...Early 2013 Retail Sales Observations The 4 Consumer Headwinds of Jan / Feb. Will Sequester Fester Through 2013? Fiscal Cliff Drag. Marketing Compensation? Updated 3.11.13 The 4 Consumer Headwinds of Q 2013 1. Social Security tax hike. 2. Increased healthcare costs. 3. Big increases in gas prices. 4. Tax refunds delayed. 2% Social Security Tax Hike = Smaller Paycheck With new Federal tax structure, how much less is in someone's pocket? Annual Salary # of Paychecks Old Social Security Tax New Social Security Tax Difference Per Paycheck Annual Difference 24 $25,000 $35,000 $45,000 $55,000 $65,000 $75,000 $1,042 $1,458 $1,875 $2,292 $2,708 $3,125 4.2% $43.75 $61.25 $78.75 $96.25 $113.75 $131.25 6.2% $64.58 $90.42 $116.25 $142.08 $167.92 $193.75 -$20.83 -$29.17 -$37.50 -$45.83 -$54.17 -$62.50 -$500 -$700 -$900 -$1,100 -$1,300 -$1,500 Source: Monthly Consumer Survey, Na6onal Retail Federa6on, February 13, 2013 Increased Healthcare Costs = Smaller Paycheck Total Plan Premium Costs 2013 (Projected) 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 Percentage Increase 6.3% 4.9% 8.5% 6.2% 5.0% 5.3% 5.3% Average Cost Per Employee $11,188 $10,522 $10,034 $92,456 $8,703 $8,290 $7,874 Average Employee Premium Cost $2,385 $2,204 $2,090 $1,927 $1,797 $1,691 $1,567 Average Employee Out-ofPocket Cost $2,429 $2,200 $2,072 $1,761 $1,580 $1,508 $1,364 ...
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...Sequestration Sequestration is a term used to describe the practice of using mandatory spending cuts in the federal budget. It was first the Budget Control Act of 2011 this was the bill that would have set a limit on what needs to be done and cut to make the economy better, but they fell to get this bill into play because there was a divide in the congress wants. The sequester came about because congress was required to vote on December 23, 2011 about cutting spending, but did not do so. Republicans and Democrats needed to agree to balanced spending reduction for the bill to be passed. If failed, which they did, the enforcement mechanism will began spending cuts starting in 2013 on March 1. It would split 50/50 between domestic and defense spending. The law protects some Social Security and Medicare benefits. Democrats wanted a mix of spending cuts and tax increases. House Democrats suggested trading the $85 billion in 2013 sequester cuts with a combination of tax increases, and the Senate Democrats also introduced the American Family Economic Protection Act which would have replaced the 2013 sequester with $110 billion in spending cuts and tax increases and both spread plans would spread out over the progression of a decade rather than hitting so hard in a year. Republicans insist that only spending cuts need to be made. House Republicans suggested the Spending Reduction Act of 2012 Budget would have replaced the 2013 defense sequester with a variety of spending cuts,...
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...Sequestration of 2013: Effects on Health Care Policy In the NIH, Medicare and CDC Written By Patricia Parrish Park University April 5, 2013 The largest concerns facing our president today are National healthcare reform and the budget. President Obama’s efforts over the past term have been caught at an impasse with a stale mate taking place between the political parties. As deadlines for budget cuts and proposals came and went without solution, certain budget tactics are put into place in order to control government spending. The most current tool is sequestering. Sequestration is a process of automatic, largely across-the-board spending reductions under which budgetary resources are permanently canceled to enforce certain budget policy goals (Spar, 2013). Because the health care system is such an immense part of the budget, healthcare will only come in second to the department of defense in the sizable amount of budget cuts (Levy, 2013). Many programs will be cut to include the National Institute of Health (NIH), Medicare, and the Center of Disease Control (CDC). The National Institute of Health’s budget is at $31 billion and will have to remove $1.5 billion from its funding. According to the NIH, this will slow scientific progress, delay clinical trials, and put a generation of young researchers at risk (Kaiser, 2013). Mikulski, senator of Maryland, fears that “the $1.5 billion cut at NIH will delay scientific projects, will make hundreds fewer research awards...
