps fathering children until he's 70 years old. Lyon Gardiner Tyler, his 13th child, was born in 1853, when John Tyler was 63.
Going his father one better, Lyon Tyler lived to be 81 and fathered a son at age 75, in 1928. That son was Harrison Tyler -- born 66 years after the death of his grandfather and still living today.
John Tyler was the 10th president, and Barack Obama is the 44th, so 34 presidencies have passed between John Tyler and his grandson. For that matter, President Tyler was born in 1790, when George Washington was president... so the three Tyler generations span every single president of the United States.
Harrison Tyler went to the College of William & Mary (like his grandpa) and became a chemical engineer. He still lives in Sherwood Forest Plantation and seems like a good egg. Keeping up the Tyler political tradition, he even donated $1250 to the Virginia Republican Party in 2008.And he's got a sense of humor about the family fecundity. Here he is encountering some college kids pitching woo near busts of his ancestors at William & Mary:
http://www.american-presidents.org/2009/03/john-tyler-has-living-grandson.html
we sometimes wonder why race is still such a large issue in the great country with the Civil ending so long ago. But, as you can see it was only 16 Census's an one presidential grandson ago, that president left office 11 years before the Civil War began. Maybe time doesn't fly after all.
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
Sunday, July 28, 2013
So what do we do about National Health Care?
My last discussion probably left many shaking their heads saying Larry doesn't know what he's talking about. That was intentional. I recognize that there are 76 million people covered by MEDICAID and 50 Million covered by MEDICARE, not counting all the folks covered by Federal State and Local Government Health Insurance, all by the way underfunded, or those whose employer pays for their health care.
The point was to show what Obama Care says it cost to provide care to the healthiest group of people in the country. Families making over 150% of the poverty level. The 76 million on MEDICAID pay nothing, and those working and paying payroll taxes only pay 1.45% toward future care.
As I showed the actual cost of insurance is approximately 35% of the gross income for a family of four in their early thirties. For the same age group making $94,200.00 their cost is only 13% of their gross income. As they age and reach late middle age, their mid fifties, and have two college age children the cost raises dramatically, especially for the lower middle class. Insurance cost rise to 61% of their gross income.
Remember, working families pay 1.45% to cover future MEDICARE costs. If the average family works from age 22 to age 66 they will pay a total of $20,480.00 into the plan. If we assume the cost of coverage for MEDICARE is the same as for a 65 year old man under Obama Care. The cost of MEDICARE per year would be $10,368.00. The money paid in by the family would cover the Health Care cost of one of the two retirees for two years. No wonder they project MEDICARE will be totally broke before 2020.
In order for MEDICARE to be self sufficient the rate would need to be raised to 10% on all income at all income levels. A 10 fold increase in MEDICARE tax rate. This not going to happen.
What therefore is the point of this: We, as a Nation, can't afford Obama Care in its present form and MEDICARE needs a complete overall. No matter what we do the out of pocket expense for health care
must go up sufficiently to maintain a basic level of care for everyone. Regardless of all the rhetoric some amount of rationing of care is inevitable, unless we can find a way to attract ten's of thousands people to spend 12 plus years of education. Only to become the lowest paid of medical doctors.
The point was to show what Obama Care says it cost to provide care to the healthiest group of people in the country. Families making over 150% of the poverty level. The 76 million on MEDICAID pay nothing, and those working and paying payroll taxes only pay 1.45% toward future care.
As I showed the actual cost of insurance is approximately 35% of the gross income for a family of four in their early thirties. For the same age group making $94,200.00 their cost is only 13% of their gross income. As they age and reach late middle age, their mid fifties, and have two college age children the cost raises dramatically, especially for the lower middle class. Insurance cost rise to 61% of their gross income.
Remember, working families pay 1.45% to cover future MEDICARE costs. If the average family works from age 22 to age 66 they will pay a total of $20,480.00 into the plan. If we assume the cost of coverage for MEDICARE is the same as for a 65 year old man under Obama Care. The cost of MEDICARE per year would be $10,368.00. The money paid in by the family would cover the Health Care cost of one of the two retirees for two years. No wonder they project MEDICARE will be totally broke before 2020.
