Thanksgiving: Gratitude is Underrated

Thanksgiving, we turn off the media and internet and enjoy a wonderful meal with our loved ones. It is possibly the very best and most instinctive holiday. It is more humane than most of the others and if done right and the overeating is limited, people can feel more restored than frazzled.

Do people have a place in their being that is nurtured by the Thanksgiving holiday and what is that need the holiday meets?  The origin of the holiday is given to be from the Pilgrims who upon surviving their first year in the New World, had a worship service and feast to give thanks to the providence that had delivered them. That was nearly 4 centuries ago so how does this resonate for us today?

I ask, isn't gratitude underrated? I am not sure we hear a great deal about it anymore. It has snuck up on us that gratitude is now a bit an uncertitude. Why? Instinctively the Pilgrim gave thanks for their survival. Thanks to whom? Well gratitude is loaded my friends. Gratitude is all about something bigger than ME.

An elderly friend of mine, a mentor, once told me he started everyday on his knees praying to God, giving thanks for the day he has received and all the other gifts in his life and asking for help to do God's will today. The image of him doing this was striking to me. The humility and the spiritual practice it implied made a strong impression.

Thus instructed, I resolved to practice gratitude and this is what I gained from it. First, I learned that gratitude is an extremely effective antidote for discouragement. If I make a list of the positives and gifts in my life, it is hard to focus on the disappointments. The positives are always numerous and abundant starting with the love you have in your life and it is uplifting to remember them. I learned more than that, however.

I learned that gratitude lifts my focus and spirits from a state of self centeredness. Today, on Thanksgiving I remember my ancestors whose struggles against adversities I may never fathom and their faith and fidelity made it possible for me and my family to thrive today. Wow, that is a big thought and puts things in their proper perspective. But gratitude lead me to another truth that is elemental to the human condition.

I can not take credit for much of the good in my life. I did my bit ok but nonetheless on both a spiritual level and an intellectually honest level, many outcomes in life are largely dependent on events outside of ourselves.

When I am spiritually right, I feel a sense of grace. Grace is something is given to us without us having earned it. There is a wonderful sense of humility that accompanies the awareness of grace. Awareness of grace, the humilty that accompanies it and the gratitude for it is a human spiritual state that is and can only be a personal experience of God. 

So gratitude is a path to a personal experience of God and it can be done at any time, but today on Thanksgiving it can be shared together and as a nation. That was what I learned from the practice.

Figured Out What My New Obamacare Health Costs Are

Here is my new affordable health care plan. 

Use link below to estimate yours.

                                               Current Aetna  PPO     New Obamacare Bronze Plan

Annual Premium                       $3840                          $4976

Deductible                                $1500                          $3250

After Deductible Costs             Substantial                    Substantial

Taxes On Health Care              0                                  $800

Obama reduces my pre tax HSA (Health Savings Account) contribution by $2500. This increases my taxable income by $2500 and my income tax by $800. The HSA allows you to stockpile money to cover deductibles and future illnesses. 

                                              Annual Cost Comparison
                                              Aetna PPO                    New Obamacare Plan
                                              $5340                           $9026
                                                

Total extra cost (taxes, deductible, premium) of Affordable Care Act

$3686/Year

http://kff.org/interactive/subsidy-calculator/

Estimated with information from the Kaiser Family Foundation and the CT Mirror website.

5 Things I Learned at a Chamber of Commerce Obamacare Seminar for Business Owners this week

Our Chamber of Commerce here in Bucks County PA is on top of things and put together an informative panel this week to help business owners understand better how to be compliant with Obamacare starting Jan 1.

All the rhetoric and promises are facing the tests of reality now and every individual and employer in America needs to learn how this is going to impact them. Here are three things I learned.

1) Young people and other low risk health insured will see increases of up to 150% in their policies.

In Obamacare everyone has to buy insurance and if they're income is lower it will be subsidized. The 20 somethings in our family are low insurance risks and their policies are cheap. Obamacare wipes out much of the cheaper insurance cost for healthy people. The insurance industry speaker said young people in particular will pay 150% more their insurance and get nothing in return. In other words a $100/month policy for a 20 something who is probably underemployed will go up to $250.

The extra payment is used to pay for cheaper insurance for unhealthy people. Naturally, policy makers are worried that the vast pool of underemployed young people will not participate and the extra revenue they need to give to others won't be available.

Healthy people with healthy life styles today have an incentive to take care of themselves to insure themselves at the least cost. Obamacare forcibly removes the incentive to responsibly manage health care costs and risks.


2) Every health insurance policy application is processed at Homeland Security and the IRS before coverage is granted. Why? The stated reason is citizenship has to be verified and the IRS is in charge of making sure everyone is insured and pays the new taxes Obamacare levies. Big Brother and his big data now tie your income, your insurance and your taxation all together and all because you need healthcare.