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...What your thoughts are on the sequestration cuts? What will the impact be to hospitals and the local economy? and, How would you mitigate these losses if you ran a hospital? Due to the United States’ skyrocketing national debt and the lack of an ability for President Obama and lawmakers to come to an agreement on federal spending, sequestration cuts are set to take effect cutting $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years. Personally, I feel this all could have been avoided if democrats and republicans could come to some sort of an agreement on a federal spending plan. However, without an agreement in place, I feel that it is necessary to force sequester cuts before it is too late and the already high national debt spirals out of control. The impact of these cuts on hospitals and the local economy is dependent on which government programs are exempt from these sequestration cuts. Among the items exempt from the sequester cuts are social security, food stamps, and Medicaid programs. Medicare and Research grants provided by the government, on the other hand, will be among the items not exempt from the sequestration cuts. As my background is in health care finance, I know that there is a large presence of Medicare and federally funded grants that NS-LIJ takes advantage of and employs many people based on the grant funding acquired. As these cuts take effect Medicare reimbursement rates are likely to drop and grant funding will be lost and in the process many jobs will be lost as well...
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...Guard participated in over 447,000 duty days under the direction of the corresponding state governor’s declared emergencies. Fortunately, the retention rate of the Army Guard has remained above 94% as of 2013. The aftermath of the higher pace of federal operations has not detracted from the Army National Guard's mission but has shown a better-prepared force in response to domestic incidents. Moreover, further sequestration would limit/detract from the current progress of the Army National Guard in...
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...Can Grass Be Stronger than A Tree? Abstract: As population increases and global warming changes the environment, the strains on our atmosphere and land become obvious. Our forests and jungles are the largest consumer of CO2 we have and are in dangerous decline. Deforestation and jungle destruction not only reduces biodiversity and wildlife refuges, but also contributes to global warming. In order to preserve our forests, we need to find new ways to reduce our dependency on wood. Since bamboo is one of the fastest growing grasses, a significant converter of CO2 and potentially as strong as wood – this project will test the strength of wood against bamboo. If bamboo can support even close to the same weight as wood, we can imagine a day when bamboo can be used as a replacement. In an effort to make this experiment practical, within my appendix, I will also propose a way that we can grow bamboo in the Bay Area utilizing marginal/unused land. These areas will create revolutionary new carbon-offset zones, provide additional revenue to local governments, reduce significant amounts of CO2, develop new businesses in an emerging industry, and promote, by example, green living. Purpose: Is bamboo stronger than wood, and if so, can it help us stop global warming? Research: Hypothesis: The wood will break under the same conditions and weight before the bamboo. Materials: 9 sticks of bamboo sized per test 9 pieces of solid wood sized per test 2 large plastic buckets ...
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...Ocean Sequestration: Carbon concentration in atmosphere is growing every day, the ocean acts as a largest sink for the human emitted CO2, also discharging CO2 directly to the ocean would accelerate the ongoing, but slow, natural processes by which over 90% of present-day emissions are currently entering the ocean indirectly and would reduce both peak atmospheric CO2 concentrations and their rate of increase.(Howard J. Herzog Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Energy Laboratory). Layers of Ocean: The ocean contains 40000 billion tones of carbon, whereas only 750 billion tones of carbon was in atmosphere,and 2200 billion tones of carbon in terrestrial biosphere. So the amount that doubles the carbon content in atmosphere will cause only 2% increase in carbon content in ocean. The temperature and density profiles of ocean vary with season and location, in broad ocean can be categorized into three strata, they are upper mixed layer about 100m depth, thermocline region extending upto 1000 meter, and the third is the deep region. Upper mixed layer has near constant density, temperature profiles over the depth and gaseous concentration levels in equilibrium with the atmosphere. The...
