Obamacare Will Bankrupt US: Rep. Paul Ryan

Don Lester of Rubicon Alliance

"Our country's fiscal fate seems sealed with the passage of Obamacare but out of control spending and Government debt levels were already on an unsustainable path long before America's version of socialized medicine was enacted."

~Don Lester

The following article is written by Michelle Fox

Obama’s federal health care law, which is now front of the U.S. Supreme Court, will bankrupt the U.S. and destroy the country’s health care system, Rep. Paul Ryan, (R) Wis., told CNBC Tuesday. “It vastly underestimates how many employers will actually drop their employer health insurance and dump people into the government exchange,” Ryan said.

In fact, he said private sector actuaries have told him that within a couple of years, about two-thirds of employers will “wash their hands” of offering health insurance to employees.

“Just about everybody will be in the [government] exchange,” Ryan said.

President Obama's health care law, now in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, will cause an implosion of the health care system and an implosion of our public debt, Ryan told Larry Kudlow.

Full Story:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/46872408

"QE3 is coming in one form or another despite what the political pundits say."

"QE3 is coming in one form or another despite what the political pundits say to the media and Joe Public. America's credit rating is looking worse with each passing year as our liabilities keep exponentially increasing without any signs of slowing in government spending or borrowing. The Fed will become the buyer of last resort when no one else is left that is willing to buy the debt of a bankrupt nation."

Don Lester...Rubicon Alliance

CNBC.com Article: Third Round of Bond Buying Not Needed: Fed's Bullard
A third round of Treasurys purchase is not necessary unless the U.S. economy deteriorates further, according to James Bullard, president of St Louis Federal Reserve Bank.

Full Story:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/46862674

Are carbon credits just around the corner?

CNBC.com Article: US to Propose First Climate Limits on Power Plants


The Obama administration will propose as soon as Tuesday the first ever standards to cut carbon dioxide emissions from new power plants, sources involved in talks on the matter said—a move that is likely to be hotly contested by Republicans and industry in an election year.
Full Story:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/46864413

US Inches Toward Goal of Energy Independence

Published: Friday, 23 Mar 2012 | 6:00 AM ET

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By: Clifford Krauss and Eric Lipton
The New York Times

• The desolate stretch of West Texas desert known as the Permian Basin is still the lonely domain of scurrying roadrunners by day and howling coyotes by night. But the roar of scores of new oil rigs and the distinctive acrid fumes of drilling equipment are unmistakable signs that crude is gushing again.

And not just here. Across the country, the oil and gas industry is vastly increasing production, reversing two decades of decline. Using new technology and spurred by rising oil prices since the mid-2000s, the industry is extracting millions of barrels more a week, from the deepest waters of the Gulf of Mexico to the prairies of North Dakota.

At the same time, Americans are pumping significantly less gasoline. While that is partly a result of the recession and higher gasoline prices, people are also driving fewer miles and replacing older cars with more fuel-efficient vehicles at a greater clip, federal data show.

Taken together, the increasing production and declining consumption have unexpectedly brought the United States markedly closer to a goal that has tantalized presidents since Richard Nixon: independence from foreign energy sources, a milestone that could reconfigure American foreign policy, the economy and more. In 2011, the country imported just 45 percent of the liquid fuels it used, down from a record high of 60 percent in 2005.

“There is no question that many national security policy makers will believe they have much more flexibility and will think about the world differently if the United States is importing a lot less oil,” said Michael A. Levi, an energy and environmental senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “For decades, consumption rose, production fell and imports increased, and now every one of those trends is going the other way.”

How the country made this turnabout is a story of industry-friendly policies started by President Bush and largely continued by President Obama — many over the objections of environmental advocates — as well as technological advances that have allowed the extraction of oil and gas once considered too difficult and too expensive to reach. But mainly it is a story of the complex economics of energy, which sometimes seems to operate by its own rules of supply and demand.

With gasoline prices now approaching record highs and politicians mud-wrestling about the causes and solutions, the effects of the longer-term rise in production can be difficult to see.

Full article : http://www.cnbc.com/id/46831786

 Rubicon Alliance doesn't endorse any suggestion or recommendation of products that may be in in this article rather as a general discussion piece about current trends in the market place and a general topic for our followers

Hard assets that produce income, he's just preaching to the choir!