3) Small business people and employers face unexpected taxes, fines exposure, and insurance liabilities that I have never heard of before. The seminar stated that part time workers are proportionately counted towards meeting 50 full time employee thresholds. If an employer misses a deadline or violates a rule and that is easy to do, they are subject to fines on a per employee, per day basis. Generous plans such as the ones many unions have as well as key employees are taxed directly by the IRS as an excess benefit. Health Savings Accounts that many small business owners use to help manage their health care costs are cut in half, effectively a tax increase on struggling small businesses.
Complying with Obamacare is daunting. There are 11 pages of IRS regulations aloe that cover the taxes and fines pertinent to the law. The strategic planning and costs for a business employing people are now also increasingly subject to political meddling and bureaucracy.

4) Obamacare's primary goal is to put everybody in a centrally controlled health insurance system.  The primary device to get support for it is to give some people something they don't have to pay for. The principle means to pay for it is to charge people who have insurance now, more for it.

5) Contrary to the claims of Democratic Party proponents, there is no structural cost savings in Obamacare. It appears to me from the information I have seen that the most overpriced health care system in the world will now simply add 30 million or more additional users and how that is going to be paid for or whether there will be enough care capacity in the system seems Obama hasn't given any serious thought.

The seminar presenters suggest primary care provider relationships be reaffirmed before the rollout. It may become tough to get an appointment otherwise.

The Buck Stops Here - Truman Had Different Values on Leadership

President Harry Truman
"The buck stops here"
This was the motto on his desk.
Set example for others of character, leadership and integrity.

President Barack Obama
"I didn't set a red line over Syria"
Started a risky and costly intervention in Syria, was manipulated by foreign interests and extremists and blamed everyone else. 

 

New Chevy Cruze beats $4 Billion Subsidized Chevy Volt in Fuel Economy.

Chevy surprisingly quiet about the new clean diesel version of its flagship Cruze.

	2014 Chevrolet Cruze	2014 Chevrolet Volt
Personalize	Diesel Vehicle	Plug-in Hybrid
	2.0 L, 4 cyl, Automatic (S6)	1.4 L, 4 cyl, Automatic (variable gear ratios)
	MSRP: $17,170 - $24,885

	2014 Chevrolet Cruze	2014 Chevrolet Volt
EPA Fuel Economy
Miles per Gallon	Diesel 33 Combined 27 City 46 Highway	Premium Gasoline                  37                 Combined                   35                          City                   40                        Highway

Benghazi Investigation Team Withdrawn - Mission Accomplished

President's Obama's vehement promise to bring the Benghazi terrorists to justice has relied on a special team sent there to identify and perhaps apprehend those responsible.

Almost a year later, a sealed indictment now exists. The contents are secret. Nobody is in custody. Mission accomplished. Political cover achieved, the Obama friendly media will drop it all. Bring the team home from Libya.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/08/23/team-involved-in-tracking-benghazi-suspects-pulling-out-sources-say/

CNN's Erin Burnett Asks New Questions About Benghazi.

One Obama administration cover up confirmed another possibly being revealed.

There is no doubt now that the Obama administration tried to make the attack on our embassy in Benghazi look like an outraged mob instead of a well armed and coordinated assault by an Al Queda affiliate. That coverup has been revealed conclusively.

The question is why did they lie so brazenly. Was it simply to avoid the appearance that the candidate Obama had failed to destroy Al Queda?

In Congressional hearings in May, we heard how a military response was blocked by unnamed higher ups in the administration. We also heard that the embassy was not even retaken for some days afterwards. The loss of an embassy, without an armed response, without a hasty retaking of the facility seems incredibly divergent from normal US operating procedure.

Days after the attack and when he was forced to confront the truth, the President talked boldly of bringing the perpetrators to justice. That was nearly a year ago. Nothing has been done.

CNN's Erin Burnett did an hour special August 6th on what happened, how has Obama followed up on his pledge and what the families of the dead feel about it?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnhZVni6oms

Oh and and Erin reported what others are now talking about. While our lonely outpost in Benghazi was being overrun, 3 dozen odd CIA agents were in the city doing something. 3 dozen is a lot. What they were doing is still open to speculation but some are saying they were sanitizing a Hillary Clinton Department of State disaster. This story is secret and people who have knowledge of it are being silenced.

Did CNN just open up an investigation into the second part of Benghazigate? Why was Chris Stevens in Benghazi when all the other western missions were withdrawing because of the danger? Why did the Obama administration try to cover up and lie about the nature of the attack. Why were 35 CIA agents in Benghazi and why have they been silenced?

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2013/08/04/Report-CIA-Was-Running-Arms-In-Benghazi

"I want people around the world to hear me: To all those who would do us harm, no act of terror will go unpunished. It will not dim the light of the values that we proudly present to the rest of the world. No act of violence shakes the resolve of the United States of America," he vowed.    
                                        
                                                                                            President Barack Obama Sept 14, 2012

"We also believe that there is no justification at all for responding to this movie with violence. Muslims in the United States and around the world have spoken out against violence, which has no place in religion and is no way to honor religion," he said, adding that Islam respects the fundamental dignity of human beings, and it violates that dignity to wage attacks on innocents.

"It is especially wrong for violence to be directed against diplomatic missions. These, after all, are places whose very purpose is peaceful to promote better understanding across countries and cultures. Governments everywhere have a responsibility to protect these places," he observed.    

                                                                                             Press Secretary Jay Carney Sept 14, 1012