By Motley Fool Staff | fool.com
You can go your whole life without ever buying a single stock. But until you do, you won't really understand the full potential of investing -- and the rewards that come with it.
For beginners, mutual funds give you a great way to get your feet wet. With just a few hundred dollars, you can invest in a mutual fund that will give you instant access to thousands of different stocks. The diversification that comes with broad-based mutual funds brings with it a measure of security. You may still lose a lot if the whole market goes down, but if one particular company gets hurt, it won't have a huge impact on your overall portfolio.
Conversely, though, buying individual stocks can be a lot more rewarding. You can earn far greater returns from individual stocks than you'll ever find from a diversified mutual fund -- if you pick the right stocks.
So how should you pick?
Investing, like most other things, requires that you have a general philosophy about how to do things in order to avoid careless errors. Would you make a souffle without a recipe? Would you play cello in the London Philharmonic Orchestra without sheet music? Would you aim a shuffleboard disk without figuring out whether you're trying to knock off your own color or your opponent's? We hope not.
So before you dig deeper into some specialized investing strategies, you should first understand the various methods people use to analyze stocks. While investing is not nearly as difficult as these other challenges (especially the souffle), you certainly need a considered plan before investing your hard-earned savings.
Fundamental Analysis -- Buying a Business (Value, Growth, Income, GARP, Quality)
Many people rightly believe that when you buy a share of stock you are buying a proportional share in a business. As a consequence, to figure out how much the stock is worth, you should determine how much the business is worth. Investors generally do this by assessing the company's financials in terms of per-share values in order to calculate how much the proportional share of the business is worth. This is known as "fundamental" analysis by some, and most who use it view it as the only kind of rational stock analysis.
Although analyzing a business might seem like a straightforward activity, there are many flavors of fundamental analysis. Investors often create oppositions and subcategories in order to better understand their specific investing philosophy. In the end, most investors come up with an approach that is a blend of a number of different approaches. Many of the distinctions are more academic inventions than actual practical differences. For instance, value and growth have been codified by economists who study the stock market even though market practitioners do not find these labels to be quite as useful. In the following descriptions, we will focus on what most investors mean when they use these labels, although you always have to be careful to double-check what someone using them really means.
Tuesday, August 30, 2016
Southern Command Warns Sunni Extremists Infiltrating From South
By Bill Gertz | Washington Free Beacon | August 22, 2016
Islamists freely cross U.S. border with help of S. American alien smugglers
Sunni extremists are infiltrating the United States with the help of alien smugglers in South America and are crossing U.S. borders with ease, according to a U.S. South Command intelligence report.
The Command’s J-2 intelligence directorate reported recently in internal channels that “special interest aliens” are working with a known alien smuggling network in Latin America to reach the United States. The smuggling network was not identified.
Army Col. Lisa A. Garcia, a Southcom spokeswoman, did not address the intelligence report directly but said Sunni terrorist infiltration is a security concern.
Islamists freely cross U.S. border with help of S. American alien smugglers
Sunni extremists are infiltrating the United States with the help of alien smugglers in South America and are crossing U.S. borders with ease, according to a U.S. South Command intelligence report.
The Command’s J-2 intelligence directorate reported recently in internal channels that “special interest aliens” are working with a known alien smuggling network in Latin America to reach the United States. The smuggling network was not identified.
Army Col. Lisa A. Garcia, a Southcom spokeswoman, did not address the intelligence report directly but said Sunni terrorist infiltration is a security concern.
“Networks that specialize in smuggling individuals from regions of terrorist concern, mainly from the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, the Middle East, and East Africa, are indeed a concern for Southcom and other interagency security partners who support our country’s national security,” Garcia told theWashington Free Beacon.
“There are major hubs that serve as entry points into the region for migrants from those areas of concern attempting to enter the U.S. along our border with Mexico,” she said.
The infiltrators from terrorist states and unstable regions exploit vulnerabilities in commercial transportation systems and immigration enforcement agencies in some of the countries used for transit, Garcia said.
“In 2015, we saw a total of 331,000 migrants enter the southwestern border between the U.S. and Mexico, of that we estimate more than 30,000 of those were from countries of terrorist concern,” she said.
Another problem in dealing with migrants from the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia is a lack of information among the governments of the countries used by potential terrorists for transit.