In order for MEDICARE to be self sufficient the rate would need to be raised to 10% on all income at all income levels. A 10 fold increase in MEDICARE tax rate. This not going to happen.
What therefore is the point of this: We, as a Nation, can't afford Obama Care in its present form and MEDICARE needs a complete overall. No matter what we do the out of pocket expense for health care
must go up sufficiently to maintain a basic level of care for everyone. Regardless of all the rhetoric some amount of rationing of care is inevitable, unless we can find a way to attract ten's of thousands people to spend 12 plus years of education. Only to become the lowest paid of medical doctors.
Obama Care: The US Debt
The last time I talked about the cost of Obama care for individual households. Today lets discuss the effects of Obama care on the deficit.
The medium income for a household in the US is presently $50202.00. There are 161 million households according to Wikipedia. If you test the cost of insurance to this medium you will see that insurance companies will collect $1034.00 per month of this the family will ultimately pay $283.00 per family.
This leaves the US government paying $751.00 per month or $9012.00 per year. Using the number of households times the cost to the government per family you get $1.45 Trillion dollars.
Where is this new government expenditure going to come from? Without an increase in revenues, which doesn't appear likely, the only other possibility is additional deficit spending. Doubling the deficit to 2.5 trillion dollars per year for the foreseeable future. By the end of Mr Obama's 8 years in office the national debt will rise to 24 trillion dollars or 115% of GDP. The debt % of a third world country on a massive scale. But not to worry as the debt is owned by the same government which created it, so do you believe it will really be repaid? Or does it really exist, can you loan money to yourself?
The medium income for a household in the US is presently $50202.00. There are 161 million households according to Wikipedia. If you test the cost of insurance to this medium you will see that insurance companies will collect $1034.00 per month of this the family will ultimately pay $283.00 per family.
This leaves the US government paying $751.00 per month or $9012.00 per year. Using the number of households times the cost to the government per family you get $1.45 Trillion dollars.
Where is this new government expenditure going to come from? Without an increase in revenues, which doesn't appear likely, the only other possibility is additional deficit spending. Doubling the deficit to 2.5 trillion dollars per year for the foreseeable future. By the end of Mr Obama's 8 years in office the national debt will rise to 24 trillion dollars or 115% of GDP. The debt % of a third world country on a massive scale. But not to worry as the debt is owned by the same government which created it, so do you believe it will really be repaid? Or does it really exist, can you loan money to yourself?
Friday, July 26, 2013
Obama Care 2014
As of 1/1/2014 all individuals and families who make more 135% of the Federal Government defined Poverty Rate will be required to buy Government mandated Health Insurance. If a family of four makes $35,325.00 a year they will pay approximately $118.00 a month out of pocket for this new mandated insurance. This works out to 6.3% of their gross income the same as they presently pay in payroll taxes. Or stated another way their payroll taxes will double.
This new health expense holds true for everyone who makes less than $94, 200.00 a year. They all will pay 6.3% of their gross income for the new requirement. Above this amount there will be no Government assistance and the tax payer will pay the entire amount Out Of Pocket (OOP).
The projected actual cost of the policy for a 30 year old man with a 28 year old wife and two children is $1041.00 a month, the OOP for incomes is shown below:
This new health expense holds true for everyone who makes less than $94, 200.00 a year. They all will pay 6.3% of their gross income for the new requirement. Above this amount there will be no Government assistance and the tax payer will pay the entire amount Out Of Pocket (OOP).
