February 6, 2018

The next axe to fall onto Medicaid recipients

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article198549284.html


A Democrat should introduce a bill that puts lifetime caps on health insurance for members of Congress so that we don't hemorrhage money to lifetime bloodsuckers like Orrin Hatch; he can pay for his own Viagra.

or

Tell members of Congress we are now instituting health insurance coverage for all of them based on financial need, and the same parameters for Medicaid will apply. This shouldn't affect them in the least since many of them are already millionaires.

February 6, 2018

Automation is coming after your job, Ohioans

From the Columbus Dispatch.

Nearly half of Ohio workers hold jobs that a University of Oxford study has identified as likely to be automated in the future, including tens of thousands of cashiers, truck drivers, fast-food workers and warehouse laborers.

In a 2013 study, researchers Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne rated 702 jobs on a scale from zero, meaning they can’t be automated, to one, meaning they certainly will be automated. Of those, 297 jobs rated a 0.7 or higher, meaning there is at least a 70 percent chance the jobs will face disruption from computerization and automation.

The researchers gave a higher likelihood of automation to lower-paid, repetitive jobs that require little or uncomplicated personal interaction and lower levels of education.

To gauge the potential effects of automation on Ohio’s employment, The Dispatch compared the high-risk jobs in the study with U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics surveys that show how many Ohioans hold them. As of March 2016, the last time the bureau released statewide job statistics, Ohio had 163,790 people engaged in food preparation and serving jobs, including fast-food jobs. There were 117,390 cashiers, 111,230 laborers and freight handlers, including warehouse workers, and 70,740 drivers of heavy trucks.

Adding up all of the jobs that are at least 70 percent at risk shows that about 2.5 million jobs in Ohio are at stake. Total employment in the state was about 5.5 million in December.

Taken together, the average pay of all of the Ohio workers in all 297 jobs rated as the most likely to be automated added up to nearly $83.6 billion in 2016, according to the labor bureau’s statistics. That includes 169,300 office clerks, secretaries and administrative assistants, 98,150 waiters and waitresses, and 61,590 bookkeeping, accounting and auditing clerks.

Conversely, about 1.3 million Ohioans work in 217 jobs that are rated the safest from automation. Teachers, nurses, home health aides, computer systems administrators and pharmacists all rate a 0.3 or lower. So do police officers, firefighters, child-care workers, medical assistants and electricians.

And there will be many more jobs that aren’t even on the list yet, said Jeff Spain, supervisor of workforce innovation at Columbus State Community College. The college, for example, has a new program training students for work as logistics engineering technicians, with skills that will increasingly be in demand as the region’s many warehouses continue to automate. The two-year degree combines training in how the supply chain works, problem-solving and information technology.

“The pick-and-pack person, their job is changing,” Spain said. “The function of it can mostly be automated. We have warehouses that are heavily automated, where the human component has been removed. That doesn’t take away the need for a human workforce.

To compete for the jobs that can’t be automated, Spain said, will mean gaining technical skills beyond high school and also focusing on a deeply human skill: communication.

At a conference in New Orleans last week for workforce experts from across the country, Spain said he kept hearing the same thing: “Advanced communication was the watchword people were saying. Workers have the technology, but they don’t have the inter-connectivity of people. At the college, we’ve embedded communication skills: It’s not just that I know how to use the internet of things, I know how to work with people.”

That jobs are vulnerable to automation is nothing new.

The state has shed more than a third of its manufacturing jobs, for example, since 2000. While some manufacturing jobs have come back since the recession ended, economists expect that number to slide over the long term.

Robots already help make cars and run around at Amazon distribution centers assisting workers filling orders.

Driverless vehicles, kiosks that can take orders at restaurants, electric and gas meters that no longer need to be read manually and computer programs that can quickly and easily do simple tax returns already are being put to work. Amazon has opened a grocery store in Seattle that has no cashiers.

Just last week, Kroger said it will introduce a “Scan, Bag, Go” system to some of its central Ohio stores in March that will eliminate the need for shoppers to go through checkout lines and interact with a cashier.

Shoppers use a wireless hand-held scanner to scan items as they shop or use their mobile phone via Kroger’s app. The app links to a credit card on file with Kroger and when the shopper leaves, the card is charged.

“Tasks are going to be automated or eliminated,” said David Staley, a futurist and an associate professor of history, design and educational studies at Ohio State University. The question is, “What does that do to the job? What does that do to the person?”

Staley said the real significant question is when it will happen.

The Oxford study doesn’t say whether a job will be automated today or 20 years from now.

“That’s the great unknown, the great uncertainty,” Staley said. “A lot of these technologies already exist. It is the speed at which (the jobs) are being eliminated, that is the big question. ... When capital becomes cheaper than labor, it will replace labor.”

In Gahanna, BeeHex Inc. is building 3D food printers that can make a pizza, decorate a cake or a cookie or crank out made-to-order nutrition bars. The key, said Ben Feltner, chief operating officer of the 2-year-old company, is to provide a machine that compares to the cost of a manual laborer and can take over a “mindless” task. That leaves people such as pastry chefs free to do something of higher value and difficulty than icing dozens of cookies the same way.