The exploitation of alien smuggling networks by terrorists until recently had been dismissed by both American security officials and private security experts as largely an urban myth.
However, the Southcom intelligence report revealed that the threat of Islamist terror infiltration is no longer theoretical. “This makes the case for Trump’s wall,” said one American security official of the Southcom report. “These guys are doing whatever they want to get in the country.”
“There are major hubs that serve as entry points into the region for migrants from those areas of concern attempting to enter the U.S. along our border with Mexico,” she said.
The infiltrators from terrorist states and unstable regions exploit vulnerabilities in commercial transportation systems and immigration enforcement agencies in some of the countries used for transit, Garcia said.
“In 2015, we saw a total of 331,000 migrants enter the southwestern border between the U.S. and Mexico, of that we estimate more than 30,000 of those were from countries of terrorist concern,” she said.
Another problem in dealing with migrants from the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia is a lack of information among the governments of the countries used by potential terrorists for transit.
The exploitation of alien smuggling networks by terrorists until recently had been dismissed by both American security officials and private security experts as largely an urban myth.
However, the Southcom intelligence report revealed that the threat of Islamist terror infiltration is no longer theoretical. “This makes the case for Trump’s wall,” said one American security official of the Southcom report. “These guys are doing whatever they want to get in the country.”
Wednesday, August 24, 2016
A Clash of Police Policies
By Dr. Thomas Sewell | Creators Syndicate | August 23, 2016
Amid the rioting in Milwaukee, there is also a clash between two leading lawmen there — Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke and the city of Milwaukee's Chief of Police Edward Flynn. They have very different opinions about how law enforcement should be carried out.
Chief Edward Flynn expresses the view long prevalent among those who emphasize the social "root causes" of crime, such as income disparities and educational disparities, as well as the larger society's neglect of black communities.
Chief Flynn puts less emphasis on aggressive police action and more on community outreach and gun control.
Sheriff David Clarke represents an opposite tradition, in which the job of the police is to enforce the law, as forcefully as necessary, not to make excuses for law-breaking or to ease up on enforcing the law, in hopes that this will mollify rioters. Sheriff Clarke would also like to see law-abiding blacks be armed.
Differences of opinion on law enforcement are sharp and unmistakable — and have been for more than 50 years. However, as the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan used to say, "You're entitled to your own opinion, but you're not entitled to your own facts."
Unfortunately, facts seem to play a remarkably small role in clashes over law enforcement policies. And that too has been true for more than 50 years.
In his memoirs, the Supreme Court's Chief Justice Earl Warren declared that "all of us must assume a share of the responsibility" for rising crime rates in the 1960s because "for decades we have swept under the rug" the slum conditions that breed crime.
But the hard fact is that the murder rate in the country as a whole was going down during those very decades when social problems in the slums were supposedly being neglected.
Amid the rioting in Milwaukee, there is also a clash between two leading lawmen there — Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke and the city of Milwaukee's Chief of Police Edward Flynn. They have very different opinions about how law enforcement should be carried out.
Chief Edward Flynn expresses the view long prevalent among those who emphasize the social "root causes" of crime, such as income disparities and educational disparities, as well as the larger society's neglect of black communities.
Chief Flynn puts less emphasis on aggressive police action and more on community outreach and gun control.
Sheriff David Clarke represents an opposite tradition, in which the job of the police is to enforce the law, as forcefully as necessary, not to make excuses for law-breaking or to ease up on enforcing the law, in hopes that this will mollify rioters. Sheriff Clarke would also like to see law-abiding blacks be armed.
Differences of opinion on law enforcement are sharp and unmistakable — and have been for more than 50 years. However, as the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan used to say, "You're entitled to your own opinion, but you're not entitled to your own facts."
Unfortunately, facts seem to play a remarkably small role in clashes over law enforcement policies. And that too has been true for more than 50 years.
In his memoirs, the Supreme Court's Chief Justice Earl Warren declared that "all of us must assume a share of the responsibility" for rising crime rates in the 1960s because "for decades we have swept under the rug" the slum conditions that breed crime.
But the hard fact is that the murder rate in the country as a whole was going down during those very decades when social problems in the slums were supposedly being neglected.
Monday, August 1, 2016
In Eight Words Dr. Gorka Explains Why the DNC Ignores Isis
By S. Noble | Independent Sentinel | July 30, 2016
Isis was barely mentioned during the DNC convention. At the same time, FBI Director Jim Comey said Isis is the greatest threat to Americans. Dr. Gorka explained why Democrats downplay Isis in eight words during an interview last night – it “countermands their one-world moral relativism and multiculturalism.”
