Dodging the Obamacare tax

AS the year ends, the thoughts of many Americans turn to taxes.The new one for this year is the Obamcare tax. I choose not to have insurance, because a $300 a month insurance bill for a policy that doesn't pay a dime until the $6,000 deductible is met just doesn't make financial sense.

There is a way to get out of the Obamacare tax, as there are 14 reasons to receive a hardship exemption. Here they are:

 The easy route, using #3:
1 Do not pay one month's utility bill each quarter
2 wait for shut off notice
3 pay bill the next day, before utility is actually shut off
4 mail shut off notices in to IRS
5 receive exemption, save hundreds or thousands of dollars

 or #8:
1 Don't pay medical bill
2 Send copy of unpaid bill to IRS

or be vague, and use #14...

There is an application, which can be downloaded as a PDF here. From Healthcare.gov:

Hardship exemptions are usually provided for the month before the hardship, the months of the hardship, and the month after the hardship. However, the Marketplace may provide the exemption for additional months after the hardship, including up to a full calendar year.

Business news

My brother is a business owner.  Just over a year ago, I blogged about him and how Obamacare was affecting small business owners.

Now a new problem. My brother pays his workers $10 an hour (which is $2 per hour higher than minimum wage) plus a percentage of profits that are earned as a result of the worker's labor. He employs ten, and the highest earning of them made $42,000 this year, meaning that they are making more in profit sharing than they are in salary.

That will come to an end in 2015, when all workers will go to an hourly rate of $14 an hour. Why is that? Is it because my brother is a greedy business owner? No. It is because one of his workers has been sleeping on the clock.

One of his workers was caught taking naps while he was clocked in, and this caused that employee to work more than 40 hours a week. When caught, my brother fired the man. The man filed a complaint, stating that he was not paid properly.

My brother pointed out to the DOL that the employee was paid fully for the time he was on the clock, even while sleeping. The DOL disagreed. They said that ALL funds received by an employee on a regular basis must be a part of the overtime calculation.

What does this mean? Let's say that your employee makes $10 an hour plus profit sharing. He works 42 hours a week. That means that his "time and a half" overtime rate should be $15 an hour, right?

Wrong. Since the employee got $400 a week in profit sharing, his hourly rate works out to $25 an hour, making his overtime rate $37.50 an hour. So an employee that made $400 in wages and $400 in profit sharing for weeks on end, and then takes a nap and winds up working 42 hours when he oversleeps the end of his shift by two hours, winds up deserving an extra $75 for his two hour nap.

My brother cannot afford this, so profit sharing is coming to an end at his business.

This is why the little guy can't make it.

To what end?

In July, blacks were protesting Obama's immigration policies, and were even calling him 'the worst President ever.' Protesters began referring to Clinton, and how he cared more for the black community.

In August, a black teen is shot in Missouri by the cop he was attacking. The press runs with it. Protesters appear with professionally made signs, and are bussed in from hundreds of miles away.By September and into October, the protests had spread to other cities.

The situation has escalated to the point that police officers are now being murdered in the streets, and black people are cheering over it.

Now we have the movie 'Selma' that is being released to show how blacks were discriminated against and overcame the adversity.

This appears to be a well orchestrated, well funded campaign to distract and redirect the blacks in America. We as a nation, and blacks in particular, are being manipulated. To what end? Is this merely a distraction to bolster Obama's sagging approval poll numbers? Is this something more? Something else?

Merry Christmas.

Get off the Internet and go enjoy some family time.

Today's LOL

I love the definition for "Zumbo" and especially love the term "Zumborrhea," which is listed. I am going to try and use that in a sentence this week.

Again?

So the Republicans are planning on having either Jeb Bush or Mitt Romney run for President. They will never learn. You might as well get used to hearing about President Clinton again. President Obama, the narcissist,  has given Bush his permission to run, at least.

If you run Huckabee Bush or Romney in the 2012 2016 election, you are not getting my vote. I am through with voting for the same old crap simply because that person will take away my liberty at a slightly slower rate than the other guy. I am also tired of seeing the same old, tired candidates in every election.

