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Just had a guy on Twitter claiming that 30% of every premium dollar goes to health-care insurance companies profits. So I figured I’d check out a couple of companies, via Morningstar Advisor Workstation.

Turns out that for 2008 and 2009 (so far), Humana had operating margins of 3.7% and 4.5% respectively — which provided a return on assets of 5.0% and 6.3%, and a return on equity of 15.3% and 18.2%. Not bad, but obscene? Give me a break.

Health Net, another “evil health insurance company” had operating margins of 1% and 1.1% for 2008 and 2009 to date — giving these bastards a whopping return on assets of 2% and 2.4% — and return on equity of 5.2% and 6.4%.

Bear in mind that they did, in actuality, turn a profit — a feat the Federal government has yet to replicate with Amtrak or the US Postal Service.

Perhaps my Twitter friend will point me towards this evil cabal of companies making 30% profits out of their revenues, as he claims. Somehow, I doubt it.

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Thank goodness the Democrats rarely listen to her. But in a recent article on Salon, she makes a slew of good points – and asks a couple of searching questions.

Why did it take so long for Democrats to realize that this year’s tea party and town hall uprisings were a genuine barometer of widespread public discontent and not simply a staged scenario by kooks and conspirators? First of all, too many political analysts still think that network and cable TV chat shows are the central forums of national debate. But the truly transformative political energy is coming from talk radio and the Web — both of which Democrat-sponsored proposals have threatened to stifle, in defiance of freedom of speech guarantees in the Bill of Rights. … It was on talk radio, which I have resumed monitoring around the clock because of the healthcare fiasco, that I heard the passionate voices of callers coming directly from the town hall meetings. Hence I was alerted to the depth and intensity of national sentiment long before others who were simply watching staged, manipulated TV shows.

It was there for all to see. Those of us who are part of the mob, and helping drive the conversation online, could feel it in our bones. Too bad the Democrats, by and large, can’t seem to feel the populist anger that’s welling up all around them. Actually, it’s not too bad; the air has that 1994 smell to it, if you know what I mean.

Why has the Democratic Party become so arrogantly detached from ordinary Americans? Though they claim to speak for the poor and dispossessed, Democrats have increasingly become the party of an upper-middle-class professional elite, top-heavy with journalists, academics and lawyers (one reason for the hypocritical absence of tort reform in the healthcare bills). Weirdly, given their worship of highly individualistic, secularized self-actualization, such professionals are as a whole amazingly credulous these days about big-government solutions to every social problem. They see no danger in expanding government authority and intrusive, wasteful bureaucracy. This is, I submit, a stunning turn away from the anti-authority and anti-establishment principles of authentic 1960s leftism.

It’s easy — it hasn’t been about “people” in a long time, Camille. It’s about power. It’s about money. It’s about control. And it won’t end, ever, for them — because it’s all they know. The idealists of the 60′s are gone — either evolving into self-interested power-seekers, devolving into regular folks who just want to raise their families and make a living, or finally wised up and realized that the Republican or Libertarian Party is their true home.

I love the smell of 1994 in the morning. Smells like… victory. Some day, this regime is going to end.

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Whole Foods still loves you, and they’re still a mass of gooey Leftists.

Today, on my way home from work, I stopped at the store to pick up some well-deserved barley-pop (they have a great selection) and ran into a friend of mine who works there.

Naturally, I had to stop and congratulate her on Whole Foods becoming the darlings of the Right Wing Conspiracy, with their CEO’s recent Op/Ed in the Wall Street Journal entitled “Whole Foods Alternative to Obamacare“.

She said “I just KNEW you were going to come in and give me a hassle about that!” and laughed. She then proceeded to give me a copy of a letter they are issuing to any offended Lefty who comes by to bitch about Whole Foods falling off the Obamawagon.

Here are a few excerpts:

As you are probably aware, John Mackey wrote an Op/Ed piece that was published in the WSJ earlier this week … John’s intent was to express his personal opinions – not those of Whole Food Market team members or our company as a whole. Still, it’s very clear that John’s piece offended some of our customers, other members of the communities we serve, and some of our team members as well.

We offer you a sincere apology.

Whole Foods Market has no official position on the issue. That said, we have attempted to be part of the solution in health care reform for many years by providing innovative health care options to our team members. We believe that our high deductible medical insurance plan coupled with a company-funded HSA is an excellent way to empower team members to make their own health care choices.

John wanted to share our experience with others through his Op/Ed piece. He believes that the specific ideas he put forward would improve access and cost of health care for more people. Because our plan has held down overal costs (relative to other plans), WFM has been able to pay 100% of the premiums for our full-time team members — about 89% of our workforce…

WFM has a 30-year track record of caring about our customers, team members and communites. From local loan programs to salary caps, from donations to non-profits to funding the Whole Planet Foundation, our innovative programs are created and designed by team members who care about their fellow citizens…

In other words, we’re still the wacky, quirky, Lefty folks you buy your arugula from, so don’t stop shopping here. Just because WE solved the healthcare problem for OUR employees in no way means that we don’t support socialized medicine for the rest of you suckers. Unless you take ours away; that would be bad. We think.