Dr. Gorka, author of Defeating Jihad, the Winnable War, was interviewed by Tucker Carlson, and said the DNC is now a radical left-wing machine and it controls part of the Democrat Party.
Dr. Gorka pointed to the many indications that this is the case, leaving out the fact that the first day of the convention was minus any US flags. The left prefers to burn them and they did so repeatedly outside the venue.
The reason the left won’t recognize Isis is because it countermands their one-world moral relativism and multiculturalism.
If these were Christians behaving this way would there be a different reaction, Carlson asked.
Isis was barely mentioned during the DNC convention. At the same time, FBI Director Jim Comey said Isis is the greatest threat to Americans. Dr. Gorka explained why Democrats downplay Isis in eight words during an interview last night – it “countermands their one-world moral relativism and multiculturalism.”
Dr. Gorka, author of Defeating Jihad, the Winnable War, was interviewed by Tucker Carlson, and said the DNC is now a radical left-wing machine and it controls part of the Democrat Party.
“I want to be careful here, Tucker,” he continued. “I don’t want to lambaste all Democratic voters in America. The DNC is really a function of the left-wing machine. It’s part of a Party that’s been captured by the radicals.”
Dr. Gorka pointed to the many indications that this is the case, leaving out the fact that the first day of the convention was minus any US flags. The left prefers to burn them and they did so repeatedly outside the venue.
“Just look at what happened. The convocation was booed. The serviceman with a Medal of Honor, trying to read the names of his fellow servicemen killed in combat was booed. The female police officer who asked for a moment of silence for fallen police officers was heckled by the Black Lives Matter. This is unbelievable, and clearly the thing that they’re most concerned about isn’t ISIS, it’s Donald Trump and global warming,” Gorka said.
The reason the left won’t recognize Isis is because it countermands their one-world moral relativism and multiculturalism.
“I think the trouble with ISIS, or with radical Islam, is that its existence, its bare existence, countermands the one-world kumbaya moral relativism and multiculturalism that the Democrat Party has been ramming down our throats for 30 years,” Gorka replied. “If all cultures are equal, if everybody has the same values, then how does this thing called jihadism exist, and why do people shout ‘Allahu akbar’ as they’re running out of the church in Normandy, having beheaded a Catholic priest in front of the altar?”
If these were Christians behaving this way would there be a different reaction, Carlson asked.
“It’s too much of a smoking gun that disproves the whole argument of cultural equivalency and moral relativism,” he said.“None of the narratives we see today, that actually make excuses for the perpetrators, none of those would be permitted if a Caucasian Christian was doing the same kind of horrific acts,” he asserted.
Full List of Hillary’s Planned Tax Hikes
By John Kartch and Alexander Hendrie | Americans for Tax Reform | July 28, 2016
Hillary Clinton has made clear she intends to dramatically raise taxes on the American people if elected. She has proposed an income tax increase, a business tax increase, a death tax increase, a capital gains tax increase, a tax on stock trading, an "Exit Tax" and more (see below). Her planned net tax increase on the American people is at least $1 trillion over ten years, based on her campaign’s own figures.
Hillary has endorsed several tax increases on middle income Americans, despite her pledge not to raise taxes on any American making less than $250,000. She has said she would be fine with a payroll tax hike on all Americans, she has endorsed a steep soda tax, endorsed a 25% national gun tax, and most recently, her campaign manager John Podesta said she would be open to a carbon tax. It’s no wonder that when asked by ABC's George Stephanopoulos if her pledge was a "rock-solid" promise, she slipped and said the pledge was merely a “goal.” In other words, she's going to raise taxes on middle income Americans.
Hillary’s formally proposed $1 trillion net tax increase consists of the following:
Income Tax Increase – $350 Billion: Clinton has proposed a $350 billion income tax hike in the form of a 28 percent cap on itemized deductions.
Business Tax Increase -- $275 Billion: Clinton has called for a tax hike of at least $275 billion through undefined business tax reform, as described in a Clinton campaign document.
“Fairness” Tax Increase -- $400 Billion: According to her published plan, Clinton has called for a tax increase of “between $400 and $500 billion” by “restoring basic fairness to our tax code.” These proposals include a “fair share surcharge,” the taxing of carried interest capital gains as ordinary income, and a hike in the Death Tax.