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...CARBON SEQUESTRATION AS A TOOL FOR CITY GREENING(A case study of Atunrase, a residential estate in metropolitan Lagos. ) *Williams, Fadera. A1, Adejumo, T.A2 1. Department of Architecture, Faculty of Environmental sciences, University of Lagos, Akoka, Lagos, Nigeria. (faderawilliams@yahoo.com, +2347088772009.) 2. Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Faculty of Environmental sciences, University of Lagos, Akoka, Lagos, Nigeria.(tadejumo@unilag.edu.ng, +2348034431439.) ABSTRACT Urban greening as a philosophy is a recent development in the Nigerian built environment. The dearth of green infrastructure in metropolitan Lagos is a typical example. This paper explores carbon sequestration as a tool for greening the urban areas with a view to creating sinks for emitted carbon generated by households in the Lagos metropolis. This study is underpinned by the green city concept. A random survey of household interviews were conducted within Atunrase estate, Gbagada, Lagos State. Domestic activities limited to the use of kerosene, P.M.S and butane (excluding influx of carbon emissions via vehicular sources or otherwise) were recorded and based on carbon emission coefficients for carbon emitting substances, the carbon content emitted by the use of these was calculated. The vegetation required to offset these carbon emissions generated was then estimated. The total amount of carbon generated within the estate is 176,904kg and it will be offset by planting trees, groundcover and shrubs...
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...How Will Sequestration Affect Government Contracting? By Cory Sanders Sequestration is a process in which automatic, indiscriminate across-the-board budget cuts are imposed on government programs to force reductions in spending and meet budgetary goals established by statute. If sequestration does occur, $1.2 trillion in budget cuts will begin on January 2, 2013, and continue through the following nine years (FY 2021). Generally, sequestration spending cuts are divided equally between eligible defense and non-defense programs. There are, however, some domestic entitlement programs – Social Security, federal retirement programs and Medicaid – that are exempt from sequestration budget cuts. In addition, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a decision on May 21, 2012, extending exemption from sequestration to U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) spending. In issuing its decision, the GAO determined that the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010 exempted VA spending – with the exception of limited administrative expenses – from the impact of sequestration by overruling language within the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985, which limited cuts on veterans’ medical care to 2%. The GAO decision affirmed an April 2012 opinion by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) which similarly concluded that sequestration budget cuts do not apply to VA spending. While not exempt from sequestration, other programs are limited to a fixed percentage...
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...Carbon Sequestration and Carbon Sink More than 40 percent of CO2emissions in the US are due to electric power generation. Carbon dioxide (CO2) capture and sequestration (CCS) technology could reduce these emissions from power plants by 80 to 90 percent. For example, if CCS technology was applied to a 500 MW coal-fired power plant, emitting 3 million tons of C02 per year, the amount of greenhouse gas emissions avoided is equal to: • Planting more than 62 million trees, and waiting at least 10 years for them to grow • Avoiding annual electricity-related emissions from more than 300,000 homes CCS technology would also significantly reduce emissions from other industrial processes such as gas operations and cement facilities (EPA, 20xx). The world has lost 50 to 70 percent of its original carbon stock. This translates into a huge amount of soil carbon released into the atmosphere. Not long ago, in the 19th century, the US was home to vast tracts of prairie grass with rich, fertile soils. Today only three percent of those prairies are in existence. Current studies on carbon sinks center on soil carbon, how it escaped from the earth and how this process can be reversed. To take the research further, investigators are interested in how this knowledge can be used to slow rise of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which is a known cause global warming. There is hope that carbon can be placed back into the soil in places like the North China Plain, the interior of Australia and the...
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...Climate change is attributable to both natural and anthropogenic factors. Anthropogenic climate change, which are also known as human induced climate change, is a result of increase in greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and chlorofluorocarbons in the atmosphere, increase in atmospheric aerosols, and changes in land use, for instance, through cutting down of forests to create farms. The increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere causes an increase in the amount of heat that is being retained and consequently, increasing the temperatures on the earth’s surface significantly. For example, the amount of carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere has risen by more than 30 percent since the industrial revolution (Mulvaney, 2013). Atmospheric aerosols absorb infrared and solar radiation and also change the chemical composition of the clouds, both physically and chemically. Industrial processes, human activity, biomass burning and exhaust emissions lead to chemical reactions, which consequently, form aerosols in the atmosphere. Changes in land use have also led to a significant increase in the sunlight reflected back into the surface. In North America and Eurasia, during the industrial era, it is estimated that one-fifth of land was attributed to agricultural activities and deforestation. On the other hand, natural climate changes can be a result of changes in suns energy and shifting of the orbit of the earth. Essentially, the earth’s orbital...
