JERUSALEM - Israel is believed to be using controversial white phosphorus shells to screen its assault on the heavily populated Gaza Strip yesterday. The weapon, used by British and US forces in Iraq, can cause horrific burns but is not illegal if used as a smokescreen.
As the Israeli army stormed to the edges of Gaza City and the Palestinian death toll topped 500, the tell-tale shells could be seen spreading tentacles of thick white smoke to cover the troops' advance. "These explosions are fantastic looking, and produce a great deal of smoke that blinds the enemy so that our forces can move in," said one Israeli security expert. Burning blobs of phosphorus would cause severe injuries to anyone caught beneath them and force would-be snipers or operators of remote-controlled booby traps to take cover. Israel admitted using white phosphorus during its 2006 war with Lebanon.
The use of the weapon in the Gaza Strip, one of the world's mostly densely population areas, is likely to ignite yet more controversy over Israel's offensive, in which more than 2,300 Palestinians have been wounded.
The Geneva Treaty of 1980 stipulates that white phosphorus should not be used as a weapon of war in civilian areas, but there is no blanket ban under international law on its use as a smokescreen or for illumination. However, Charles Heyman, a military expert and former major in the British Army, said: "If white phosphorus was deliberately fired at a crowd of people someone would end up in The Hague. White phosphorus is also a terror weapon. The descending blobs of phosphorus will burn when in contact with skin."
The Israeli military last night denied using phosphorus, but refused to say what had been deployed. "Israel uses munitions that are allowed for under international law," said Captain Ishai David, spokesman for the Israel Defence Forces. "We are pressing ahead with the second stage of operations, entering troops in the Gaza Strip to seize areas from which rockets are being launched into Israel."
The civilian toll in the first 24 hours of the ground offensive - launched after a week of bombardment from air, land and sea- was at least 64 dead. Among those killed were five members of a family who died when an Israeli tank shell hit their car and a paramedic who died when a tank blasted his ambulance. Doctors at Gaza City's main hospital said many women and children were among the dead and wounded.
The Israeli army also suffered its first fatality of the offensive when one of its soldiers was killed by mortar fire. More than 30 soldiers were wounded by mortars, mines and sniper fire.
Israel has brushed aside calls for a ceasefire to allow humanitarian aid into the besieged territory, where medical supplies are running short.
With increasingly angry anti-Israeli protests spreading around the world, Gordon Brown described the violence in Gaza as "a dangerous moment".
White phosphorus: the smoke-screen chemical that can burn to the bone
- White phosphorus bursts into a deep-yellow flame when it is exposed to oxygen, producing a thick white smoke
- It is used as a smokescreen or for incendiary devices, but can also be deployed as an anti-personnel flame compound capable of causing potentially fatal burns
- Phosphorus burns are almost always second or third-degree because the particles do not stop burning on contact with skin until they have entirely disappeared - it is not unknown for them to reach the bone
- Geneva conventions ban the use of phosphorus as an offensive weapon against civilians, but its use as a smokescreen is not prohibited by international law
- Israel previously used white phosphorus during its war with Lebanon in 2006
- It has been used frequently by British and US forces in recent wars, notably during the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Its use was criticised widely
- White phosphorus has the slang name "Willy Pete", which dates from the First World War. It was commonly used in the Vietnam era.
USA Today
The U.S. Treasury has doled out $15 billion more to seven banks, including three big regional institutions.
The top financial panhandlers of this round are PNC Financial Services Group Inc. of Pittsburgh, which received $7.5 billion, followed by Fifth Third Bancorp of Cincinnati at $3.4 billion. Next up was CIT Group of New York ($2.3 billion) and SunTrust Banks Inc. of Atlanta ($1.3 billion).
To date, Treasury has invested $177.5 billion from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, receiving preferred stock and warrants from institutions in 41 states and Puerto Rico.
Despite the cash infusion, banks still aren't sharing the taxpayers' money with taxpayers, who continue to struggle to get credit, Bloomberg points out.