But there are even more Clinton tax hike proposals not included in the tally above. Her campaign has failed to release specific details for many of her proposals. The true Clinton net tax hike figure is likely much higher than $1 trillion.
For instance:
Capital Gains Tax Increase -- Clinton has proposed an increase in the capital gains tax to counter the “tyranny of today’s earnings report.” Her plan calls for a byzantine capital gains tax regime with six rates. Her campaign has not put a dollar amount on this tax increase.
Tax on Stock Trading -- Clinton has proposed a new tax on stock trading. Costs associated with this new tax will be borne by millions of American families that hold 401(k)s, IRAs and other savings accounts. The tax increase would only further burden markets by discouraging trading and investment. Again, no dollar figure for this tax hike has been released by the Clinton campaign.
“Exit Tax” – Rather than reduce the extremely high, uncompetitive corporate tax rate, Clinton has proposed a series of measures aimed at inversions including an “exit tax” on income earned overseas. The term “exit tax” is used by the campaign itself. Her campaign document describing this proposal says it will raise $80 billion in tax revenue, but claims some of the $80 billion will be plowed into tax relief. How much? The campaign doesn't say.
This proposal completely fails to address the underlying causes behind inversions: The U.S. 39% corporate tax rate (35% federal rate plus an average state rate of 4%) and our "worldwide" system of taxation, which imposes tax on all American earnings worldwide. The average corporate rate in the developed world is 25%. Thirty-one of thirty-four developed countries have cut their corporate tax rate since 2000. The U.S. has not. Hillary's plan moves in the wrong direction.
ATR is tracking Clinton’s full tax record at its dedicated website, HighTaxHillary.com
Hillary Clinton has made clear she intends to dramatically raise taxes on the American people if elected. She has proposed an income tax increase, a business tax increase, a death tax increase, a capital gains tax increase, a tax on stock trading, an "Exit Tax" and more (see below). Her planned net tax increase on the American people is at least $1 trillion over ten years, based on her campaign’s own figures.
Hillary has endorsed several tax increases on middle income Americans, despite her pledge not to raise taxes on any American making less than $250,000. She has said she would be fine with a payroll tax hike on all Americans, she has endorsed a steep soda tax, endorsed a 25% national gun tax, and most recently, her campaign manager John Podesta said she would be open to a carbon tax. It’s no wonder that when asked by ABC's George Stephanopoulos if her pledge was a "rock-solid" promise, she slipped and said the pledge was merely a “goal.” In other words, she's going to raise taxes on middle income Americans.
Hillary’s formally proposed $1 trillion net tax increase consists of the following:
Income Tax Increase – $350 Billion: Clinton has proposed a $350 billion income tax hike in the form of a 28 percent cap on itemized deductions.
Business Tax Increase -- $275 Billion: Clinton has called for a tax hike of at least $275 billion through undefined business tax reform, as described in a Clinton campaign document.
“Fairness” Tax Increase -- $400 Billion: According to her published plan, Clinton has called for a tax increase of “between $400 and $500 billion” by “restoring basic fairness to our tax code.” These proposals include a “fair share surcharge,” the taxing of carried interest capital gains as ordinary income, and a hike in the Death Tax.
But there are even more Clinton tax hike proposals not included in the tally above. Her campaign has failed to release specific details for many of her proposals. The true Clinton net tax hike figure is likely much higher than $1 trillion.
For instance:
Capital Gains Tax Increase -- Clinton has proposed an increase in the capital gains tax to counter the “tyranny of today’s earnings report.” Her plan calls for a byzantine capital gains tax regime with six rates. Her campaign has not put a dollar amount on this tax increase.
Tax on Stock Trading -- Clinton has proposed a new tax on stock trading. Costs associated with this new tax will be borne by millions of American families that hold 401(k)s, IRAs and other savings accounts. The tax increase would only further burden markets by discouraging trading and investment. Again, no dollar figure for this tax hike has been released by the Clinton campaign.
“Exit Tax” – Rather than reduce the extremely high, uncompetitive corporate tax rate, Clinton has proposed a series of measures aimed at inversions including an “exit tax” on income earned overseas. The term “exit tax” is used by the campaign itself. Her campaign document describing this proposal says it will raise $80 billion in tax revenue, but claims some of the $80 billion will be plowed into tax relief. How much? The campaign doesn't say.
