Blades, So, what are your thoughts on this? My opinion isn't yet fully formed. Public companies are required, by law, to report to their stockholders of any losses they will realize from new laws or policies. So, promptly after ObamaCare passed (and was signed) companies (as required by law) announced the massive losses that the new taxes will cost them. And the democratic bigwigs really didn't like that, so now they're threatening the companies (for following the law) because by doing their legal obligation they have pointed out that all the accounting behind ObamaCare is phony. On one hand, I think the whole thing is rather funny. On the other hand, I think the whole thing is rather scary. The vindictiveness of the democrats, their focus on destroying any opposition to their National-Socialism programs and single party rule is fucking scary. Here is a brief rundown Power Line - The Empire Strikes Back Your thoughts?
Lol anyone with any negative news related to the new bill is instantly a racist and a counter-progressive. Love it, lets sit back and watch democracy die.
If the situation is as clear cut as you've laid it out, then yes, certainly the Democrats are just being pricks. However I could imagine that the company leaders themselves have some incentives to issue such statements under any circumstances - hell, even if they were personally very much supportive of Obamacare. We are in a recession. Jobs are being shed in firms across the country. A quick google search suggests to me that Verizon is no exception: Cost of job cuts pushes Verizon into red - MarketWatch Investors are looking at companies with hawks' eyes now: they will only put their money where they are sure it will reap them a reward; a company like that needs to have a decent product, a good market and, relevant to our discussion here, a sound managerial board - the right people making the decisions. Anyways, administrators at Verizon want to keep as much money coming towards them from investors as possible, and they want to keep their jobs too, I'm sure. The point is, just like the Democrats committed some questionable practices in figuring out the cost of the healthcare bill, I wouldn't put it past company bigwhigs to be guilty of the same thing. 'Oh, no, this need to cut jobs doesn't have to do with our lousy management, no way; it's Obamacare'. See what I'm saying? My knowledge of the actual circumstances is not in-depth enough to lead me to believe that what I'm saying is true of the situation at hand - just some thoughts.
It's pretty straightforward accounting. New taxes raise costs. And they are required to publish immediately any new costs that will be realized. If they're wrong about these announcements then they are comitting a criminal act.
Of course, but I thought the point here was accuracy in absolute terms, not general trend-spotting? Laws leave a lot of room for interpretation. That's one reason why firms hire so many lawyers. ----------------- Don't you believe that companies can twist reality just as skillfully as governments?
Financial reporting laws leave almost no room for interpretation since the Enron collapse and the legislation that followed (Sarbanes-Oxley). If they are incorrect on this issue the executives of the company are on the hook for serious prison time. Read the releases by the companies in question, they explain exactly how and why this is immediately increasing costs.
Yes, business are going to be taxed more. This is because they have been double dipping for the last nine years under the Bush Medicare Bill passed in 2003. Companies like AT&T have been receiving subsidies from the government under this law (approx 28% of total cost). AT&T would then claim the total cost of the Medicare Bill on their taxes, thus receiving double the benefit. The new health care bill fixed this tax loophole. Follow link: AT&T will take $1B non-cash charge for health care - Yahoo! News I am really not that upset that AT&T will only make $2 billion dollars then next quarter than the $3 billion they projected prior to the fix. Now is probably not the best time, but I am tired of these companies reaping huge profits while taking advantage of government subsidies and loopholes.
The reason this was done is because the private sector was able to provide the same benefits as Medicare Part D at a fraction of the cost of the government. The government saved money on the whole thing, which was why that was permitted.
I'm willing to call out corportate welfare when it's taking place, but this isn't really an example of it. It was done primarily to save the federal government money, as well as to avoid creating an incentive for companies to simply dump retiree benefits. The government saved more money from this program than it lost. Team Obama cut this as part of the health care bill (to magically make the bill budget neutral when it's a budget buster), so as to save something like 5 billion, but now the increased cost passed on tothe government will likely be in the range of 10 billion, a net swing of at least 15 billion in direct cost to the government.