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Apparently, this is no joke:

A popular comedian active in Burma’s democracy movement has been sentenced to 45 years in jail by a Burmese court.

Seems this funny guy had the nerve to be trying to send aid to victims of the recent cyclone that devastated large parts of the countryside in May.

An outspoken satirist of the military government, Zarganar had already been arrested and jailed four times before he was taken from his home again by the authorities in June.

Hopefully, Dennis Miller will take this to heart as our new regime takes power. Obama doesn’t seem to have the same sense of humor as W had — and who really knows what kind of “change” is coming?

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Part of what I do for a living involves investing in stocks and bonds.

Over the last few weeks, and months, I’ve noticed that markets can be mindless. Long a believer in relatively efficient markets, I’m becoming more and more convinced that they would be, if they weren’t peopled by idiots. I do believe, however, that in the long term (ie not a 24 hour news cycle, or a month, or a quarter, or a year, but rather over actual “long terms” of say 5-10 years) I think that markets are reflective of the values being traded.

At the current moment, however, the Mr. Market is being an ass.

The economy cannot possibly be as bad as the main stream media is making out, obviously for the benefit of their anointed candidate. This is a cycle that’s gone on for a long time; in my lifetime, there has been an alleged recession each time that a Republican (after Reagan) has been running for office. Bush I’s recession was illusory; Bush II’s recession in 2004 was also illusory. I believe that we are not in a recession now, although, due to the recent market crash and manipulated oil price shock, we may have a shallow one on our hands over the next couple of quarters. But it will be shallow, and short-lived.

As hedge-funds and massively leveraged investors were forced to unwind their portfolios due to the credit crisis caused by the sub-prime meltdown of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as the Federal Reserve failing to “rescue” Lehman Brothers (which in my opinion will go down in history as the biggest dipshit move the Fed ever made, bar none), we are seeing retail investors start (too late) getting into the selling party.

Folks, Potter’s not selling, he’s buying. A recent op-ed piece by Warren Buffett referenced in this blog earlier tells you all you need to know: Valuations of companies are at an insane level — they are on sale to a degree not seen since 1974. If you have any kind of cash, you should do like Buffett, and buy, buy, buy.

If you have a portfolio, make sure it’s rebalanced, and then hang on for dear life. If you sell out, you are locking in your losses. Let others do that. Every single time there’s been a market crash, people with cash, and people who held on (assuming they were diversified into a spectrum of companies and bonds) were rewarded. Every single time. EVERY SINGLE TIME.

One last thought before I head for dinner. Think of it this way:

Let’s say you own a house. You’re planning on living in that house for a long time. Let’s also say that the real estate market is down, like it was in California in the 90′s. Or now, throughout the nation.

You bought your house for $300,000. You look on Zillow, you read the “comps”. According to Mr. Market, your house is now worth $200,000. Would you sell it now, seeing that it’s declined in value by a third?

Of course you wouldn’t.

Because you know that you’re going to be living in your house for a long time. And you also know that real estate prices in the long term always go up. Especially in inflationary times.

And just as you wouldn’t sell your house just because prices are lower at the moment, neither should you sell out of your investments. You don’t need to move out of your “investment house” — so don’t. Hang on, ignore the day to day news, and just bloody wait.

Let the morons sell to Potter.

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Joe Biden:

“It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We’re about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don’t remember anything else I said. Watch, we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.”

“I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate,” Biden said to Emerald City supporters, mentioning the Middle East and Russia as possibilities. “And he’s gonna need help. And the kind of help he’s gonna need is, he’s gonna need you – not financially to help him – we’re gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it’s not gonna be apparent initially, it’s not gonna be apparent that we’re right.”

I wonder how many thousands will die initially, and then, once he fails utterly to respond in a way that’s “right”, apparently or otherwise, how many more will perish?

(Of course, McCain is the erratic one, right?)

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Woooo wouldn’t that be juicy? JammieWearingFool found this one:

Barack Obama is the target of a shadowy smear campaign designed to derail his bid for the US Presidency by falsely claiming he had a close friendship with an attractive African-American female employee.

The whispers focus on a young woman who in 2004 was hired to work on his team for his bid to become a senator.

The woman was purportedly sidelined from her duties after Senator Obama’s wife, Michelle, became convinced that he had developed a personal friendship with her.

Of course, we know that any such accusation would be racist, a lie, deliberately designed to instantly elect McCain, or divert attention from Sarah Palin’s SAT scores.

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Sig94 has done it again; he’s taken an email he received and imbedded links to the information therein. Makes for fascinating reading on some of the past associations, activities, and life of our next President, Barack Obama. Well worth checking out.

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Well, apparently there are many kinds of “community organizers” out there:

LAS VEGAS (AP) – Nevada state authorities are raiding the Las Vegas headquarters of an organization that works to get low-income people to vote.A Nevada secretary of state’s office spokesman said Tuesday that investigators are looking for evidence of voter fraud at the office of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, also called ACORN.

No one was at the ACORN office when state agents arrived with a search warrant and began carting records and documents away.

Secretary of State spokesman Bob Walsh says ACORN is accused of submitting multiple voter registrations with false and duplicate names.