Alan S. Blinder, a former Federal Reserve vice chairman, says that as a major stakeholder, the government should be pressing banks to start lending to the very Americans propping them up.
“With the banks in a state of catatonic fear now, they’re just sitting on the capital,” Blinder said in an interview. “I don’t fault the banks one bit, since this shows Wall Street they’re safer, but then this doesn’t get you much improvement. If you’re taking money from the public purse, we should get something in return, and we’re really not.”
by Robert Fisk - The Independent (UK)
What is Israel afraid of? Using the old "enclosed military area" excuse to prevent coverage of its occupation of Palestinian land has been going on for years. But the last time Israel played this game - in Jenin in 2000 - it was a disaster. Prevented from seeing the truth with their own eyes, reporters quoted Palestinians who claimed there had been a massacre by Israeli soldiers - and Israel spent years denying it. In fact, there was a massacre, but not on the scale that it was originally reported.
Now the Israeli army is trying the same doomed tactic again. Ban the press. Keep the cameras out. By yesterday morning, only hours after the Israeli army went clanking into Gaza to kill more Hamas members - and, of course, more civilians - Hamas was reporting the capture of two Israeli soldiers. Reporters on the ground could have sorted out the truth or the lie about that. But without a single Western journalist in Gaza, the Israelis were left to tell the world that they didn't know if the story was true.
On the other hand, the Israelis are so ruthless that the reasons for the ban on journalism may be quite easily explained: that so many Israeli soldiers are going to kill so many innocents - more than three score by last night, and that's only the ones we know about - that images of the slaughter would be too much to tolerate. Not that the Palestinians have done much to help. The kidnapping by a Palestinian mafia family of the BBC's man in Gaza - finally released by Hamas, although that's not being recalled right now - put paid to any permanent Western television presence in Gaza months ago. Yet the results are the same.
Back in 1980, the Soviet Union threw every Western journalist out of Afghanistan. Those of us who had been reporting the Russian invasion and its brutal aftermath could not re-enter the country - except with the mujahedin guerrillas. I received a letter from Charles Douglas-Hume, who was editor of the The Times - for which I then worked - making an important observation. "Now that we have no regular coverage from Afghanistan," he noted on 26 March that year, "I would be grateful if you could make sure that we do not miss any opportunity for reporting on reliable accounts of what is going on in that country. We must not let events in Afghanistan vanish from the paper simply because we have no correspondent there."
That the Israelis should use an old Soviet tactic to blind the world's vision of war may not be surprising. But the result is that Palestinian voices - as opposed to those of Western reporters - are now dominating the airwaves. The men and women who are under air and artillery attack by the Israelis are now telling their own story on television and radio and in the papers as they have never been able to tell it before, without the artificial "balance", which so much television journalism imposes on live reporting. Perhaps this will become a new form of coverage - letting the participants tell their own story. The flip side, of course, is that there is no Westerner in Gaza to cross-question Hamas's devious account of events: another victory for the Palestinian militia, handed to them on a plate by the Israelis.
But there is also a darker side. Israel's version of events has been given so much credence by the dying Bush administration that the ban on journalists entering Gaza may simply be of little importance to the Israeli army. By the time we investigate, whatever they are trying to hide will have been overtaken by another crisis in which they can claim to be in the "front line" in the "war on terror".
from AllHatNoCattle
By Laura Bennett, The Daily Beast - Alternet
It's madness: Feeding your child a sandwich made with white bread or a bag of Doritos could cost you custody of your children?
I was at a parents' meeting at my boys’ school one recent morning, talking to one of the new moms, an attractive, petite, divorced woman in her 40s. She was discussing her relationship with her ex-husband and how challenging it has been. There was a distinct sound of bitterness in her voice, not surprising when she mentioned that he left her for a 24-year-old.
She told me that he had crossed a line with her kids on a recent visitation, and she was going to have her lawyer work on getting his joint custody rights revoked. She felt her case was ironclad, he had "obviously acted wrongly" and "anyone would agree with her."