The projected actual cost of the policy for a 30 year old man with a 28 year old wife and two children is $1041.00 a month, the OOP for incomes is shown below:
- Income OOP Government Assistance
- $35325.00 $118.00 $923.00
- $47100.00 $248.00 $793.00
- $58875.00 $396.00 $645.00
- $70650.00 $560.00 $481.00
- $82425.00 $653.00 $383.00
- $94,200.00 $764.00 $295.00
- $99,100.00 $1041.00 $0
Now for the really bad news: Obama Care requires that insurance cost for the elderly, but not MEDICARE eligible, not be more than three times the rate for the young, as shown below:
- Income OOP Government Assistance
- $35325.00 $118.00 $2150.00
- $47100.00 $248.00 $2022.00
- $58875.00 $396.00 $1883.00
- $70650.00 $560.00 $1709.00
- $82425.00 $653.00 $1615.00
- $94,200.00 $764.00 $1523.00
- $99,100.00 $2268.00 $0
If you are young and healthy the government will assist you with about 89% of your cost at the lowest rung of the income level. But, if you are old they will pickup 95% of the cost. That's 95% of the cost of insurance priced 45% higher more than the young families policy price.
If you use my two neighbors as examples the inequity of this becomes apparent. My wife's friend is a single woman who is 64 years old. Last year she visited her doctor monthly and was hospitalized and had surgery twice. My young friend across the street is in his early thirties. He is married and has two children. They visited the doctor once for a required physical for a school athletic program for which they payed $124.00 to the doctor.
So who do you suppose really need the insurance? It's a no brainier.
What happens if you don't buy insurance? In 2015 when you file your Income tax return you will be penalized $95.00 for each adult and $47.50 per child. In our example this would be $283.20 this verses a total outlay of $1416.00 had they bought insurance. A savings of about $1000.00 for the year if you assume they continue to see a doctor once each year.
In 2015 the penalty triples to $325.00 per adult and $162.50 per child for a total $975.00. A wash as far as cost goes so they would be smart if the purchased the insurance.
A young couple with two kids would owe no income tax but would pay $4451.00 in Payroll taxes and health care insurance. Leaving them $30794.00 to live on or $598.00 a week as take home pay. Average rent in our area is $1100.00 a month and car insurance is approximately $125.00 a month. Utilities run $250.00 a month. Assume $60.00 a week for gasoline and you have a total of $380.00 of weekly expenses. Leaving $218.00 for food and entertainment. If you are frugal and always eat at home you and spend as little a $5.00 per day per person or $140.00 a week. Buy Cable TV at $60.00 per month and you have $180.00 a month left to save for your retirement.
You can try your own insurance cost by going to the link below.
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
Monopoly money
Most of us know that all of the money held in Trust for Social Security and Medicare doesn't really exist. The Trust Funds are Government Bonds owned by various Federal Government agencies with no way to pay them back. There are several other Trust Funds that are financed in the same manner. The total of all these Trust Funds made up 99% of government held Federal Debt at the end of 2007. The amounted to 5.6 trillion dollars or about 49% of the National Debt. The other 54% was held by individuals, state, city and foreign governments.
In November 2008 that began to change as Federal Reserve Banking (the Fed) Chairman Bernanke began what he termed Quantitative Easing. What this amounted to was the US Mint printing additional paper money. As Congress increased deficit spending, rather than sell bonds to traditional buyers to raise cash, the Fed bought the bonds at an artificially low interest rate, something less than 2% in most cases. They then issued the new money to the Government Agencies to spend. This has resulted in the Federal Government being owner of 61.3% of its own debt today. And the total National Debt has ballooned from 12.5 to 17 trillion dollars over the last five years.
The ultimate irony of this policy is that the interest the government owes on this massive debt is now only 68% of what was owed in 2008. Only our politicians in Washington DC can pretend this is being done with real money!
If you believe the liberal press, this was done to drive investors into more risky investments. But, would you loan money to anyone who had gone from owing 60% of their gross income to owing 95%? Well, that's the position we are in today. The National Debt is equal to about 95% of Gross Domestic Production, and the Fed, which is part of the Government, is loaning the other Government Agencies the money at less than prevailing interest rates with no collateral required.
The truth is that this policy has reduced the value of the dollar and stock therefore cost more to buy. Last week Bernanke told reporters that the Fed would start backing off on Quantitative Easing. The immediate result was a triple digit two day drop in the stock market. The market has remained below Fifteen thousand since that time.
The stock market obviously doesn't think the US economy can absorb the additional 5 trillion dollars in Deficit Spending Congress is expected to create over the next six years.
