Giving Hope

For the last 8 years I have shared an affiliation

 

With Hopeworks in Camden

 

 

4 of those years I was on the Board;

 

 

And for 2 years I served as the

 

President of the Board

 

 

 

 

Hopeworks is the vision of Fr Jeff Putthoff

 

 

A Jesuit

 

 

Gotta love the Jesuits

 

 

 

Fr Jeff  has committed himself to making a difference

 

 

In Camden

 

 

 

Thru hard work and patience

 

 

His vision is becoming a reality

 

 

 

Camden is recognized as one of

 

 

America’s poorest cities

 

 

 

There has been constant wrangling

 

Whether it is #1 or #2

 

 

 

It is also is ranked #2

 

 

As one of America’s

 

 

 

Dangerous cities

 

 

 

 

Over 40% of the youth never even graduate

 

 

From High School

 

 

 

Hopeworks vision:

 

 

 

Empowering the youth to identify

 

 

And develop their D.R.E.A.M.S.

 

 

 

(Dynamic, Realizable Efforts to Attain and Maintain Success)

 

 

And own their future.

 

 

 

 

Hopeworks provides the youth an opportunity to

 

 

Stay in school

 

 

Or to

 

 

Get their GED

 

 

 

Learn a skill

 

 

 

Giving them an opportunity to

 

 

 

Go to college

 

 

 

 

Education is the Key

 

 

 

The environment that The Camden youth

 

 

Are exposed to

 

 

Is frightening

 

 

Just within the last month

 

Over 3 people were shot and killed

 

Within a 2 block radius of Hopeworks

 

At 5^th and State St

 

 

 

Drugs are dealt opening

 

 

One youth when asked what he hoped to do

 

When he got older

 

 

Stated that before coming to Hopeworks

 

 

He never really thought about it

 

 

 

For he never expected to live past 17

 

 

 

When he was 10 years old

 

His brother died in his arms

 

A victim of the streets

 

 

By 12 years old he was running drugs

 

And arrested on gun charges

 

 

After he shot at the police

 

 

 

 

Hopeworks is making a difference

 

 

 

While I was on the Board

 

Fr Jeff introduced the

 

 

 

Fun in the Sun Calendar

 

 

Each summer;  Hopework uses

 

The Fun in the Sun Calendar

 

To help fund summer jobs

 

For Camden youth

 

 

 

This summer we are hoping to raise

 

Enough funds to support

 

25 summer jobs at Hopeworks

 

 

 

 

This is where you can help

 

 

 

I have agreed to be a Captain

 

For the Fun in the Sun program

 

 

 

I am looking for you to help me sell

 

60 tickets

 

 

Which will help us to partially fund the

 

 

Hopeworks summer work program

 

 

 

There are many options available

 

 

1 subscription cost $20

 

 

You may also choose to support a youth for 1 week

 

 

That only cost $160

 

 

Each day in June a name will be pulled

 

From those you have bought a subscription

 

 

 

You will have a chance to win a

 

Specific dollar amount assigned to that day

 

 

One lucky subscribe stands to win

 

 $2012

 

 

That could be you

 

 

Click on the link below to get more information about the

 

 

Fun in the Sun Subscription

 

And take a minute to look at the other tabs on the website

 

 

These tabs provide more information

 

About Hopeworks

 

 

Their Vision and Mission statements

 

 

The programs available

 

 

To the Camden youth

 

 

 

Hopeworks is all about

 

 

Giving back……

 

 

Providing Hope…..

 

 

Opening Doors……

 

 

Fulfilling Dreams……

 

 

 

Let’s take time to Pay it Forward

 

 

 

http://www.hopeworks.org/fun-in-the-sun/

 

 

 

It is my hope that you will help us

 

 

Give 25 youth in Camden

 

 

A job at Hopeworks

 

 

This summer

 

 

 

Note: Should you choose to buy a subscription

 

There is a space that ask for the captain name

 

Please enter my name

Thanks

 

And God Bless You

 

 

We are now on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Hutchinson-Business-Solutions/160324787348229

 

Visit our website: www.hutchinsonbusinesssolutions.com

Supreme Court Health Care Law: Justices Come Down Hard On The Mandate

As reported by Mike Sacks for the Huffington Post

WASHINGTON — After the Supreme Court oral arguments in the health care case Tuesday morning, the Obama administration better start preparing for the possibility of a future without the individual mandate.

From the very start, things did not go well for the government’s argument that the requirement under the Affordable Care Act that virtually all Americans have health insurance or pay a penalty is constitutional.

U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli began his argument not with his usual calm and clear delivery, but rather with a case of coughs that seemed to take him off his game.