So, if the question is, ‘Do I hire more people or invest in this machine?’ it’s a no-brainer,” he said. “That’s why you’re seeing so much automation right now. Because the cost to produce the machine has come down so much and labor has come up, so they’re intersecting.”

Staley said there might come a day when a consumer’s ability to deal with actual employees in a store or restaurant may depend on wealth.

Those who can afford it will still go to a high-end restaurant with a wait staff while others will go to a fully-automated restaurant to eat, he said.

But it won’t stop there.

Even public defenders could be replaced by robots in court proceedings or trials some day, leaving only those with wealth and connections access to a human lawyer, he said.

More than a fifth of the state’s work force is in manufacturing and retail, two of the sectors most vulnerable to automation, said Ben Ayers, senior economist at Nationwide.

The situation may not be as bleak as some have suggested, he said.

“You can’t underestimate how adaptable the economy is,” he said.

Honda, for example, continues to add jobs in central Ohio even as it deploys more robots.

The threat of automation worries the Teamsters. Of the union’s 1.4 million national members, about 600,000 work behind the wheel.

“Trucking has been a very good middle-class lifestyle for those who are union members,” said Kara Deniz, a union spokeswoman. “The erosion of that is a little disconcerting. ... A lot of them don’t want to be computer programmers. They want to be truck drivers.”

********

I surely hope the part about robotic public defenders for the poor doesn't come to fruition. That's just not right!

February 5, 2018

Tonight's Vinyl Selection

Still Crazy After All These Years

Paul Simon

Simon, 76, recently announced he will retire from live performance with a Homeward Bound tour that takes in Europe and the US.

February 5, 2018

The Death of Clothing

By Lindsey Rupp, Chloe Whiteaker, Matt Townsend and Kim Bhasin

Bloomberg News

February 5, 2018

The apparel industry has a big problem. At a time when the economy is growing, unemployment is low, wages are rebounding and consumers are eager to buy, Americans are spending less and less on clothing.

The woes of retailers are often blamed on Amazon.com Inc. and its vise grip on e-commerce shoppers. Consumers glued to their phones would rather browse online instead of venturing out to their local malls, and that’s crushed sales and hastened the bankruptcies of brick-and-mortar stalwarts from American Apparel to Wet Seal.

But that’s not the whole story. The apparel industry seems to have no solution to the dwindling dollars Americans devote to their closets. Many upstarts promising to revolutionize the industry drift away with barely a whimper. Who needs fashion these days when you can express yourself through social media? Why buy that pricey new dress when you could fund a weekend getaway instead?

Apparel has simply lost its appeal. And there doesn’t seem to be a savior in sight. As a result, more and more apparel companies—from big-name department stores to trendy online startups—are folding.

The ingredients for this demise have been brewing for decades. In 1977, clothing accounted for 6.2 percent of U.S. household spending, according to government statistics. Four decades later, it’s plummeted to half that.

Apparel is being displaced by travel, eating out and activities—what’s routinely lumped together as “experiences”—which have grown to 18 percent of purchases. Technology alone, including data charges and media content, accounts for 3.4 percent of spending. That now tops all clothing and footwear expenditures.

Several reasons are behind this shift. Some are beyond the control of apparel companies, as societal changes drove different shopping behavior. But missteps by these companies along the way have hastened the death of clothing.

Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-death-of-clothing/

************* I, personally, don't spend much money on clothes -- never have. But for sure, when you see the cheaply made, flimsy material, and ugly styles in the stores for women nowadays, I can assure you that I will spend even less, or spend at the consignment store instead!

February 5, 2018

Desperate for health insurance?

How about a network that offers coverage

that is unregulated

can mandate your life style

can pick and choose who it covers

and doesn't even guarantee a payout?

Oh, yeah, and takes your money.

Welcome to Christian Health Ministries.

*********************************

"Why Desperate Families Are Getting Religion on Health Coverage
Health sharing ministries aren’t actually insurance. But for many people, the plans are more affordable than Obamacare, and they're growing fast."

By PAUL DEMKO and RENUKA RAYASAM February 04, 2018 from Politico

When Erica Jackson and her husband decided she would quit her job as a nurse and stay at home with their three kids, they knew they couldn’t afford insurance on the individual market. The family of five, who live in Wichita Falls, Texas, near the Oklahoma border, could already barely afford Jackson’s employer coverage, which cost $900 per month for a plan with a $12,000 deductible.

So Jackson reached out to her insurance broker for alternatives to exchange plans, and he suggested that she and her family would be a good fit for Medi-Share, a nonprofit insurance alternative based in Florida in which members share each other’s health care costs. There was a catch, though. The plan was run by a nonprofit religious ministry.

Because of her experience working in a doctor’s office, Jackson was initially skeptical of the faith-based plans—they aren’t really insurance, and there’s no guarantee they’ll cover medical bills. But as she learned more about the plan, which requires that members don’t smoke or use drugs and doesn’t cover injuries that result from behaviors considered immoral, such as drunk driving, the more she felt convinced that the plan was right for her family.