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...Running head: Financial Contingency Planning Financial Contingency Planning for the FBI’s CJIS Division’s Lasting Impressions Child Development Center In partial fulfillment of The Requirements for the degree of Master’s of Science in Administration Justice and Security Julia Ann Minnocci March 4, 2013 Dr. Hector Garcia Financial Contingency Planning Introduction This paper will provide details how the upcoming sequestration will affect the Department of Justice’s (DOJ’s) Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Division’s Lasting Impressions Child Development Center (LICDC). In addition to possible sources of revenue, temporary assistance, and funding assets as part of financial contingency planning, the paper will discuss the following: public-private partners; nonprofits; bond issuance; grants; multi-level government financing, and the effects of taxation. Also the paper will evaluate the role that financial efficiency will play in obtaining funding at the state and local levels as well as how to identify sources of fundsfor the project. Financial Contingency Planning The FBI CJIS Division decided to build a daycare center for the use by the FBI Employees. The FBI built the LICDC facility on the CJIS Division’s campus in June 1993; however, it did not open until June 1995. FBI Employees are given first priority to enroll their child/children at the facility. Once the FBI Employees enrolled their...
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...There are three ways Congress can control the statutory budget in order to prevent tax and mandatory spending legislation from increasing the deficit that constricts the discretionary budget. In 2010, the Statutory Pay-As-You Go (PAYGO) Act was passed which maintains that any changes to taxes or mandatory spending, which increase the multi-year deficit must be offset in an equivalent amount through other changes which in turn decrease the deficit. Any violation of this act results in a sequestration across select mandatory programs in order to restore the balance in the budget. The second way Congress may control the budget is through discretionary funding caps. Through the 2011 Budget Control Act (BCA), Congress imposed limits on the amounts...
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...BUS661: Leading Organizational Change-week 2 discussion questions and student responses-need two responses from each discussion -- thanks by Monday no later than Tuesday morning. Week 2 Discussions and Assignment Proteach-need the discussions by Thursday and responses I will provide later by Saturday and assignment by Sunday or no later than Monday please. Need at least one preferably 2 APA cites to maintain an A+ grade. Thanks!! To participate in the following Discussion Forums, go to this week's Discussion link in the left navigation: 1. Change Rationales Find two articles about organizations going through change. Provide a complete APA citation for each article. Answer the following questions and respond to at least two of your classmates’ postings. • What is the rationale presented for the changes? What are the internal and external pressures considered in the change? • Compare and contrast the rationales from each article. What are the commonalities presented? Are some presented as more legitimate than others? • To what extent are single versus multiple rationales utilized? What conclusions do you draw from this? 2. Force Field Analysis Find at least one significant article related to either downsizing, implementation of a new technology, or a merger or acquisition. Provide a complete APA citation of the article. • What are the key driving forces? What are the key restraining forces? • Prepare a force field analysis graph (see Figure 5.9 from your...
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...Global Warming: Cause and Mitigation Tyler Turner Strayer Introduction to Physical Science SCI 110 Prof. Amanda Slaughter June 5, 2016 Global Warming: Cause and Mitigation In this paper I will be discussing different causes and effects of global warming. First we will look at comparing and contrasting natural versus anthropogenic climate changes and include examples of each type. We will then discuss which position I will take in wither global warming exists or not. After that we will I will assess two current mitigation strategies for global warming and analyze the effectiveness of the mitigation strategy. Lastly we will look at the policy changes that I would propose to help stabilize global climate, and what business sectors or nations would be held to stricter standards to my proposed policy. To start this paper off I will first look at comparing and contrasting natural versus anthropogenic climate changes and providing examples of both. But I think to start off we need to first know what natural climate change and anthropogenic climate change are. Natural climate changes are anything that effect the climate of the earth in natural ways, for example the sun, the moon, the atmosphere. But what is anthropogenic climate change? Anthropogenic climate change is defined as; “the production of greenhouse gases emitted by human activity” ("Anthropogenic Climate Change," n.d.). Let us first look at natural climate changes, and what causes these type of changes. There...
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