This proposal completely fails to address the underlying causes behind inversions: The U.S. 39% corporate tax rate (35% federal rate plus an average state rate of 4%) and our "worldwide" system of taxation, which imposes tax on all American earnings worldwide. The average corporate rate in the developed world is 25%. Thirty-one of thirty-four developed countries have cut their corporate tax rate since 2000. The U.S. has not. Hillary's plan moves in the wrong direction.
ATR is tracking Clinton’s full tax record at its dedicated website, HighTaxHillary.com
Users Accuse Twitter Of Censoring WikiLeaks DNC Emails Leak
By Chsrlie Nash | Brietbart | July 23, 2016
“#DNCLeaks” was one of the top trending topics on Twitter this Friday with over 250,000 tweets reported to have been made under the hashtag since WikiLeaks released over 19,000 leaked emails from the Democratic National Committee.
“#DNCLeaks” was one of the top trending topics on Twitter this Friday with over 250,000 tweets reported to have been made under the hashtag since WikiLeaks released over 19,000 leaked emails from the Democratic National Committee.
Later on in the day, the hashtag was reported to have gone missing from the trending bar completely for around 20 minutes, before returning under the less popular hashtag “#DNCleak”. The change meant that those investigating the new trending hashtag would not see all of the other posts tagged under the previous version, effectively hiding over 250,000 tweets from the public.
“Twitter is still trying to censor this trend! Now #DNCleak is trending instead of original #DNCLeaks! Keep talking guys, expose corruption” commented one user on the change. “It seems @Twitter is now trying to push #DNCLeak instead of #DNCleaks in an effort to keep this from trending” posted another.
Wary users have also brought up the fact that Twitter is now refusing people the ability to post links from “WikiLeaks.com”, only allowing those from “WikiLeaks.org” in what appears to be a further attempt to clamp down on WikiLeaks’ traffic flow during the DNC email leaks.
“Twitter is still trying to censor this trend! Now #DNCleak is trending instead of original #DNCLeaks! Keep talking guys, expose corruption” commented one user on the change. “It seems @Twitter is now trying to push #DNCLeak instead of #DNCleaks in an effort to keep this from trending” posted another.
@wikileaks It seems @Twitter is now trying to push #DNCLeak instead of #DNCleaks in an effort to keep this from trending.
— KENT GUTSCHKE (@martiandeathray) July 23, 2016
twitter is trending #DNCLeak instead of#DNCLeaks
wow. i’m totally speechless at all this mass corruption
— sarah bellum (@zzzanthropology) July 23, 2016
Oh, right, now we’re supposed to hashtag#DNCLeak haha instead of #DNCLeaks — our bad, right? #feeltheBern
— Marie Myung-Ok Lee (@MarieMyungOkLee) July 23, 2016
Wary users have also brought up the fact that Twitter is now refusing people the ability to post links from “WikiLeaks.com”, only allowing those from “WikiLeaks.org” in what appears to be a further attempt to clamp down on WikiLeaks’ traffic flow during the DNC email leaks.
Another Obamacare insurer jumps ship
By Rick Moran | American Thinker | July 27, 2016
Will the last Obamacare insurer selling policies on the exchanges please turn off the lights before you leave?
One of the nation's largest health insurance companies is pulling out of the exchanges in all but a handful of states citing losses exceeding one billion dollars last year.
Humana says it will exit all but 11 states next year, further reducing the number of companies willing to sell policies in an environment that guarantees massive losses. The numbers are just not adding up, as younger, healthier consumers are staying away from the exchanges in droves.
The Hill:
Where's the tipping point? About a dozen states have only two or three companies offering policies, reducing competition, and driving up rates. Even with the subsidy, many people simply can't afford double-digit increases in their policies, forcing them to drop coverage. I suspect that next year, there will be several states that will be unable to offer any insurance policies at all.
Humana will realize only about 30% of projected premiums this year, which is pretty much a catastrophe. Their merger with Aetna would not have helped them this year, if it would have helped at all. But the insurance companies deserve every drop of red ink they are bleeding, given their cheerleading for Obamacare back in 2020. They helped create this monster. And now, it's beginning to eat them.
Will the last Obamacare insurer selling policies on the exchanges please turn off the lights before you leave?