In November 2008 that began to change as Federal Reserve Banking (the Fed) Chairman Bernanke began what he termed Quantitative Easing. What this amounted to was the US Mint printing additional paper money. As Congress increased deficit spending, rather than sell bonds to traditional buyers to raise cash, the Fed bought the bonds at an artificially low interest rate, something less than 2% in most cases. They then issued the new money to the Government Agencies to spend. This has resulted in the Federal Government being owner of 61.3% of its own debt today. And the total National Debt has ballooned from 12.5 to 17 trillion dollars over the last five years.
The ultimate irony of this policy is that the interest the government owes on this massive debt is now only 68% of what was owed in 2008. Only our politicians in Washington DC can pretend this is being done with real money!
If you believe the liberal press, this was done to drive investors into more risky investments. But, would you loan money to anyone who had gone from owing 60% of their gross income to owing 95%? Well, that's the position we are in today. The National Debt is equal to about 95% of Gross Domestic Production, and the Fed, which is part of the Government, is loaning the other Government Agencies the money at less than prevailing interest rates with no collateral required.
The truth is that this policy has reduced the value of the dollar and stock therefore cost more to buy. Last week Bernanke told reporters that the Fed would start backing off on Quantitative Easing. The immediate result was a triple digit two day drop in the stock market. The market has remained below Fifteen thousand since that time.
The stock market obviously doesn't think the US economy can absorb the additional 5 trillion dollars in Deficit Spending Congress is expected to create over the next six years.
Friday, June 28, 2013
Those Great New Jobs
In 2008 there were 303.8 million people in the US and of those 152.2 million were working. After the housing bubble burst, 19% of the people who lost their jobs were in the highest pay brackets, 60% of the jobs lost were to mid level employees and only 21% were in low paying jobs.
Since then the economy has created 6.26 million new jobs. There was a 1% gain in employment of the highest skilled employees. But for the middle class there has been a loss of 38% for jobs in the mid tier of the pay scale $14 to $21 dollars per hour. There has been a gain of 33% in low paying jobs which pay on average about $11.00 per hour and offer minimum or no benefits.
Overall there are about 2.5 million less jobs in the US today as in 2008 plus the population has grown by 13.5 million over this period. The Congressional Budget Office reports that the Immigration Bill just passed by the Senate will change US policy and continue to depress the job market for the next decade. Read that to mean that new jobs will continue to be OK for those in the high skill arena but middle class jobs will continue to shrink as American workers compete with immigrants for jobs.
A further complication for workers will begin in January 2014 when The Affordable Care Act is fully implemented. Look for small and medium sized business to begin a new round of layoffs. The cost of providing benefits, if they exceed the max they can employ, without providing health insurance will force them to either pay fines or reduce the number of full time workers. This will probably work out to either a reduction in pay or fewer hours as business owners will be unable to absorb the costs.
The final nail in middle class jobs is Congress's unwillingness to reduce the business income tax rates to a more competitive rate for international companies. These Companies are sitting on billions of dollars which could be invested in USA. American business are in a position to bring hundred of thousands of manufacturing jobs home if the congress fix the Tax Code.
The US also need to change the country's education system. Public School continue to turn out graduates which can't compete in mid level Job Skills and employers no longer take on the role of educators. Days of employers training their people in house are gone. They now expect trade schools and colleges to provide this training. The problem with this is the "Expert" syndrome it creates. Training as a Project Manager, CAD Operator or Specific Computer Controlled Machine operator doesn't create a rounded individual who can progress in a career path. Anymore than a Bachelor's Degree in History, Physiology or English is a guarantee of a middle class job in todays world. In fact both choices may lead to long term employment in a less than desirable job with fifty thousand dollars in school loans hanging over your head, with no ability to pay it back.
Ah these great new jobs!
Since then the economy has created 6.26 million new jobs. There was a 1% gain in employment of the highest skilled employees. But for the middle class there has been a loss of 38% for jobs in the mid tier of the pay scale $14 to $21 dollars per hour. There has been a gain of 33% in low paying jobs which pay on average about $11.00 per hour and offer minimum or no benefits.