I Have No Choice but to Own Stocks: 'Black Swan' Author

BLACK SWAN, NO CHOICE BUT TO OWN STOCKS, NASSIM TALEB, MARGO D. BELLER, CNBC, CNBC.COM, U.S. ECONOMY, RON PAUL, U.S. ECONOMY, DEFICIT, UNEMPLOYMENT, FEDERAL RESERVE

Posted By: Margo D. Beller | Special to CNBC.com

CNBC.com

| 13 Mar 2012 | 11:54 AM ET

The U.S. economic situation is so bad, the author of "The Black Swan" said he has "no choice but to own stocks" to "preserve my financial situation."

"I own stocks," Nassim Taleb told CNBC Tuesday. "I don’t trust Treasury bonds. I’d rather have a dividend than a coupon. I am afraid of hyperinflation. So I have no choice but to own stock and some real estate to preserve my financial situation."

He also has "some euros," because despite the bad press, "they know the problems in Europe" but the U.S. does not.

Taleb, who is in the process of updating his 2007 book, considers a "black swan" event to be something undirected and unpredicted. But he said the current U.S. economic problems have been years in the making, causing him to distrust the Obama administration, the Republicans in Congress and all the Republican presidential challengers — except Texas congressman Ron Paul.

"Only one candidate, Ron Paul, is saying the right things for the issues we are facing," Taleb said. "I’m a risk-based person. From my vantage point there's only one candidate representing the right policies."

Taleb said he believes in an America that is resilient. "You don't achieve that through bailouts," he said. "You need the economy to stay vital. You need a rate of failure. What is fragile should break early."

He said Paul's plans, including making drastic cuts in government, ending corporate bailouts and abolishing the Federal Reserve can "cure the fundamental issues. He’s against the issue of novocaine. If you have a severe problem, you do root canal. That’s the only choice you have. You have to start with a government budget that is in control. You don’t gamble with future generations' money."

Can America live with austerity? "We are doing it to the Greeks," he said. "We should do it to ourselves. We want jobs, we want a healthy economy. I want to live in a country that has the energy to rebuild things. This is gone. We have a metastatic government...You need to do something drastic."

The whole system "is rotten," he added. "The advisers around [President] Obama who were part of the problem were friends with the bankers. I don’t trust the Republicans with deficits. Look at what we had under the Republican administrations including George [W.] Bush. I want the main problems to be addressed and I want a major cleanup.

"I don’t care about [Ron Paul's] chances. I support him. We have no other solutions. It is my duty as a citizen and as a taxpayer who doesn’t want to be hoodwinked in the long term by bureaucrats."

© 2012 CNBC.com

URL: http://www.cnbc.com/id/46718912/

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© 2012 CNBC.com



 Rubicon Alliance doesn't endorse any suggestion or recommendation of products that may be in in this article rather as a general discussion piece about current trends in the market place and a general topic for our followers.

Good Selection on Private Equity

This is a great article by Reihan Salam about Private Equity.  Rubicon Alliance doesn't endorse any suggestion or recommendation of products that may be in in this article rather as a general discussion piece about current trends in the market place and a general topic for our followers.

Every presidential candidate has to defend himself against accusations of wrongdoing — an affair, abuse of office, campaign-finance impropriety, and so forth. Mitt Romney finds himself in a predictable defensive crouch, too, but the allegation against him is extraordinary: He stands accused of doing his job too well.

As the founder and CEO of the private-equity firm Bain Capital, Romney was a turnaround artist. In that role, the GOP frontrunner says, he restored failing firms to health, usually with great success. He claims to have helped create thousands of new jobs and billions of dollars in new wealth.

Some of Romney’s Republican rivals, particularly Newt Gingrich, haven’t framed Romney’s record in such generous terms. They say Romney was a “vulture capitalist” who used financial chicanery to enrich himself and his cronies at the expense of helpless workers. President Obama and his allies will surely make the same case in the months to come. Indeed, a recent memo from Stephanie Cutter, the president’s deputy campaign manager, accuses Romney of having sought “profit at any cost,” and of believing in “an economy where the wealthy and powerful can rig the game at the expense of working Americans.” Romney’s verbal gaffes, including an ill-considered soundbite professing his love of “being able to fire people,” have made him vulnerable to more demonization still.

After his victory in New Hampshire’s primary, Romney fought back with unusually strong words. “President Obama wants to put free enterprise on trial,” he said, adding that “we have seen some desperate Republicans join forces with him.” But Romney was only partly right. The plaintiffs against free enterprise are not just a handful of politicians, but a growing number of American voters who think corporate elites have jeopardized a social contract that once guaranteed, as Bill Clinton put it, that “if you work hard and play by the rules, you ought to have a decent life and a chance for your children to have a better one.”

Link to Rest of Article