"What did he do?" I had to ask, bracing myself for some juicy gossip. Surely this would involve sex and drugs, his babe girlfriend naked, or strippers at the very least.
And then she told me her ex's transgressions. He had packed a non-organic lunch for her sons. Seriously. She went on to describe the brown bags loaded with Cheetos, Go-gurt, and a sandwich that was made with white bread.
Because I stood there speechless, looking completely shocked with my mouth hanging open, she continued. She went on and on about the dangers of food additives and how they had exacerbated one of her boys' ADHD. She talked about how each morning when her boys are in her care she takes the time to poach Amish-raised, free-range chicken and then stuffs it into a whole-grain pita with hydroponic tomatoes and micro-greens and that her ex was obviously not fit to spend time with the kids because he was willing to put their health in such grave danger.
Obviously she mistook the look of shock on my face and considered me a kindred spirit when it came to militant healthy eating. I’m all for the benefits of a nutritious diet for kids, and I’m certainly no fan of Go-gurt -- which is essentially a single serving bag of yogurt that becomes a bomb when placed on a table and pounded, producing a dairy projectile capable of nailing a victim at 30 feet. But I couldn’t help thinking that perhaps it was her husband who should pursue a custody change. Her reaction was manically disproportionate. It’s not like junk food is akin to child abuse.
I just want to let the food Nazi moms in on what happens when your kids come to a house where junk food inhabits the pantry. They have no decision-making skills or sense of moderation when faced with the forbidden fruit roll-up. Like deprived animals, they are determined to consume the lifetime allotment of sugar they have been denied; all before pickup. I have seen one such child eat Swiss Miss Cocoa with a spoon directly out of the family-size container, only to move on to conquer a box of frosted strawberry Pop-Tarts. When faced with not one but three brands of chips, they become apoplectic and run from the kitchen clutching bags of Cool Ranch Doritos and French onion-flavored Sun Chips, later to be found in a corner curled up in the fetal position surrounded by wrappers, unable to state their name.
I get similar reactions from the kids who are denied cartoons, video games, or porn. (Okay, my kids don’t exactly have porn, but South Park comes close, and I do have a book of Helmut Newton nudes.) They stand wide-eyed in front of the screen, unable to move as my boys beg them to come and play. And it’s not just young children who have had all common sense denied out of them. I grew up in New Orleans when the drinking age was 18, and not strictly enforced. My freshman year at Tulane, it was almost a sport watching the students who came from the Northeast drink themselves into a vomiting stupor, like a bulimic at an all-you-can-eat buffet.
Sheltering children from every evil in the world does them a disservice; decision-making is a skill, learned with practice from the time they are small. At some point my boys will go out into the world and have to decide for themselves what is right and wrong. One would hope that by then they have ascertained that Krispy Kreme doughnuts are not really for breakfast -- and there are serious repercussions if you leave the mother of your children for a 24-year-old.
by Jaime O'Neill - The Smirking Chimp
In the Holiday Market in Magalia, a man approaches me and asks if I'm the O'Neill who writes a column for the Paradise Post. He speaks through one of those tubes made for people who've had surgery involving the larynx, so I figure he's recovering from throat cancer, though he appears strong and in otherwise good health.
I'm not always anxious to confess my identity to strangers on this ridge. My personal politics have not made me universally loved among the right wing faction up here, and some of the wing nuts in that group seem worrisomely unstable. I've received more than a few threats, and a weekly trickle of hate mail since I started writing the column.
But I tell the man that I am the same O'Neill who writes for the Post, and I'm relieved to see a big smile cross his face as he gives me a thumbs up gesture. "Keep up the good work," he says.