Many people keep saying that I am throwing my vote away unless I vote for the R candidate, because a third party candidate can't win. I have news for you, telling me to vote for a douchebag that can't win, simply because he has been anointed by the Republican party establishment doesn't mean that he can win, only that he has bowed down to the big money in charge of the R party.

Education

This week, I have been giving mid term exams. My test in Biology has 80 questions: ten true/false, and seventy multiple choice. There are four versions of the test, so that the kids who sit next to each other cannot cheat of the tests of their neighbors. Two of the tests begin with the true/false section, and the other two end with it.

The test is done on Scantron sheets. The very fist question on each sheet says "KEY ID" and the students are supposed to mark which version of the test they have. One student did not do so, meaning that the test will now have to be graded by hand. In trying to figure out which answer key to use, I look at the test to see if the student's test began or ended with the true/false. The true/false questions are answered by filling in the first or second bubble, respectively, so any of the first ten questions that are answered by filling in a 'C' or a 'D' are not true/false.

The problem? NONE of the student's tests appear to have any true/false answers. This indicates to me that the student didn't even attempt to take the exam.

This is one of the reasons that education fails in this nation: The students don't want to be educated.

You can lead a child to knowledge, but you can't make him think.

Humor

We were shopping for a gift for the 10 year old child of a friend. That child asked for a long list of odd presents. One of the items on the list was a pop corn popper. As a joke, we bought her a Jiffy Pop. She probably won't get the joke, but her mom will. (Don't worry, we got her a real gift as well, her feelings won't be hurt)

Just like the other countries

As our South American population increases, we are becoming more and more like the third world hell holes that are south of the border. In this case, a border patrol agent is caught accepting bribes to help a cartel import marijuana into the country.

Gun control is irrelevant

Criminals in Illinois are turning toy guns into functioning firearms. Tell me again how gun control will keep guns out of the hands of criminals.

4,096

4096: That is how many hotel rooms were leased out for the night when Obama went to the G20 conference in Australia. The cost for rooms alone was $1.7 million. It makes me wonder a couple of things:

1 Were there really over 8,000 staffers that are absolutely necessary for a one day conference? They were staying double occupancy, right?
2 At an average cost of $415 per room, the Deputy Under Secretary of Whitehouse bed linens was staying in a nicer room than the average national leader. Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott opted for the thrifty $270-a-night Rydges hotel, while Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe required just $170 of public funds for his stay at Novotel. China's Xi Jinping came closest to Obama's bill, spending $1,450 on his room, followed by UK Prime Minister David Cameron, whose room cost British taxpayers $1,070.

Just last spring, Obama went to Brussels with 900 of his hangers on, bringing along 45 vehicles, 7 helicopters, 4 jumbo jets, and a $10.4 security bill for Brussels. 

 This goes along with the 46 car motorcade (plus motorcyle escort) that travels every time the President wants to take a ride across Washington. Things like this are less about security and more to show the peasants who is boss. After all, it isn't THEIR money being spent.

This is all reminiscent of a medieval king. 

Chicago

In the news, it was announced that Chicago scientists discovered a 2,500 year old Egyptian coffin. When they opened it, they discovered the mummy was holding 21,100 absentee ballots for candidates in the 2014 mid-term elections.

Apparently, the African-American community organizer who was in the coffin was on his way to deliver the ballots to the supervisor of elections when he was detained by racist police officers. Democrats claim that a recount that includes these ballots would ensure that they retain control of the Senate. They claim that every vote should count, and it is wrong to disenfranchise the Africans who cast the absentee ballots, and to do so would violate their constitutional rights, or something. Eric Holder has initiated a Department of Justice investigation into any potential civil rights violations.

"Records show that more than 80% of mummies are black. This disproportionate number of mummies is further illustration that white privilege is alive and well in this country," said Holder, "Rest assured, we will not rest until black men in America can feel safe from being mummified."

Protesters stood outside the field museum, chanting "No mummies, just votes."

No protests?

White cop shoots unarmed black man... and no one rioted.