Overall there are about 2.5 million less jobs in the US today as in 2008 plus the population has grown by 13.5 million over this period. The Congressional Budget Office reports that the Immigration Bill just passed by the Senate will change US policy and continue to depress the job market for the next decade. Read that to mean that new jobs will continue to be OK for those in the high skill arena but middle class jobs will continue to shrink as American workers compete with immigrants for jobs.
A further complication for workers will begin in January 2014 when The Affordable Care Act is fully implemented. Look for small and medium sized business to begin a new round of layoffs. The cost of providing benefits, if they exceed the max they can employ, without providing health insurance will force them to either pay fines or reduce the number of full time workers. This will probably work out to either a reduction in pay or fewer hours as business owners will be unable to absorb the costs.
The final nail in middle class jobs is Congress's unwillingness to reduce the business income tax rates to a more competitive rate for international companies. These Companies are sitting on billions of dollars which could be invested in USA. American business are in a position to bring hundred of thousands of manufacturing jobs home if the congress fix the Tax Code.
The US also need to change the country's education system. Public School continue to turn out graduates which can't compete in mid level Job Skills and employers no longer take on the role of educators. Days of employers training their people in house are gone. They now expect trade schools and colleges to provide this training. The problem with this is the "Expert" syndrome it creates. Training as a Project Manager, CAD Operator or Specific Computer Controlled Machine operator doesn't create a rounded individual who can progress in a career path. Anymore than a Bachelor's Degree in History, Physiology or English is a guarantee of a middle class job in todays world. In fact both choices may lead to long term employment in a less than desirable job with fifty thousand dollars in school loans hanging over your head, with no ability to pay it back.
Ah these great new jobs!
Thursday, June 27, 2013
Social Security and the 21st Century: The coming disaster
Social Security (SS) and it associated Trust Fund is probably the most misunderstood program the Federal Government ever created. Passed by Congress and signed into law by FDR the program as originally implemented was to provide a minimal income to widows and orphans.
SS became law in 1935 and the first payments were made in 1937. At that time the life expectancy of a man was 60.8 years. Early SS was available when a man turned 62, it was reduced by 30% from the maximum which available at age 65. If a man reached age 62 his life expectancy was 6.4 years or to the age of 71.4. But 50% of all men died before reaching 61 and an additional 19% died before reaching 62 and only 1 in 4 of those left reached 65.
Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) states that the total population in 1940 was 131,500,000 people. Of these 46.4% were children. They also show that the Civilian Work Force was 91% male and 9% female. Thus, the population looked like this:
By 1965 the SS Tax rate was raised to 6%. There were now 72,530,000 covered and 14,262,000 covered by SS and the worker ratio was down to 5.8 to 1. By this time the effects of better health care was being felt due to antibiotics childhood vaccines. Mens life expectancy was now 66.3 and womens was 73.3. Men who reached their 65 birthday could expect to live 7.4 years or until they were 72.4 on average. 53.6% of all men would live to be 65 up from 20.8% in 1940. So if you started collecting SS when you were 62 and lived past 65 you could expect to collect SS fo 10.4 years. In 1966 Medicare was enacted and FICA was added to the american vernacular. The original medicare tax rate was .3%
By the mid 1980 it was obvious to anyone who had a 3rd grade education that medicare and Social Security were insolvent. The congress changed the laws pertaining to both, they increased the tax rates and slowly over the next 30 years raised the retirement age for SS to 67. Plus, the established both trust funds, which they immediately turned into a federal slush fund. The congress loaned the money to other agencies of the Federal Government in the form of Bonds paying 3% interest. The agencies then spent the money.