His name is Don, he's a retired Teamster, and the kind of guy I've always admired, men who fought for hard-won worker's rights that have been slipping away since Reagan's binge of union busting back in the '80s. I couldn't tell Don's age exactly, but I'm guessing he was in his late '60s, just a few years older than I am. His voice sounded mechanical coming through the speaker connected to the tube he spoke into as he talked about how his father had preceded him as a labor organizer. Don, his father, and a whole lot of men and women like them fought often bloody battles back in the '30s, '40s, '50s. And, though the percentage of union members in the workforce has shrunk since the 1950s, along with the protections and the wages that once provided a foundation for a healthy middle class, committed union people continue to fight to achieve decent pay for the working people who create the nation's wealth. These union men and women are the ones we have to thank for things like the forty-hour work week, minimum wage laws, and health and safety protections for employees. The unionists knew which side their bread was buttered on, and they knew that there'd been nary a Republican who'd spoken up for workers since Teddy Roosevelt.
But American schools teach history badly, and they barely teach labor history at all, so we get generation after generation ever more readily manipulated by those who exploit them. That is part of the reason we have so many people on this ridge who side with the CEOs over the workers, and who dismiss social programs as socialism, mostly while living off their Social Security checks and disparaging the "freeloaders" among the poor they blame for the terrible state of things.
Limbaugh and his tribe spread the lie that auto workers were making $70 an hour, causing the collapse of the auto industry. Meanwhile, the auto execs who ran their companies into the ground were flying around on private jets, enjoying multi-million dollar salaries and perks, as working class people were encouraged to blame other working class people for the problems. An auto industry bridge loan that was just a tiny fraction of the amount given with no strings attached to the banking crooks and financial industry scoundrels gets haggled over while Republicans argue for conditions that would gut the UAW. President Bush comes up with the money, at long last, though it adds up to less than two months of what it costs us to be in Iraq.
So it was very heartening to spend ten minutes talking to Don the Teamster. It was good to be reminded that there are still lots of blue-collar people around, both working and retired, who "get it," and who don't fall victim to the divide-and-conquer ploys so often used by the big money people to get working people squabbling among themselves.
Nor are the battle lines so clearly drawn as they might once have been. Far too many policies supported by Democrats have helped erode the power of unions, and far too many Democrats have joined with business interests to export American jobs by the hundreds of thousands, pitting American workers against workers in countries where environmental laws are lax, or where government-provided health insurance frees companies of that production expense.
But Republican attitudes and Republican allies remain the main culprits in exporting American jobs and gutting American towns and small businesses while turning Wal-Mart into a symbol of all that's gone wrong˜imported goods, non-union Wal-Mart workers, and huge government subsidies for the services the employer doesn't have to provide. Next time you're in a Wal-Mart, or a K-Mart, or one of those other low-pay, no- benefits stores, take a look at the person waiting on you. They often don't look very healthy because they put off elective health care visits, and they neglect their dental health because they can't afford such "discretionary" spending. They eat too much processed food, or fast food, because they're stressed out and busy beyond belief.
The right-wing pundits hurl the charge of "class warfare" whenever anyone brings up the war that has been conducted against working people, as more and more money found its way into the hands of the richest 1% of Americans. Meanwhile, over-compensated CEOs gild their already golden parachutes and are granted ever-bigger bonuses by Boards of Directors who've bought the scam that management must be compensated lavishly, and without much relation to performance.
Working people have really gotten the shaft so far this century. We can only hope that will change under Obama, and this will become a country where the ideas and attitudes of Don the Teamster take precedence over the idiocies of a right-wing stooge and opportunist like Joe the Plumber.
By James Vicini - Reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Wanted by the FBI: agents, language specialists, computer experts, intelligence analysts and finance experts.
The FBI said on Monday it had launched one of the largest hiring blitzes in its 100-year history involving 2,100 professional staff vacancies and 850 special agents aimed at filling its most critical vacancies.
The agency, which seeks to protect the United States from terrorist attack, fight crime and catch spies, among other duties, said it currently has more than 12,800 agents and about 18,400 other employees.