The raid comes two months after state and federal authorities formed a task force to pursue election-fraud allegations in Nevada.

I’m betting they find something. What do you think the over/under is gonna be?

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The MSM keeps claiming that Barack Obama has only a passing acquaintance with radical left activists.

For a breakdown of who he really knows, works(worked) with and has taken his lead from, David Horowitz’s people have put together Barack World at their website Discover The Networks.

Great stuff, and hats off to Horowitz and the others over there who are doing the media’s job for them.

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My buddy at Signal 94 found this tid-bit in which even the amazing Alec Baldwin (wasn’t he gonna leave the country? Frankly, I’m glad he didn’t since he kills me on 30 Rock…) recognizes that the Democrats are just as much if not more to blame for our current CF in the markets.

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and I realized that most people who don’t understand Sarah Palin (or her husband) just don’t get how life is in places like Alaska, Montana, the Dakotas, etc. Posted a reply to a post there:

The problem with all of this Palin-bashing is a fundamental misunderstanding of what it’s like to live in a state like Alaska, the Dakotas, Montana, and the like.

Thinly populated, and dependent either on pure self-preservation or Washington largesse, the populations are often polarized into two big camps: Rugged individualists who are self-reliant and resent authority, or State socialists who wouldn’t be able to stay if it weren’t for the support of the taxpayers both of the state and the US.

This means, in their little playgrounds, that often wide variations occur in their parochial politics that results in things like the Independence Party, or the Constitutionalists and the so-called Militia of Montana.

Applying left-coast or East Coast standards to such places just doesn’t work — and at the same time, doesn’t invalidate the fact that there are talented political minds in such places.

Try taking a trip to one of these places some time. You’ll find that the people, as a whole, are wonderful, down to earth, and want exactly what everyone else does — good education, reasonable taxation, liberty, and effective public services.

Yeah, they have different ways of getting there, but that’s what they all want, just the same, both Right and Left.

Until you do, please, STFU about things you just don’t understand. Kthx.

– Henry

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That’s rich.

According to the AP’s Douglass Daniel,

WASHINGTON (AP) – By claiming that Democrat Barack Obama is “palling around with terrorists” and doesn’t see the U.S. like other Americans, vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin targeted key goals for a faltering campaign.

And though she may have score a political hit each time, her attack was unsubstantiated and carried a racially tinged subtext that John McCain himself may come to regret.

Since when is calling Obama’s links (which are extensive and proven) to an unrepentant domestic terrorist carry a racial tinge? Because Obama is black?

We all know that the standard for racism has become: Criticism of a black man is by default racism.

We might as well just call the election now. Anything short of an Obama landslide will prove that the United States is a totally racist company. Let’s save a lot of money, effort, and actual voting, and just crown him now — so he can get started on parting the seas, healing the earth, and bringing peace and prosperity to the solar system.

I give up.

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Bill Clinton has once again shown the kind of statesmanship and class that he has occasionally exhibited throughout his “legacy building” phase after leaving office. Of course, he’s had his slips, but nothing like the idiotic rantings of fellow former President Jimmy Carter:

...Clinton told CNN’s “Larry King Live” on Wednesday that he doesn’t think “dumping” on McCain or his running mate, Sarah Palin, is a winning strategy. He said undecided voters aren’t interested in attacks but solutions for the problems they face.

“I just don’t believe that getting up here and hyperventilating about Gov. Palin, or Sen. McCain for that matter, is a productive use of a former president’s time and is not a vote-getter,” he said, adding that he admires McCain even though he disagrees with several of his positions.

Although I rarely have ever said anything good about the former President, I’m happy he’s taking this approach this time around.

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First, my man Thompson ends his “electoral vacation trip”, finally putting an end to the farce that was his non-campaign, and breaking my heart, just a little. Now, Mitt Romney has thrown in the towel, leaving the GOP race to McCain — a man who will probably bring back the “fairness doctrine” that his alleged ideological father did away with, who will probably grant amnesty to millions of lawbreaking folks, who will probably do away with the already-meager Bush tax cuts and bring back the death tax, and …. ack. OK, breathe. Oh, and then there’s Huckabee, a man who called the conservatives in HIS legislature “Shi’ite Republicans” because they stood up, a little, to his massive tax hikes and spending increases and in-state tuition for lawbreakers, etc., etc.

Against the backdrop of John McCain running for the GOP, we have the spectre of either the corrupt and insatiably ambitious Hillary Clinton, or the empty-suited Barack Obama — both of whom have insisted that we need to retreat inside our shell when it comes to protecting ourselves from global islamofascism; both insist on socialized health care, massive regulation of industry as well as our personal lives to fight some alleged “global warming crisis”, etc. etc.

After re-reading Barbara Olson’s Hell to Pay, I can’t even come close to voting for Hillary; Obama would be highly amusing as our President, at least for the first couple months, but it’s just too important a job to leave to either Larry OR Curly. Unfortunately, Moe is my only choice.

So I guess I’ll sign on as a McCainiac, and hope, as expressed earlier, that he’ll choose a real Republican as a running mate to placate those of us for whom RINO was not the idea when we signed up with the Grand Old Party.

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