One of the nation's largest health insurance companies is pulling out of the exchanges in all but a handful of states citing losses exceeding one billion dollars last year.
Humana says it will exit all but 11 states next year, further reducing the number of companies willing to sell policies in an environment that guarantees massive losses. The numbers are just not adding up, as younger, healthier consumers are staying away from the exchanges in droves.
The Hill:
Humana’s decision to exit “substantially all” of the state exchanges comes the same day that the Obama administration announced it would step in to block a multibillion-dollar merger between Humana and Aetna. Both are among the nation's five biggest health insurers.
Another of those top five, UnitedHealth Group, announced earlier this year that it would be pulling out of most ObamaCare marketplaces, citing its own financial losses.
Humana had already shown signs of its struggle with ObamaCare, announcing this year it would pull out of at least two states.
In the earnings report released Thursday, officials underscored the sharp declines in healthcare premiums from the exchanges. The company expects to pull in between $750 million and $1 billion in premiums this year, compared to $3.4 billion projected over the last year.
Humana officials said in a statement that the changes will help the company "retain a viable product for individual consumers and address persistent risk selection challenges.”
Where's the tipping point? About a dozen states have only two or three companies offering policies, reducing competition, and driving up rates. Even with the subsidy, many people simply can't afford double-digit increases in their policies, forcing them to drop coverage. I suspect that next year, there will be several states that will be unable to offer any insurance policies at all.
Humana will realize only about 30% of projected premiums this year, which is pretty much a catastrophe. Their merger with Aetna would not have helped them this year, if it would have helped at all. But the insurance companies deserve every drop of red ink they are bleeding, given their cheerleading for Obamacare back in 2020. They helped create this monster. And now, it's beginning to eat them.
Here's When Social Security and Medicare Will Officially Run Out of Spare Cash
By Sean Williams | The Motley Fool | July 17, 2016
Ask a person what they need to survive and they're liable to say air and water. Ask senior citizens what they'd need to be financially stable in retirement and they're probably going to respond with strong Social Security and Medicare programs.
Currently, Social Security is paying out benefits for more than 60 million people a month, two-thirds of whom are retired workers aged 62 and up. In 2016 alone, Congress set aside $944 billion, or a quarter of the approximately $3.8 trillion federal budget, just to cover Social Security benefits. When Gallup questioned current beneficiaries on the importance of Social Security income, nearly 6 in 10 responded that Social Security payments comprise a "major" part of their income.
There are also 56 million people enrolled in Medicare, with approximately 5 in 6 enrollees seniors aged 65 and up. Medicare helps protect seniors from potentially high medical costs during their golden years. On average, the program covers about 80% of eligible medical costs, with seniors picking up the tab for the remaining 20%. Medicare has been shown to be considerably cheaper than private insurance plans for seniors.
In plainer terms, Social Security and Medicare are vital to the financial well-being of today's retirees, and there's a good chance the same will hold true for baby boomers who are set to hang up their work gloves over the next two decades.
Ask a person what they need to survive and they're liable to say air and water. Ask senior citizens what they'd need to be financially stable in retirement and they're probably going to respond with strong Social Security and Medicare programs.
Currently, Social Security is paying out benefits for more than 60 million people a month, two-thirds of whom are retired workers aged 62 and up. In 2016 alone, Congress set aside $944 billion, or a quarter of the approximately $3.8 trillion federal budget, just to cover Social Security benefits. When Gallup questioned current beneficiaries on the importance of Social Security income, nearly 6 in 10 responded that Social Security payments comprise a "major" part of their income.
There are also 56 million people enrolled in Medicare, with approximately 5 in 6 enrollees seniors aged 65 and up. Medicare helps protect seniors from potentially high medical costs during their golden years. On average, the program covers about 80% of eligible medical costs, with seniors picking up the tab for the remaining 20%. Medicare has been shown to be considerably cheaper than private insurance plans for seniors.
In plainer terms, Social Security and Medicare are vital to the financial well-being of today's retirees, and there's a good chance the same will hold true for baby boomers who are set to hang up their work gloves over the next two decades.
What's really wrong with Social Security and Medicare
Unfortunately, neither program is exactly on solid footing, at least based on the latest findings of the Social Security and Medicare Board of Trustees, which were released within the past couple of weeks. According to the Trustees, both Social Security and Medicare are on unsustainable paths that will soon see the two programs deplete their excess cash reserves. This excess cash is what both programs invest in special issue bonds and other guaranteed interest-bearing assets.