“The information that they make you go through, such as the beliefs, it was very reassuring,” said the 27-year-old.

Ultimately, Jackson and her husband, an insurance adjuster who works on contract, decided to take a chance on Medi-Share, paying $445 per month. They are also responsible for an additional $3,750 in annual out-of-pocket costs.

Health care sharing ministries have become a more entrenched part of the health care system than anyone could have possibly imagined eight years ago, when they were quietly exempted from Obamacare’s individual mandate penalty. The plans were an afterthought at the time, with only about 150,000 individuals enrolled in the faith-based plans. The exemption was included by Senate Democrats as a seemingly innocuous way to insulate the bill from attacks by Christian conservatives.

In the ensuing eight years, however, enrollment in health care sharing ministries has skyrocketed, particularly in states in which the individual insurance market has been beset by spiraling premiums and dwindling competition. As more people look for cheaper alternatives to health insurance, they are stumbling on ministry plans to escape Obamacare’s requirements and state oversight, but still satisfy the law’s individual mandate which, despite its repeal in the recent tax overhaul, remains in effect until 2019. Independent figures aren’t available, but according to the nonprofit groups that offer the faith-based plans—most of which are explicitly Christian—they now have more than 1.1 million members. What was once a fringe idea, limited to devout Evangelicals and small Mennonite churches in more rural parts of the country, has found acceptance with a segment of the population for whom the government safety net is unavailable and the free market options are unaffordable.

Read more
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/02/04/obamacare-religion-health-care-216933

February 4, 2018

My dog knows which cupboard I keep the peanut butter in

And she can hear me open that cupboard ..... not any other cupboard, but the "peanut butter cupboard" ...when she's on the other side of the house .... upstairs in my son's room .... when he's playing his music. She comes running every time.

February 4, 2018

Tonight's Vinyl Selection

Songs in the Key of Life

Stevie Wonder

Stevie's lush, ambitious, 2-record set of sheer perfection.

February 3, 2018

Tonight's Vinyl Selection

Dreamboat Annie

Heart

Contains "Crazy on You" and "Magic Man"

Ann Wilson is the only singer, male or female, who I've ever heard, who can cover a Led Zeppelin song.

February 3, 2018

For morally conflicted football fans

There are plenty of reasons not to watch the Super Bowl on Sunday evening between the New England Patriots and the Philadelphia Eageles — the fact that we are watching men destroy their brains in real time; the fact that the NFL has botched its handling of everything from athlete activism to domestic violence to player safety; or the fact that the Patriots are playing in the game, yet again, and their owner Robert Kraft, head coach Bill Belichick, and quarterback Tom Brady all have close ties to President Donald Trump.

And yet, most of us will be watching the game anyways, albeit with a pang of guilt and self-loathing as we devour nachos and cheer for our picks.

Thankfully, two friends are doing their best to turn that inevitable despair into something, well, good. Enter, #AGoodGame, an online donations campaign that encourages conflicted football fans to donate to charity every time their favorite — or, in the case of this Super Bowl, least-hated — team scores.

The idea was born last year, when friends and lifelong Patriots fans Josh Gondelman and Emma Sandoe were texting back and forth in the lead-up to the New England Patriots vs. Atlanta Falcons Super Bowl. They both couldn’t help but dream of victory, and yet, as progressives, they found the relationship between the Patriots and Trump “distressing.”

Specifically, Gondelman said that the endorsement letter that Belichick wrote to Trump, which Trump read aloud at a rally in Massachusetts the night before the election, was “the one that broke me.”

“We’re fans, but their politics were making it feel morally questionable,” Sandoe said. “So we thought of this idea to give money each time they score.”

It really is that simple. People can pledge to donate money to whatever charity they prefer any time their team scores. That way, Sandoe says, everyone is rooting for a good, high-scoring game, so that charities receive more donations. Last year, more than $100,000 was raised thanks to the #AGoodGame campaign, and Sandoe and Gondelman hope that this year’s campaign can be even bigger.

However, Sandoe urges people to get creative with it. In 2017, some of her friends who didn’t have money to spare said they were going to make a certain number of calls to a member of Congress every time their team scored. Both Gondelman and Sandoe found themselves donating each time there was a jaw-dropping catch or other big play as well. And, they are aware that the Patriots are not the most well-liked team across the nation, so if you want to donate every time something bad happens to the Patriots in the game, feel free. As long as you’re donating.

more: https://thinkprogress.org/super-bowl-charity-campaign-good-game-da17422cd07e/

February 3, 2018

Another example of the "new normal"

In mid-April, hundreds of members of the payday lending industry will head to Florida for their annual retreat featuring golf and networking at a plush resort just outside Miami. The resort just happens to be the Trump National Doral Golf Club.

It will cap a year in which the industry has gone from villain to victor, the result of a concentrated lobbying campaign that has culminated in the Trump administration’s loosening regulatory grip on payday lenders and a far friendlier approach by the industry’s nemesis, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/02/us/politics/payday-lenders-lobbying-regulations.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytpolitics&smtyp=cur

*This would have been a scandal in itself in years past! But it's now become the "new normal" in the Dotard administration.