Since the Sept 11, 2001, attacks, the FBI has been criticized for not having enough employees fluent in foreign languages and for not moving fast enough to upgrade its computer system.
FBI Assistant Director John Raucci of the Human Resources division said the federal law enforcement agency is seeking to bring more people on board with skills in critical areas, especially language fluency and computer science.
"We're also looking for professionals in a wide variety of fields who have a deep desire to help protect our nation from terrorists, spies, and others who wish us harm," Raucci said.
He said the FBI, which has been investigating corporate wrongdoing in connection with the current financial crisis, also needs finance and accounting experts, along with those skilled in physical surveillance and various other employees.
The hiring initiative for FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., and for its field offices would replace departed staff and add some employees, officials said. (Reporting by James Vicini, Editing by Jackie Frank)
By Rob Larson, AlterNet
Instead of making loans to help the economy, they're shoring up their own finances and buying up their competitors.
The country's financial markets have collapsed, as they tend to do when left without adult supervision, and they're taking our economy with them. With the large banks refusing to make loans after losing billions on worthless subprime derivatives, the government stepped in and agreed to October's financial bailout package.
The $700 billion legislation was meant to buy banks' "troubled assets" for cash, and thus improve banks' balance sheets to the point that they would lend again. This would mean credit for struggling businesses and households and could encourage expansion and hiring, thus pulling us out of recession.
But it turns out the banks haven't held up their end of the bargain. All they're holding up is a glass to a government that would rather shovel cash into the largest banks than take the edge off the recession.
The bailout was highly unpopular, despite a heavy push by the U.S. political leadership. Most citizens apparently couldn't figure why we should give money to the banks that caused this crisis by buying deeply into the housing bubble. Especially when foreclosures and bankruptcies among regular homeowners are out of control -- the Mortgage Bankers Association reports that "a record 1 in 10 American homeowners with a mortgage was either at least one month behind on their payments or in foreclosure at the end of September." But the plan has not been carried out as advertised -- rather than buying the subprime securities from the banks, the government has instead decided to "recapitalize" them. Meaning, invest money in the big banks for some equity, money which the banks could then loan to the staggering economy. Well, at least the part where we give them money went well.
The fact is that the banks are not making loans -- the "credit crunch" goes on, and the economy is the worse for it. After so many of Wall Street's great investment banks went bankrupt, or were bailed out by the government, or were bought by competitors, the banks want to "hoard cash" to avoid a similar fate. But besides shoring up their own finances, the banks are putting our public bailout money to another purpose -- buying up their smaller competitors.
Mergers and acquisitions have been a major part of the government's strategy to deal with the crisis since its beginning. Bear Stearns, the first respectable Wall Street powerhouse to approach bankruptcy, was sold to the larger bank Chase in a shotgun marriage arranged by the Federal Reserve. Since then, the government has arranged for a tanking Merrill Lynch to be sold to Bank of America, a heavily leveraged Wachovia to Wells Fargo, and a failing Washington Mutual to Chase, again. The Treasury Department would say that the damage to the economy can be limited if larger, more stable banks buy their struggling rivals.
Of course, some of these largest banks, such as Citigroup, are not so secure themselves. But more than that, the money used by the larger banks to acquire the others is capital that could have been used to make the loans our economy is desperate for -- and of course, that's what they were supposed to do with the public money in the first place. But most importantly, remember that the reason we're paying to bail out these banks at all is that they are "too big to fail," in the language of the business press -- in other words, if these huge banks go under, the loss of employment, lending and tax revenue could do profound damage to the greater economy. So if these banks were too enormous to allow to die in the first place, why in God's name would we be paying them to get even larger?
The mergers are large-scale -- the Financial Times calls them a "wave of consolidation as banks scramble to use the cash on takeovers and bolt-on acquisitions." BusinessWeek reports "what could emerge is a barbell-shaped system with megabanks, small banks and little in between." The business reporters for the New York Times describe the Treasury Department as "using the bailout bill to turn the banking system into the oligopoly of giant national institutions." An oligopoly is a market, such as banking, dominated by a few very large companies.