Unfortunately, neither program is exactly on solid footing, at least based on the latest findings of the Social Security and Medicare Board of Trustees, which were released within the past couple of weeks. According to the Trustees, both Social Security and Medicare are on unsustainable paths that will soon see the two programs deplete their excess cash reserves. This excess cash is what both programs invest in special issue bonds and other guaranteed interest-bearing assets.
Liberal Censorship - Breaking out of the Echo Chamber
By Eric Metaxas | BreakPoint July 15, 2016
A few in the media and academia are finally recognizing that neither place is friendly to conservatives or evangelicals. That recognition is refreshing!
When liberal journalists come out and confess their bias, it’s tempting to say, “The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem.” But don’t. This is good news.
Writing at the New York Times recently, columnist Nicholas Kristof took that hard first step. The title of his piece says it all: “A Confession of Liberal Intolerance.”
“We progressives,” he writes, “believe in diversity, and we want women, blacks, Latinos, gays and Muslims at the table, so long as they aren’t conservatives.” (Or, one might reasonably add, evangelical Christians).
Kristof and fellow liberals profess a love for tolerance and diversity. But when it comes to the most important kind—diversity of thought—he admits that the gatekeepers in academia and the media actively stigmatize those who hold views different from their own.
“We’re fine with people who don’t look like us,” he writes, “as long as they think like us.”
Universities, once recognized as bastions of tolerance and diversity, bear perhaps the greatest blame. Kristof cites studies showing that just 6 to 11 percent of humanities professors are conservatives. Fewer than one in ten social-studies professors call themselves conservative. For perspective, consider that twice that number identify as Marxists!
And lest anyone blame this on conservative self-selection, a third of academics openly admit that they would be less likely to hire a qualified candidate who voted Republican. Black, evangelical sociologist George Yancey says he faces more discrimination on campus for his Christian beliefs than he does off-campus for the color of his skin. This aggressive bias turns classrooms into hard-left “echo-chambers” where only one side of any debate is ever heard.
Kristof took his concerns to Facebook, where he asked his mostly liberal followers why those who pride themselves on tolerance can be so intolerant. The replies he got were stunning.
“Much of the ‘conservative’ worldview consists of ideas that are known empirically to be false,” commented one fellow liberal.
Why stop with conservatives? asked another. “How about we make faculties more diverse by hiring idiots?”
A few in the media and academia are finally recognizing that neither place is friendly to conservatives or evangelicals. That recognition is refreshing!
When liberal journalists come out and confess their bias, it’s tempting to say, “The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem.” But don’t. This is good news.
Writing at the New York Times recently, columnist Nicholas Kristof took that hard first step. The title of his piece says it all: “A Confession of Liberal Intolerance.”
“We progressives,” he writes, “believe in diversity, and we want women, blacks, Latinos, gays and Muslims at the table, so long as they aren’t conservatives.” (Or, one might reasonably add, evangelical Christians).
Kristof and fellow liberals profess a love for tolerance and diversity. But when it comes to the most important kind—diversity of thought—he admits that the gatekeepers in academia and the media actively stigmatize those who hold views different from their own.
“We’re fine with people who don’t look like us,” he writes, “as long as they think like us.”
Universities, once recognized as bastions of tolerance and diversity, bear perhaps the greatest blame. Kristof cites studies showing that just 6 to 11 percent of humanities professors are conservatives. Fewer than one in ten social-studies professors call themselves conservative. For perspective, consider that twice that number identify as Marxists!
And lest anyone blame this on conservative self-selection, a third of academics openly admit that they would be less likely to hire a qualified candidate who voted Republican. Black, evangelical sociologist George Yancey says he faces more discrimination on campus for his Christian beliefs than he does off-campus for the color of his skin. This aggressive bias turns classrooms into hard-left “echo-chambers” where only one side of any debate is ever heard.
Kristof took his concerns to Facebook, where he asked his mostly liberal followers why those who pride themselves on tolerance can be so intolerant. The replies he got were stunning.
“Much of the ‘conservative’ worldview consists of ideas that are known empirically to be false,” commented one fellow liberal.
Why stop with conservatives? asked another. “How about we make faculties more diverse by hiring idiots?”
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