And just as he was starting to recover his composure, Justice Anthony Kennedy, a key swing vote, asked, “Can you create commerce in order to regulate it?” Kennedy’s question adopted the framing of the case put forward by those challenging the mandate.

From there, the barrage against Verrilli did not relent until he sat down nearly an hour later.

The conservative justices appeared particularly concerned that if they upheld the mandate, Congress would be loosed to regulate nearly anything else it deemed a national problem.

Verrilli argued that the health care market’s unique features allow Congress to require the uninsured to purchase health insurance.

“The health care market is characterized by the fact that, aside from the few groups that Congress chose to exempt from the minimum coverage requirement, … virtually everybody else is either in that market or will be in that market,” Verrilli said. Plus, he said, “people cannot generally control when they enter that market.”

Chief Justice John Roberts responded, “The same, it seems to me, would be true, say, for the market in emergency services: police, fire, ambulance, roadside assistance, whatever.”

When Verrilli said those services do not constitute markets, Justice Samuel Alito asked what would keep the government from applying to burial services — which Verrilli conceded do constitute a market — the same rationale about preventing cost-shifting that it used for health care.

Verrilli never quite answered that question, pointing instead to the “billions of dollars of uncompensated costs” that distort the health insurance market.

Alito then flipped the tables, saying that the mandate will require young, healthy people to pay more per year for insurance than they would pay for health care out-of-pocket, thus forcing them “to subsidize services that will be received by somebody else.”

“If you’re going to have insurance, that’s how insurance works,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg argued back, in the first of the four-justice liberal bloc’s attempts to shore up the government’s case.

She and Justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor would all leap in to make the government’s case themselves after Justice Antonin Scalia invoked the prospect of a broccoli mandate.

Verrilli could not gain traction with his alternative arguments that the mandate falls within Congress’ ability to pass laws “necessary and proper” to effectuate its constitutionally enumerated power to regulate commerce. Scalia, who relied on this clause in 2005 to uphold a federal ban on cultivating marijuana for personal consumption, said the individual mandate may be necessary to carry out the Affordable Care Act, but it is not proper “because it violated the sovereignty of the States.”

“If the government can do this, what, what else can it not do?” Scalia asked.

After a brief halftime, Paul Clement, a former U.S. solicitor general, began his argument on behalf of the 26 states challenging the mandate.

If Verrilli struggled, Clement shined. The conservative justices remained largely silent as he skated through the liberals’ heavy questioning.

“The mandate represents an unprecedented effort by Congress to compel individuals to enter commerce in order to better regulate commerce,” he began, employing the same terms Kennedy used to describe the mandate throughout the government’s argument.

When Breyer rolled out a multi-part question seemingly designed to be his tour de force on the mandate’s obvious constitutionality, Clement cut the legs out from under it, noting that Breyer was talking about the wrong constitutional provision.

Roberts then asked Clement to address the government’s contention that “everybody is in this market, so that makes it very different than the market for cars.” But it was hard to view this question as anything but diplomatic after Roberts’ own clear antagonism to the same contention during Verrilli’s hour.

Instead, Roberts appeared to favor the challengers’ belief that the mandate regulates the insurance market, not the health care market, and the consumption of insurance, unlike health care, is not an inevitable fact of life.

“We don’t get insurance so that we can stare at our insurance certificate,” Justice Elena Kagan responded when Clement offered her that argument. “We get it so that we can go and access health care.”

Clement parried that remark and concluded his time before the justices apparently unscathed by the liberals’ attacks.

Michael Carvin, representing the National Federation of Independent Business and several individuals, used his half hour as a sort of end-zone dance for the seeming defeat of the mandate, going so far as to chuckle at questions from Breyer and Sotomayor.

When Verrilli returned for his rebuttal, all he could do was remind the justices of their “solemn obligation to respect the judgments of the democratically accountable branches of government.”

Whether one or more of the Supreme Court’s conservatives will ultimately come to that conclusion, and thereby defy the expectations they set on Tuesday morning, is anyone’s guess.

Most in Pa. avoid shopping for electricity supplier

By Andrew Maykuth

Inquirer Staff Writer

Pennsylvania electricity customers are skeptical they can save much by
shopping for power.

Although 88 percent of customers say they are aware they can switch to
alternative suppliers, only 45 percent have shopped, according to a statewide
survey conducted by Terry Madonna Opinion Research.

Twenty-three percent of residential customers statewide have switched,
according to the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission. About 1.4 million
customers have switched.

Madonna and several electricity suppliers told the PUC on Thursday that
nearly a year after Pennsylvania’s retail utility deregulation went into full
effect, the public remains wary of shopping.

“There are a fair number of people who did not look into changing an electric
supplier because they didn’t believe there would be long-term savings in it,”
said Madonna, director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin
and Marshall College in Lancaster.