If any doubt remained, it was put to rest by the minor scandal that has emerged over a quiet change to the tax code made by the Treasury Department. This change allows banks to apply the losses of other banks they buy against their own taxes. In other words, when a bank buys a struggling smaller bank, the buyer can deduct the money lost by the struggling bank against its own tax bill. This is clearly meant to further encourage merger activity -- for example, when Wells Fargo bought Wachovia, it paid $15 billion. But Wachovia's losses total over $19 billion. Meaning, Wells Fargo was paid by the government for buying a highly valuable bank, for a profit of $4 billion, at our expense.
By way of comparison, the SCHIP program granting health insurance to children in low-income families cost about $5 billion in 2007.
In fairness to the Treasury Department, Secretary Henry Paulson has been urging banks to use our public money to lend more. But tax breaks speak louder than words. It also might be pointed out that in Britain, banks are being recapitalized in a similar way as here, but the U.K. requires banks to formally agree to make loans with the public money. The American situation was described by David Walker, former U.S. comptroller: "It is the government's responsibility to set the terms and conditions on this money…They're giving it out with no rules."
This tax change may be undone if Congress confronts the Treasury, since the legislative branch is supposed to be in charge of the tax code. But the intention of the Treasury Department to encourage mergers at the top of the banking world is very clear.
In fact, the government is going to great lengths to avoid doing what little the Brits have done. Rather than require our banks to make loans with the bailout money, our central bank, the Federal Reserve, "has already started a campaign to lend directly to damaged financial markets and companies -- nearly anyone with collateral … officials have effectively concluded that if banks and financial markets won't extend credit, it will do part of the job for them." This is according to the Wall Street Journal, which also reports that Paulson "acknowledged that banks aren't lending enough money despite the government infusion, but said the U.S. didn't want to nationalize the industry and dictate the loans banks make." Our government will do anything, even supply the economy with credit itself, before it will tell our huge banks what to do.
So to summarize, after creating a national economic crisis by wildly overinvesting in securities representing bad loans, the banks are being paid, by us, to become even larger. In spite of their being too big to fail in the first place, and even if that means the government has to do the banks' job for them. Of course, with 1 in 10 mortgages in delinquency and job losses mounting, it's easy to come up with some better uses of our tax money. But it would take a whole lot of us putting down the snack chips, turning off "When Celebrities Attack" and organizing ourselves to put pressure on the government and change the economic system. The "megabanks" of our "oligopoly of giant national institutions" aren't going to overthrow themselves.
And you can take that to the bank. The one remaining bank.
ThinkProgress
The EU is pushing for a cease-fire and “sustainable truce” between Hamas and Israel. One proposal circulating in “Paris and at the United Nations on Sunday was to send European Union troops as part of an international force to the Gaza border to help prevent smuggling of munitions across the frontier, diplomats said.” In the meantime, the European Commission promised $4.2 million in humanitarian aid to Gaza.
“Senior Israeli officials said that the fighting could go on for days, if not weeks, and that calls for a cease-fire were premature.” “Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak insisted that, while Hamas had ’sustained a very heavy blow from us,’ Gaza operation was not finished. ‘We have yet to achieve our objective.’”
The RNC will select its new chairman this month and the six-way contest is aggravating “intraparty tensions.” As one RNC consultant explained to Politico, “Some people are p-ssed off at [Americans for Tax Reform President] Grover [Norquist]. Some people are p-ssed off at the Conservative Steering Committee. Some people are p-ssed off at [current RNC chair] Mike Duncan. Some people are p-ssed off at social conservatives. … Everyone is basically p-ssed.”
According to a report by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, “the Internet overtook print newspapers as a news source this year.” The popularity of newspapers did not decline, but rather, the number of people naming the internet as their primary news source nearly doubled.