An off-duty Brevard County deputy shot a man during a burglary...Authorities said Deputy Jessie Holton was alerted by another resident in the area of the alleged burglar, identified as 32-year-old Wilford McCloud. As Holton attempted to arrest McCloud, the man was reportedly violently resisting, which led to Holton shooting McCloud...McCloud was arrested just days before for carrying a concealed firearm by a convicted felon and has an extensive record.

 I thought the mantra was "black lives matter."

Pearl Harbor Day

Today is the day that the Japanese attacked the Naval facility at Pearl Harbor. The US claimed that it was a sneak attack, but was it really? Some claim that the attack came as a surprise because of Japanese treachery, while others claim that the US government (to include its military) were simply myopic.

Me? I believe that the attack was a part of ongoing hostilities between the two countries, and the Japanese were simply responding in kind. That's right: the US started the war with Japan by attacking her first. Not only that, the US government put the Japanese government in a position where the only logical choice that they had was either go to war, or allow the US to rule them.

In 1940, Roosevelt even stated that war with Japan was inevitable. Roosevelt had wanted the US in the wars in Europe and in the Far East for years. Standing in Roosevelt's way was the fact that many US citizens felt that the wars were not their problem.

First, the United States, continuing in its tradition of using treaties to keep other countries weak, refused to allow the Japanese Navy to maintain itself at the same level as the US Navy. This caused the Japanese to withdraw from the Naval Disarmament Conference in 1936.Then the US began imposing trade restrictions and sanctions against Japan in 1938.

The sanctions were expanded, and the Japanese were being denied the access to materials that they needed: things like steel and copper. The US closed the Panama Canal to all Japanese shipping. This particularly hit Japan's economy hard because 74.1% of Japan's scrap iron and 93% of her copper came from the United States. Then, in July of 1941, the US froze all Japanese assets and established an embargo of all gasoline and oil sales to Japan. At the time, more than 80% of all Japanese fuel came from the United States. The US claimed that the sanctions and embargoes would continue until the war with China came to an end.

The problem with this, is that the Japanese tried to engage in a mutually agreeable treaty with Chine to end the war, but China, seeing Japan on the ropes economically, wanted far more in concessions than the Japanese were willing to offer. Japan had two choices: go to war with an aggressive US, or surrender.

Then there was the First American Volunteer Group, AKA the Flying Tigers. Of course, there were machinations that took place to make the process technically deniable: The US loaned money to China, and China then used the money to purchase US war materiel and pay the aircrews. Roosevelt then signed a "secret executive order" in April of 1941, authorizing servicemen on active duty to resign in order to join the AVG.

 In July of 1941, the emperor of Japan was told that his nation had two years of oil remaining. The course was set: Japan had no choice but to fight.

All of this should have been no surprise to Roosevelt, and I would argue that this was a deliberate attempt to enter the war on the President's part.

Random thought

Why does the elevator in a building with only two floors need a button for each floor? Why can't there just be one button labelled "Not this one?"

Your bigotry is showing

This is what intellectual liberals think of me:

You’re a scared white person, almost certainly male. You do not live in a major city, or near a university or intellectual hub of any note, nor have you ever traveled very far from your home town, much less out of state or anywhere further than, say, Mexico. Once. And that was enough.
You do not read complicated books. You do not like new or weird things. You watch lots of TV, mostly Fox News,

The truth:
 I am white. Mostly. My great grandfather was black, and another of my great grandfathers is a Cherokee. Being white is no surprise, gun owner or not, as over 75% if the country is white.
I don't live in a major city, but neither does 92% of the US population. (Cities that have a population of 1 million or more have a total population of 25.2 million)
I live less than 50 miles from the University of Florida. Does that count?
I have lived in five states (Virginia, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, and Florida), and I have traveled to 34 of them. I have traveled to 27 foreign countries on 4 different continents. I travel constantly, with my last trip out of the country being just two weeks ago.
I am quite well read and somewhat educated. I have four college degrees. I am constantly trying new things, and I do not watch much TV (although I have to confess that I have a liking of ice hockey), and I mostly get my news from a wide variety of sources on the internet.

Sorry that I don't fit your stereotype, you hoplophobic bigot.