This old nugget came up on social media again. At least here in Boulder County there is a belief that the number of unlicensed vehicles are the reason that the roads are in such a poor state of repair. Boulder … Continue reading Car Registrations pay for Roads? Nope.
It’s hard to know what to do with the GOP threats to Social Security and Medicare[1]GOP threats to Medicare and Social Security take center stage in last days before election (msn.com), kinda like their threat to invalidate the ACA aka … Continue reading Whither Social Security & Medicare?
I’ve really stopped blogging as I didn’t want this blog to just become another place on the internet full of rants about the failings of Trump administration. In my drafts folder I have 33 posts, most of them finished, about … Continue reading Voting Systems – The Cherry and the Cream – ES&S
The Takeaway yesterday had a good segment on rural hospitals, basically continuing to “cry wolf” about their affordability. One of the participants in the discussion is, Dr John Waits, who with his colleagues and staff at Centreville Clinic Staff, are doing their best to help their community afford their healthcare. Dr Waits struggles valiantly in the discussion to avoid using the terms profit and subsidy. This is a mistake in my opinion, while you can talk about healthcare efficiencies, people need to hear that large hospital groups are for profit, yes even the not-for-profit ones. People need to understand that … Continue reading Rural Hospitals Redux
As predicted, not by the tweeter in chief, but by almost anyone who understands big companies and executive, stock buybacks hit an all time high in 2018 and are likely to be higher again in 2019. This is a big deal, companies that buyback their stock, are reducing the number of shares available on the market. That generally means the share price goes up. Share prices are often one of the main ways executives are measured, their bonuses are usually dependant on the share price. Also, because the price of each share goes up, it makes it harder for lower … Continue reading Stock buybacks rule – Tax breaks enable
When we ride our bikes north and east of Boulder you can see the gas and oil pipelines an extraction points at regular intervals. But it’s nothing like Texas. Very, Very few oil derricks, certainly in and around Erie, CO there are a number of fracking pad sites, you can see them clearly from Colorado State Highway 52, in places. But there is nothing like the density I expected given the prominence of the Oil and Gas industry in the state politics. Even when you drive out through north east Colorado, wells yes, but still surrounded by massive areas of … Continue reading Protect Colorado – Give me a break! (Yes on 112)
A year ago a bale of waste paper was worth $100 a ton, today you have to pay $15 per ton to get it taken away.
That’s not free to you, the cost is hidden in your charges. Continue reading Recycling Futures
n 2017, the real median household income in the U.S. was $61,372, which is roughly what two earners with full-time jobs making $15 an hour would make. I remain totally confused about class as a term to classify people in America. This article is a prime example. While overall this is good news, if $15-per hour helps the middle class, how little do you have to earn to be working class? And why is that term never used? As far as I’m aware the amazon deal doesn’t include health insurance, which effectively means before taxes, you’ll have to work for … Continue reading Amazon’s $15 Minimum Wage Won’t Change How Americans See Work – Bloomberg
Back in July, @_anthonyhahn wrote an article which appeared in both the Daily Camera and the Colorado Hometown Weekly about a potential new Kohl’s store in Lafayette CO, and what that meant for the Louisville CO store. Kohl’s to open in #LafayetteCO, leaving future of department store’s #LouisvilleCO site in question https://t.co/aImC6qPMKF via @_anthonyhahn — Daily Camera (@dailycamera) July 9, 2018 While pitting the two adjacent cities against each other in a battle for sales tax is valid, it totally misses the point about all the new development around the 287 Corridor, north of Lafayette. At the time, I wrote … Continue reading Kohl’s and Car Oriented Development
As the GOP push through their tax bill, without any transparency, one of the big ticket items is corporate tax breaks. My opinion is the government are really wasting their time, and our money giving tax breaks, especially to companies to repatriate their overseas earnings, in some kind of swap for jobs. No such thing will happen, sure there will be a few winners here and there, but nothing substantial and certainly nothing overtime. If the government wanted to do this, they’d have been better creating an incentive program, which gave them tax deductions for each net new job they … Continue reading Bringing Jobs Back to the USA