President-elect Barack Obama’s economic recovery plan — which may cost nearly $775 billion — “plans to include about $300 billion in tax cuts for workers and businesses” which will “provide credits up to $500 for most workers” and “more than $100 billion in tax incentives for businesses.” More »« Less
Obama and congressional Democrats are “planning swift action to overturn a Supreme Court decision that made it much harder for people to challenge discrimination in employment, education, housing and other fields.” Since the May 2007 decision, courts “have gone far beyond the facts of that case and cited it as a reason for rejecting lawsuits claiming discrimination based on race, sex, age and disability.”
In Baghdad today, the United States opened its new embassy building in “a step meant to symbolize its transition from occupying power to an ally of a sovereign Iraqi government.” The building, which is the largest U.S. embassy building in the world, cost $592 million to construct and will be staffed by 1,200 employees, including diplomats, servicemen and staff from 14 federal agencies.
A female suicide bomber in Baghdad killed at least 40 people Sunday near one of Iraq’s most sacred Shi’ite shrines. The attack occurred just ahead of the Islamic holy day of Ashura and was the deadliest in Iraq since December 11.
And finally: Fox News’s Gretchen Carlson is returning to her beauty pageant roots, working as a special “consultant” to the Miss America pageant this year. Carlson has been “given the task of posing questions about hot-button social issues — sex education, same sex couples and adoption.”
By Emily Brandon - U.S. News & World Report
These strategies can help you hold out until Medicare kicks in at age 65
Workers who find themselves unexpectedly laid off in middle age or forced into early retirement have many worries. One of their greatest fears is about finding health insurance coverage. Some 21 percent of baby boomers ages 45 to 64 report they are not confident they will be able to afford medical care this year, according to a new AARP survey. “The boomers are at a high risk of being uninsured, and they’re particularly worried. They’re concerned about losing their job-based coverage or not keeping up with the high premiums of individual coverage,” says Cheryl Matheis, AARP senior vice president. “And they don’t have the safety net that Medicare provides for older people.”
Here’s a look at your health insurance options before you qualify for Medicare.
Retiree health insurance. Most workers will never receive health insurance from their former employer. Only 31 percent of firms with 200 or more workers offer retiree health benefits in 2008, less than half the 66 percent that did so in 1988, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. And even if you have a promise from your former employer to provide health coverage, don’t count on receiving it. Most companies maintain the right to change or revoke the coverage at any time.
Kodak, for example, announced in August that it will shift more health insurance premium costs to retirees and phase out employer-paid medical coverage for dependents over 10 years. Edward Gartz, 57, a retired Kodak manufacturing manager in Greece, N.Y., says it will require half of his $22,000 annual pension to insure his wife when medical coverage for her is fully phased out. “Many of my former coworkers are getting another job where they can earn enough money to pay for their benefits so they can use the money from their pensions for living expenses,” says Gartz. “You need to prepare for retirement knowing that your corporation may bail out on you.”
Continuing coverage. Employers are required by federal law to offer COBRA continuation health coverage for up to 18 months when you leave your job. But you have to pay the entire cost of the insurance out of your own pocket plus a 2 percent administrative fee. The average annual cost for retirees under age 65 is $13,308, according to a Towers Perrin survey of 321 primarily Fortune 1000 companies. And if your former employer goes out of business, COBRA doesn’t apply.
For better, worse, and health insurance. Getting health coverage through a spouse’s employer is another option. “Retirees ages 55 to 64 are becoming more likely to get employment-based coverage through another family member and less likely to get it through a former employer,” says Paul Fronstin, director of the health research and education program for the Employee Benefit Research Institute. “You may need to be part of a family where they work while you retire.”
Back to work. Many Americans try to stay on the job until they qualify for Medicare at age 65 to keep their health insurance. If you’re laid off before age 65 or choose early retirement, working just 20 hours a week at some companies will make you eligible for group health benefits. Some professional organizations also make you eligible for more inexpensive group coverage.