The Congress did not however, increase the minimum age of 62 for SS and 65 for Medicare, nor did the make any adjustment for life expectancy. By then most Americans were beginning to plan their retirement arround SS. Which the original law never foresaw. By 1985 there were 120,560,000 covered workers and 36,650,000 recipients of SS. The worker Ratio had fallen further to 3.3 to 1
These agencies now hold bonds in the amount $4,800,000,000,000.00 for SS and an additional fund for medicare. Somewhere in the neighborhood of $10 trillion. So according to the SS Trust Fund Administrators SS is solvent. In 2012, in their infinite wisdom the reduced the SS tax rate paid by employees to 4.6% and for self employed to 10.6%. So when you examine the federal budget for 2012 you will see that they paid out $433 billion to SS recipients out of general revenues, e.i. Income Taxes. So where's the Trust Fund. Gone, spent, kaput, there is no trust fund only paper bonds held by agencies which only spend money, never ever has any one of them made so much as a dollar!
I won't postulate on what the congress will do but these two programs will eat up the entire US budget sometime in the next 15 years if they don't do anything to reform them.
SS became law in 1935 and the first payments were made in 1937. At that time the life expectancy of a man was 60.8 years. Early SS was available when a man turned 62, it was reduced by 30% from the maximum which available at age 65. If a man reached age 62 his life expectancy was 6.4 years or to the age of 71.4. But 50% of all men died before reaching 61 and an additional 19% died before reaching 62 and only 1 in 4 of those left reached 65.
Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) states that the total population in 1940 was 131,500,000 people. Of these 46.4% were children. They also show that the Civilian Work Force was 91% male and 9% female. Thus, the population looked like this:
- Children under 18 61,016,000
- Male under 62 31,083,444
- Male over 62 3,453,716
- Female under 62 28,757,472
- Female over 62 7,189,238
- Covered SS 35,390,000
- Total Adults 70, 484,000
- SS recipients 222,000 (All men or widows and children)
- The ratio of working to receiving SS was 159 to 1
- Men available for work 31,083,444 times (1-16.8% = 83.2%) times 91% = 23,533,897
- Females available for work 28,757,472 times 83.2% *9% = 2,153,559
- Total available to work 35,390,000 people.
- Total unemployed 31,083,444+28,757,472 times 16.8% = 10,053,288
By 1965 the SS Tax rate was raised to 6%. There were now 72,530,000 covered and 14,262,000 covered by SS and the worker ratio was down to 5.8 to 1. By this time the effects of better health care was being felt due to antibiotics childhood vaccines. Mens life expectancy was now 66.3 and womens was 73.3. Men who reached their 65 birthday could expect to live 7.4 years or until they were 72.4 on average. 53.6% of all men would live to be 65 up from 20.8% in 1940. So if you started collecting SS when you were 62 and lived past 65 you could expect to collect SS fo 10.4 years. In 1966 Medicare was enacted and FICA was added to the american vernacular. The original medicare tax rate was .3%
By the mid 1980 it was obvious to anyone who had a 3rd grade education that medicare and Social Security were insolvent. The congress changed the laws pertaining to both, they increased the tax rates and slowly over the next 30 years raised the retirement age for SS to 67. Plus, the established both trust funds, which they immediately turned into a federal slush fund. The congress loaned the money to other agencies of the Federal Government in the form of Bonds paying 3% interest. The agencies then spent the money.
The Congress did not however, increase the minimum age of 62 for SS and 65 for Medicare, nor did the make any adjustment for life expectancy. By then most Americans were beginning to plan their retirement arround SS. Which the original law never foresaw. By 1985 there were 120,560,000 covered workers and 36,650,000 recipients of SS. The worker Ratio had fallen further to 3.3 to 1
These agencies now hold bonds in the amount $4,800,000,000,000.00 for SS and an additional fund for medicare. Somewhere in the neighborhood of $10 trillion. So according to the SS Trust Fund Administrators SS is solvent. In 2012, in their infinite wisdom the reduced the SS tax rate paid by employees to 4.6% and for self employed to 10.6%. So when you examine the federal budget for 2012 you will see that they paid out $433 billion to SS recipients out of general revenues, e.i. Income Taxes. So where's the Trust Fund. Gone, spent, kaput, there is no trust fund only paper bonds held by agencies which only spend money, never ever has any one of them made so much as a dollar!
I won't postulate on what the congress will do but these two programs will eat up the entire US budget sometime in the next 15 years if they don't do anything to reform them.
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