The poll results were presented Thursday at a PUC hearing on competition.

The surveys found that price was the main concern driving customers to
switch, but many said the perceived savings were insufficient to make them
switch.

Suppliers said some residential customers have recorded savings up to $300 a
year.

Madonna, who conducted his telephone survey of 801 customers in September on
behalf of Constellation Energy, said 78 percent said they would consider
switching if they could save 10 percent on their generation charge.

Many customers who declined to shop said they were happy with their current
supplier regardless of the cost.

Madonna’s findings were echoed by an Internet survey of 450 customers
conducted by AlphaBuyer, a Paoli group- buyer that markets online.

Forty percent of the customers said the savings were not worth it, said Kevin
McCloskey, AlphaBuyer’s chief operating officer. About 24 percent said shopping
was too confusing or the choices overwhelming. About 15 percent said switching
was too risky or that it was a “scam.”

Under Pennsylvania’s Electric Choice law, customers can choose a company that
markets the power. Billing is still conducted by the incumbent utility company,
which collects a fee for distributing the power.

Customers who don’t switch are still supplied by the utility at a default
rate.

Only 18 percent of customers had visited the PUC’s website for choosing a
supplier. PUC members said more customer education was needed.

“It’s perplexing to us with all the tools being made available to customers
we only see 20 percent of the residential customers shopping,” said Robert F.
Powelson, PUC chairman.

Our Perspective:

HBS has been dealing in the deregulated energy market for over 10 years. I have always been suspect of the proposed residential savings in this market.  Most of the time you are offered a floating rate that may offer minimal savings.

The opposite is true in the commercial market. There are providers offering fixed price alternatives that offer a great opportunity for savings. HBS has found great success in the PA commercial deregulated market. We represent all the major providers selling electric in the PA market.

There is no upfront cost. Deregulated savings in the energy market has been a welcomed windfall for any business in both the New Jersey and Peennsylvania market who willing to look at the opportunity.

 

Read more: http://www.philly.com/philly/business/20111111_Most_in_Pa__avoid_shopping_for_electricity_supplier.html#ixzz1ddcYbDS5

Teacher Aid Is First Piece Of Obama’s Jobs Plan To Get Senate Vote

As reported by Jennifer Bendary from Huffington Post

WASHINGTON — Senate Democratic leaders have settled on which piece of President Barack Obama’s jobs plan they want to move on first: $35 billion for state and local governments to rehire teachers, police and firefighters.

“Our expectation [is] that the first measure will be teachers,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said during a Monday press gaggle aboard Air Force One.

“I didn’t want to get ahead of Senator Reid,” Carney said of breaking the news. “We have been in consultation with him, but it’s his prerogative and we’re very pleased that he will be taking it up.”

During a conference call, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said he plans to unveil the Teachers and First Responders Back to Work Act later Monday and decide “in the next day or two” when to hold a vote on it. He said the bill would keep 400,000 teachers and first responders on the job, and would be paid for by imposing a 5 percent tax on millionaires.

Asked which pieces of Obama’s jobs plan are next in line for Senate votes, Reid demurred. But he said he has already settled on the next four votes on pieces of Obama’s bill and is waiting to meet with the Democratic Caucus on Tuesday before discussing his plan publicly.

“There is no reason we cannot finish the appropriations bills before the end of the week, and have a vote on this jobs bill,” Reid told reporters on the call. “I am happy to keep the Senate in session as long as needed to make sure we get a vote on this jobs bill.”

Reid’s office also sent out a fact sheet that highlights past votes and statements by Republicans in favor of jobs bills similar to the teacher/first responders aid bill. The fact sheet cites a May 2010 press release by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) saying he was “proud” to help secure funds for first responders. It also points to a March 2007 vote to fully fund the COPS program; it included the support of 16 GOP senators.

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During a speech earlier Monday in Fletcher, N.C., Obama knocked Senate Republicans for voting down his entire $447 billion jobs package last week. All Republicans opposed a procedural vote to begin debate on the bill, along with two Democrats. Obama said his push to break out pieces of his bill and hold individual votes on them gives Republicans “another chance” to act on jobs.

“Maybe they just couldn’t understand the whole thing all at once,” Obama said, drawing laughs from the crowd of supporters. “So we’re going to break it up into bite-sized pieces so they can take a thoughtful approach to this legislation.”

“So this week, I’m going to ask members of Congress to vote on one component of the plan, which is whether we should put hundreds of thousands of teachers back in the classroom and cops back on the street and firefighters back to work.”

Of course, the reality is that Republicans are poised to vote against any piece of Obama’s plan because they don’t like how it is paid for: by raising taxes on millionaires and ending subsidies for the oil and gas industry. But with the 2012 elections in mind, Obama and Democratic leaders plan to keep lining up votes anyway to build the case that Republicans are voting against jobs and the economy in the name of protecting corporate interests.

This story has been updated with information on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s conference call Monday.

Federal Budget Cuts: White House Budget Chief Jacob Lew Orders Agencies To Reduce Spending Plans

As reported In Huffington Post

WASHINGTON (Associated Press)– It’s a microcosm of the budget battling that has consumed Congress all year: The Obama administration wants federal agencies to save money while Republicans push for additional savings to take a substantial bite out of the government’s towering pile of IOUs.

White House budget chief Jacob Lew has ordered agency heads to submit spending plans for the upcoming budget at least 5 percent below this year’s levels. He also wants them to propose ways to trim a total of at least 10 percent of their spending.

Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said Thursday that Lew’s directive was a good way to start finding spending cuts that are required under the recent debt-ceiling agreement between the two sides.

“But the White House must get serious about real structural reform of our entitlement programs if we’re going to get our debt under control to help our economy grow and create jobs,” Steel said, referring to huge and fast-growing benefit programs like Social Security and Medicare that help drive annual deficits skyward.

Lew’s letter did not rule out, or even address, the possibility of finding savings from benefit programs. But Steel’s remark pointed directly at the major fault line that has blocked a sweeping debt-cutting deal between the two parties: Democrats have resisted paring benefits from Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, while Republicans have refused to consider tax increases.

The Obama administration has asked agencies in years past to propose similar savings. But Lew’s order comes just two weeks after Obama and congressional Republicans ended an epic debt ceiling battle that has left both sides eager to demonstrate a willingness to trim red ink ahead of a fierce autumn battle over the economy and the debt and just as the 2012 presidential and congressional elections approach.

By requesting two sets of potential savings from agencies, Lew is moving toward fulfilling the debt-ceiling deal, which created a series of annual spending targets and would save tens of billions of dollars a year.

“By providing budgets pegged to these two scenarios, you will provide the president with the information to make the tough choices necessary to meet the hard spending targets in place and the needs of the nation,” Lew wrote to agency heads.

The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents more than 625,000 federal workers and employees of the District of Columbia, also jumped into the fray.

In a written statement, national president John Gage said the cuts “mean just one thing: more job destruction in the midst of a jobs crisis.” He said that with millions of Americans already unemployed or too discouraged to seek work, “why on earth would the administration be trying to dig an even deeper hole?”

The spending that Lew ordered federal agencies to trim will consume more than $1 trillion of this year’s $3.8 trillion federal budget. The rest of the budget covers benefit programs and interest payments on the government’s $14.3 trillion debt.

Lew’s letter suggests that savings can be found by eliminating unneeded programs and making agencies more efficient. It also invites agency heads to propose initiatives that would spark economic growth.

“Finding the savings to support these investments will be difficult, but it is possible,” Lew wrote.

In a White House blog on Thursday, Lew said his request for savings was designed to help the administration make decisions about living within overall spending limits. He said it did not mean every agency will necessarily see budget cuts.

Republicans say tax and spending cuts are needed to blow life back into the flagging economy and create jobs. Obama plans to unveil a jobs proposal next month mixing tax reductions, construction initiatives and deficit reduction.

When Congress returns from its summer recess in September, also generating political heat will be the special bipartisan panel of 12 lawmakers that the debt-ceiling agreement created to try to craft a compromise $1.5 trillion, 10-year debt reduction package.

As another part of the debt-cutting deal, the two sides agreed to a separate $900 billion in 10-year savings from agency budgets. The details of those cuts will have to be worked out every year, but they will be evenly divided between national security and domestic programs.

Earlier this year, Obama and Congress also battled down to the wire over spending cuts and came within hours of forcing a partial government shutdown. In the end, they agreed to pare agency spending by $38 billion.

Lew asked agency chiefs for the two spending scenarios as the administration plans for the 2013 budget year, which begins in October 2012. That budget will be released early next year.

S&P Officials Blame Downgrade On ‘Degree Of Uncertainty’ In Politics

As reported in Huffington Post

WASHINGTON — Standard & Poor’s says it downgraded the U.S. government’s credit rating because it believes the U.S. will keep having problems getting its finances under control.

S&P officials on Saturday defended their decision to drop the government’s rating to AA+ from the top rating, AAA. The Obama administration called the move a hasty decision based on wrong calculations about the federal budget. It had tried to head off the downgrade before it was announced late Friday.

But S&P said it was the months of haggling in Congress over budget cuts that led it to downgrade the U.S. rating. The ratings agency was dissatisfied with the deal lawmakers reached last weekend. And it isn’t confident that the government will do much better in the future, even as the U.S. budget deficit grows.

David Beers, global head of sovereign ratings at S&P, said the agency was concerned about the “degree of uncertainty around the political policy process. The nature of the debate and the difficulty in framing a political consensus … that was the key consideration.”

S&P was looking for $4 trillion in budget cuts over 10 years. The deal that passed Congress on Tuesday would bring $2.1 trillion to $2.4 trillion in cuts over that time.

Another concern was that lawmakers and the administration might fail to make those cuts because Democrats and Republicans are divided over how to implement them. Republicans are refusing to raise taxes in any deficit-cutting deal while Democrats are fighting to protect giant entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare.

S&P so far is the only one of the three largest credit rating agencies to downgrade U.S. debt. Moody’s Investor Service and Fitch Ratings have both issued warnings of possible downgrades but for now have retained their AAA ratings.

The rating agencies were sharply criticized after the 2008 financial crisis. They were accused of contributing to the crisis because they didn’t warn about the dangers of subprime mortgages. When those mortgages went bad, investors lost billions of dollars and banks that held those securities had to be bailed out by the government.

Ratings agencies assign ratings on bonds and other forms of debt so investors can judge how likely an issuer – like governments, corporations and non-profit groups – will be to pay the debt back.

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Asked when the United States might regain its AAA credit rating, Beers said S&P would take a look at any budget agreements that achieve bigger deficit savings. But the history of other countries such as Canada and Australia who saw cuts in their credit ratings, shows that it can take years to win back the higher ratings.

Administration sources, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the debt issue, said the administration was surprised by the timing of the announcement, coming just a few days after the debt agreement had been signed into law.

Treasury officials were notified by S&P of the imminent downgrade early Friday afternoon and spent the next several hours arguing with S&P. The administration contended that S&P acknowledged at one point making a $2 trillion error in their computations of deficits over the next decade.

But S&P officials said the difference reflected the use of different assumptions about how much spending and taxes will come to over the next decade. The S&P officials said they decided to use the administration’s assumptions since the $2 trillion difference in the deficit numbers was not going to change the company’s downgrade decision.

In a Treasury blog posting Saturday, John Bellows, the Treasury’s acting assistant secretary for economic policy, said he was amazed by that decision.

“S&P did not believe a mistake of this magnitude was significant enough to warrant reconsidering their judgment or even significant enough to warrant another day to carefully re-evaluate their analysis,” Bellows wrote.

S&P officials said their decision hadn’t been rushed. They noted that S&P had been warning about a potential downgrade since April.

Some critics, the debacle of 2008 still in mind, raised questions about S&P’s actions now.

“I find it interesting to see S&P so vigilant now in downgrading the U.S. credit rating,” Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said Saturday. “Where were they four years ago?”

Standard & Poor’s roots go back to the 1860s. One of its founders, Henry Varnum Poor, was a publisher of financial information about the nation’s railroads. His company, then called Poor’s Publishing, merged in 1941 with Standard Statistics Inc., another provider of financial information.

S&P’s website said both founding firms warned clients well before the 1929 stock market crash that they should sell their stocks.

The company has been owned by publisher McGraw-Hill Cos. since 1966.

After switching from Peco, one customer sees the danger of a variable rate

As printed in philly.com

 

LindaPeterson  of West Chester was eager to switch from Peco Energy Co. at the end of last year.
She signed up for an alternative electricity supplier offering avariable rate that would fluctuate depending upon market conditions.

AsPeterson  discovered, variable rates sure can vary.

For a few months this year, Peterson’s rate was very attractive, indeed. But it went up
58 percent from May to June. At 15.63 cents per kilowatt hour – that’s just the
generation charge – her last bill was about $23 more than it would have been had
she stayed with Peco.

“I knew there would be some variation, but that’s just a huge, huge increase,” said
Peterson, who is semi-retired.

A representative from her supplier, Palmco Power PA L.L.C., did not return a phone call about
Peterson’s bill. But its customer-service department, in an unsigned e-mail,
blamed an “unusual” wholesale price spike for the increase.

“Thankfully,however, shortly after the wholesale price increase, wholesale prices dropped,and our
price billed to our customers dropped accordingly,” it said.

In Pennsylvania’s buyer-beware world of deregulated utilities, Peterson can’t do much but switch to
another supplier. Her agreement, like most with variablerates, does not carry an
early cancellation fee.

According to the state Public Utility Commission, a supplier can bill a variable-rate customer
at whatever price it believes the market will bear, even if the customer
originally thought he or she was getting a discount.

A company also can offer different rates to different customers. The variable rate that is
on a customer’s bill does not have to be the same as the initial price posted on
the PUC’s website, http://PAPowerSwitch.com.

“A supplier could have one rate for PowerSwitch . . . while offering a different rate
door-to-door . . . yet a different rate for enrolling by mail,”Denise McCracken,
the PUC’s spokeswoman, said in an e-mail. “They could offer me one rate . . . my
neighbor a different rate (as long as they are not discriminatingon the basis of
race, gender, etc. of course).”

In Pennsylvania and New Jersey, where dozens of electrical suppliers are competing, customers
accustomed to a lifetime of regulated utility prices now face a dizzying array of
choices – fixed rates, variable rates, and”green” rates from renewable-power
generators. Next year, Peco customers will begin seeing rates that vary hourly,
according to the market.

More than 20 percent of Peco customers have switched since Jan. 1. But despite promises of
savings, most residential customers seem unwilling to leave the protective comfort of the regulated utility.

On Monday, the Retail Energy Supply Association launched a campaign to educate customers
about the benefits of switching, but it faces headwinds generated bycustomers such as Peterson, who share their experiences.

“My neighbors are very scared about switching,” said Peterson, a clinical social worker with a
small private practice.

Peterson was an early adopter of electricity choice. She had switched suppliers in the late
1990s, when limited deregulation was introduced into the Peco market. Competitive
suppliers eventually pulled out because they could no longer beat the utility’s
capped rates. But when Peco’s rate limits were lifted at the endof 2010,
competitive suppliers returned en masse.

Peterson signed up with Palmco, the marketing arm of a Brooklyn fuel-oil dealer, which posted a
price on the PUC’s website. She liked the company’s low-key marketing,compared
with the blustery direct-mail appeals she received from bigger suppliers.

“The fact that they weren’t doing a lot of heavy marketing, I guess I trusted them
a little,” she said. “I didn’t expect them to escalate the price like that.”

According to a review of Peterson’s bills, Palmco’s rate was very generous during the first
few months. It charged her an introductory rate of 5.78 cents perkilowatt hour,
clearly a below-market 42 percent off Peco’s rate. But by May,Palmco’s rate had
increased to 9.91 cents – just about the same rate Peco was charging.

And then in June came the whopping 58 percent increase – to 15.63 cents per kilowatt hour.
Peterson averages about 475 kilowatt hours a month.

The owner of Palmco, Robert Palmese, did not return a phone call. But his
company’scustomer-service department offered this response:

“Our family has been in the energy business since 1938, 73 years. We know from experience
that it is always in the best interest of our customers to keep prices for energy
as low as possible.”

In an interview in October, Palmese offered reassurance to customers who might consider
his company.

“We have very casual marketing,” he said. “We’d like our customers tolike us. Just try
us, you may like us.

“You are always free to leave.”

 

Our Perspective

HBS is a independent deregulated energy management consultant. We have been providing deregulated energy solutions to our clients since 2000. We have heard stories like the one experienced above, countless times.

While the energy market prices are at their low point, it would be smart to lock into a fixed price contract for natural gas or electric for a minimum of 1 year but also be willing to look at the 2 year option. Fixed priced contracts normally provide a 10% to 15% savings under what Peco ic currently charging.

Do not be fooled by the variable rate options.

It is a good marketing ploy….

no contract…

month to month float….

But you will only pay more in the long run.

 

To learn more about deregulated opportunities for yopur business email

george@hbsadvantage.com

Visit us on the web www.hutchinsonbusinesssolutions.com

Obama Tries To Re-Sell Republicans On A Grand Debt Ceiling Deal

Reported by Sam Stein for The Huffington Post

WASHINGTON — Sunday night’s much anticipated debt ceiling meeting between the president and congressional leadership managed to produce an outcome, just not the desirable one. Attendees did not find agreement on a package of cuts, revenues, or entitlement reforms. Instead, they settled on the decision to meet again and, perhaps after Monday’s meeting, again after that.

As the government approaches the August 2 date at which it will run out of cash, the need to hold meetings is the only thing both sides can agree on.

Sunday night proved no different, as lawmakers met in the Cabinet Room with no apparent budging from either end. According to multiple attendees, the discussion began with President Obama pressing, once more, for lawmakers to consider a “grand” bargain to end the debt ceiling debate, something that would combine $1 trillion in revenue raisers with $3 trillion in cuts, including reforms to Medicare and Medicaid and smaller tinkers to Social Security.

“The basic thrust of the meeting was the president making the case for why to do a big deal and putting it to everyone around the table: if not now, when? And if not the big deal, then what is the alternative, particularly given that it is the Republicans who have said we need to use this opportunity to do something serious about the deficit,” said a Democratic official briefed on the meeting. “The president is a bit frustrated too … He is out there. He is ready and willing to take political heat. He is already taking some heat.”

Less than 24 hours earlier, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) had formally rejected the very offer that Obama was pressing for, insinuating that it was too heavy a political lift and that negotiators would be better served building on the $2.4 trillion deal that Vice President Joseph Biden had been crafting in a series of bipartisan meetings with congressional leaders. Obama’s pitch did little to chip away at that opposition. The speaker, according to several sources briefed on Sunday’s meeting, did not say much during it, deferring instead to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.). But a Boehner aide made it clear after the fact that his boss hadn’t exactly been won over.

“The speaker told the group that he believes a package based on the work of the Biden group is the most viable option at this time for moving forward,” said the aide. “The speaker restated the fundamental principles that must be met for any increase in the debt limit: spending cuts and reforms that are greater than the amount of the increase, restraints on future spending, and no tax hikes.”

And so it went for roughly 75 minutes, as the eight congressional attendees, along with the president and vice president, spoke at varying lengths about not just the economic logic of their respective plans but the political arithmetic behind them.

Cantor and Senator Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), the Senate minority whip, both insisted that a grand bargain did not have the votes needed to pass. “We should start talking about the Biden-type framework instead,” they added, according to a GOP source briefed on the meeting.

Biden, for his part, reminded the Republican attendees that the package they were now touting was one they had previously abandoned (both Cantor and Kyl walked away from the negotiating table when the talks turned to revenues). Besides that, he argued, it wasn’t really a package at all, but rather a list of goals with blanks requiring filling.

“The one really important point Biden made is that it is a bit of a fallacy to talk about the Biden framework as something that could just be taken off the shelf, because nothing was agreed to in those conversations and the vice president made it very clear that we weren’t going to [reach a deal] without revenues,” said the Democratic official briefed on the meeting.

If lawmakers wanted to go even smaller — say, take the $1 trillion in cuts that Biden and Republicans had pinpointed – they would have to convince the president first. Obama, according to a GOP aide, told attendees on Sunday that he would not sign a debt deal that didn’t go through 2013. He and Biden also made it clear that even the smaller packages would have to have a revenue component to earn their support.

For all the intractability, there were relatively few moments of tension on Sunday evening. According to those briefed on the exchanges, lawmakers took turns talking about their preferred approaches. There were some jabs thrown. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), according to a Hill aide, accused the Republican Party of falling far short of their rhetorical bluster when the topic came to deficit reduction. He pointed to the fiscal commission, the Gang of Six negotiations, the Biden deal and Boehner’s refusal to craft a grand compromise with Obama as instances in which Republicans simply left the table when it came time to make tough choices. “Every time we try to do something big on this, you walk away,” the aide paraphrased him as saying.

By and large, however, the conversation was, as one Democratic official acknowledged, “cordial.” And that may be where the problem lies. With ten days to go before the president wants a bill presented — so that it can go through the legislative process in time to pass by August 2 — the sides are still dealing in broad strokes. Additionally, there isn’t a clear sense of what type of package could garner the necessary support. The president will be hosting a news conference on Monday before he meets with congressional negotiators once more. He left the meeting on Sunday telling them to have their schedules cleared or flexible for the full week.

“The president ended the meeting by saying we will come back here tomorrow and that we should be prepared to be here every day,” recalled the Democratic official briefed on the meeting. “He said, I want people to come back here tomorrow with an answer to the question: If not this, what is your plan and how are you going to get 218 votes [in the House] for it?”

Joe Biden Warns Republicans On Debt Ceiling Talks

By KEN THOMAS 06/26/11 07:18 AM ET

 

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Vice President Joe Biden said Saturday the Obama administration wouldn’t let middle class Americans “carry the whole burden” to break a deadlock over the national debt limit, warning that the Republican approach would only benefit the wealthy.

Addressing Ohio Democrats, Biden said there had been great progress in talks with Republican lawmakers on a deficit-reduction plan agreement. But he insisted that his party wouldn’t agree to cuts that would undermine the elderly and middle-class workers.

“We’re not going to let the middle class carry the whole burden. We will sacrifice. But they must be in on the deal,” Biden said in a speech at the Ohio Democratic Party’s annual dinner.

Biden led efforts on a deficit-reduction plan but Republicans pulled out of the discussions last week, prompting President Barack Obama to take control of the talks.

The sides disagree over taxes. Democrats say a deficit-reduction agreement must include tax increases or eliminate tax breaks for big companies and wealthy individuals. Republicans want huge cuts in government spending and insist on no tax increases.

On tax breaks for the wealthy, Biden used the example of hedge fund managers who “play with other people’s money.”

“And they get taxed,” Biden said. “I’m not saying they don’t do good things, they do some good things. But they get taxed at 15 percent because they call it capital gains. Because they’re investing not their money, (but) other people’s money.”

To ask senior citizens receiving Medicare to pay more in taxes when people earning more than $1 million a year receive a substantial tax cut “borders on immoral,” the vice president said.

“We’re never going to get this done, we’re never going to solve our debt problem if we ask only those who are struggling in this economy to bear the burden and let the most fortunate among us off the hook,” Biden said.

Republican leaders say without a deal cutting long-term deficits, they will not vote to increase the nation’s borrowing – which will exceed its $14.3 trillion limit on Aug. 2. The Obama administration has warned that if Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling, it would lead to the first U.S. financial default in history and roil financial markets around the globe.

Obama and Biden are scheduled to meet with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky on Monday. McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, say no agreement can include tax increases.

Biden assailed moves by GOP governors in Wisconsin and Ohio to strip away collective bargaining rights from most public workers while criticizing efforts by Republicans in Congress to alter the Medicare program. He defended Obama’s handling of the economy, pointing to difficult decisions on an economic stimulus package and the rescue of U.S. automakers.

Ahead of Biden’s visit, Republicans countered that Obama’s policies led to GOP gains in 2010 and have failed to revitalize the economy.

“All the visits in the world from President Obama, Vice President Biden and other top-level surrogates won’t change the administration’s job-killing policies,” said Republican National Committee spokesman Ryan Tronovitch.

Biden, who spoke frequently of his blue-collar roots in Scranton, Pa., during the 2008 presidential race, is expected to be a frequent visitor to the Midwest during next year’s campaign.

Obama won states such as Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania in 2008. But those states elected Republican governors in 2010 and are considered prime targets for Republicans next year.

Looking ahead to 2012, Biden called Ohio “the state that we must win and will win.”

Obama, Boehner Held Secret Debt Ceiling Meeting At White House

As reported in Huffington Post

WASHINGTON (AP/The Huffington Post) — Efforts to find a bipartisan agreement blending huge budget cuts with a must-pass measure to increase how much the government can borrow have entered a new phase after Republican negotiators pulled out of talks led by Vice President Joe Biden.

The exit of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor from the talks on Thursday means the most difficult decisions have been kicked upstairs to GOP House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio and President Barack Obama. The Biden-led group had made solid progress in weeks of negotiations but was at an impasse over taxes.

Cantor, R-Va., said that the Republican-dominated House simply won’t support tax increases and that it’s time for Obama to weigh in directly because Biden and Democrats were insisting on tax increases. Democrats said it’s only fair to blend in additional revenues from closing tax breaks to balance trillions of dollars in spending cuts.

It had long been assumed that the Biden group would set the stage for more decisive talks involving Obama and Boehner. As a result, Cantor’s move was interpreted as trying to jump-start the talks rather than blow them up – a view shared by Cantor himself.

“The purpose here is to alter the dynamic,” Cantor said.

In fact, Cantor’s withdrawal came after Boehner had already made a trek to the White House – in a secret meeting Wednesday night that followed up on a golf outing over the weekend.

According to The Hill newspaper, Cantor’s walkout had been planned for weeks:

The timing of Cantor’s exit from the talks has been discussed for weeks, and senior House Republicans cast it as a natural progression for the negotiations.

For his part, Cantor didn’t inform Boehner of his decision to leave the talks until Thursday, shortly before the news broke, said a GOP official familiar with the situation. The official required anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.

The White House sought to put a positive spin on developments.

“As all of us at the table said at the outset, the goal of these talks was to report our findings back to our respective leaders,” Biden said in a statement. “The next phase is in the hands of those leaders, who need to determine the scope of an agreement that can tackle the problem and attract bipartisan support. For now the talks are in abeyance as we await that guidance.”

The Senate’s Republican negotiator, Jon Kyl of Arizona, also exited the talks.

For his part, Cantor said the secretive Biden-led talks had “established a blueprint” for agreement on significant cuts in spending.

One of the byproducts of Cantor’s departure was to provide an opportunity for partisans on all sides to make statements at odds with the positions they may have to take to achieve a deal. Democrats insist that at least some new revenues are needed – both to soften spending cuts and to line up the Democratic votes needed to pass the measure.

“It will take Democratic votes to pass any debt-ceiling agreement,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. “As a result, certain things are going to have to be true. We cannot make cuts to Medicare benefits. We have to allow for revenues like wasteful subsidies for ethanol and oil companies. And we have to do something on jobs.”

“President Obama needs to decide between his goal of higher taxes or a bipartisan plan to address our deficit,” said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. “He can’t have both.”

As for Democratic demands for new deficit-financed “jobs” initiatives, McConnell scoffed: “What planet are they on?”

Cantor said that plenty of progress has been made in identifying trillions of dollars in potential spending cuts to accompany legislation to raise the $14.3 trillion cap on the government’s ability to borrow money. Passage of the legislation this summer is necessary to meet the government’s obligations to holders of U.S. Treasurys. The alternative is a market-shaking, first-ever default on U.S. obligations.