Do it yourself. If you can’t get health insurance from an employer or spouse, you will have to insure yourself. Americans with chronic medical conditions will almost certainly pay higher rates, and they may be denied coverage related to the pre-existing condition or turned down altogether. More than half of older adults who purchase coverage on the individual market spend $300 or more per month on premiums, or at least $3,600 annually for single coverage, the Commonwealth Fund found.
Early retirees who are healthy and have significant assets saved for retirement may want to consider a high-deductible health plan. These relatively new plans often have lower premium costs and protect against sudden illnesses or accidents. But out-of-pocket costs can be high. A recent EBRI survey found that adults enrolled in a high-deductible health plan with single-person coverage reported deductibles of between $1,000 and $1,999 (58 percent), $2,000 and $4,999 (29 percent), and even $5,000 or more (8 percent).
“Basically, the only way you can protect yourself from truly catastrophic costs is to have more money so that you can afford these costs or to have better insurance so you don’t bear as great a share of the costs,” says Richard Johnson, a principal research associate at the Urban Institute.
A roll of the dice. Americans who truly can’t afford health insurance often go without necessary care. More than 70 percent of adults with gaps in their health insurance coverage reported not getting needed healthcare because of the cost, up from just over half in 2001, according to the Commonwealth Fund. If you decide to seek care without insurance coverage, you’ll be stuck paying the entire bill yourself. When Kodak announced in August that it would no longer pay for dental coverage or life insurance for retirees, Frank Allen, 72, a retired Kodak mechanical engineer and manager in Rochester, N.Y., decided to go without dental insurance. “The full cost of the dental plan is more expensive than I want to pay,” says Allen. Now he will pay the full cost of two dental cleanings a year and any other dental costs that occur completely out of pocket. “The loss of the dental and the life insurance was completely unexpected,” says Allen.
Keep up the good work. Continuing to get preventive care and staying healthy may be the best way to keep health costs in check, before and after qualifying for Medicare. Says Johnson: “Living a healthy lifestyle, watching what one eats, and staying active could at least delay the onset of the expenses.”
from BartCop
** Save Gas **
** READ A BOOK **
Search by Book Title/Author /Keyword
USA Today NEWS
USA Today SPORTS
USA Today WEATHER
The Other Big Mac, Ipods & More!
USA Today MONEY
USA Today LIFE
USA Today TRAVEL
"FORE...five...six...seven...."
The Key to Eliminating Your Slice
Making a proper “full shoulder turn” is one of the most important fundamentals of the golf swing, yet it's one of the most common mistakes made by golfers; and why so many have slice problems. A proper shoulder turn is when you rotate the shoulders so the leading shoulder comes under your chin, without letting your hips turn much at all. Below we explain the ways this eliminates the slice:
• If your shoulder rotation is stopped too early, your arms will tend to continue by fling across the target line and causing an outside-to-inside swing path, resulting in the dreaded banana-ball. A full shoulder turn will help the club fall “on plane”, which greatly reduces the chance of cutting across the target line and slicing the golf ball.
• A full shoulder turn will promote proper weight shift. Remember too keep your lower body from moving laterally. Do not confuse the full shoulder turn as meaning you must get the club back to parallel at the top of the swing. Many great golfers have a compact swing that comes up far short of parallel at the top, but all great golfers take a full shoulder turn when executing a full shot.
• A full shoulder turn will bring you to the top of the swing and assist in getting the hands and arms into proper position.
• Keep your chin up and off your chest so the leading shoulder can rotate and pass under the chin. If the shoulder hits your chin, it will cut the shoulder rotation short and encourage a slice.
• When a golfer does not utilize a full shoulder turn, they tend to rely more on the small muscles (hands and arms) to swing the golf club. This leads to inconsistent ball striking and shots prone to slicing. With a full shoulder turn, you will use more of your big muscles, which are much more consistent, and help you square the club face and avoid a slice. Don’t be in a rush; taking the club back slow will help you to finish the back swing with a full shoulder turn. More body, less arms.
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment