Santa Is A Democrat, So Says America

   As if you and I did not know this already, Public Policy Polling just released their latest “ Holiday Poll “ concerning the Christmas cast of characters, polling 500 people where over half of them were age 45 and older.Polling was evenly split between Democrats and Republicans at 36% apiece, with Independent/Other making up the remainder.

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By a 16% margin, poll respondents leaned toward Santa being a Democrat rather than a Republican, undoubtedly due to his generous nature. (Not sure that I agree with this consensus – Santa’s an old white guy, after all, so odds put him in the Republican camp. I guess I’d have to see his shop’s working conditions and how he treats his elves before settling on a verdict.) Regardless of Santa’s political affiliation, over half of respondents believe the “Fiscal Cliff” will force him to cut back on the goodies he’ll be bringing.

  A few more PPP tidbits for you:

• Only 1 in 10 women said they would not be attending a worship service over the holidays, compared to 25% of the male respondents.
• 3/5ths of women thought Obama would receive gifts rather than coal, compared to 2/5ths of men.
• An almost-equal number of Democrats thought Obama would get gifts as Republicans thought he’d get coal (86% and 85% respectively).
• Only 4% of Republican respondents celebrated a winter holiday other than Christmas, compared to 16% of Democrats.
• 79% of Democrats thought Santa was a member of their party, compared to 61% of Republicans thinking Santa was a member of their party.
• Republicans were three times more likely than Democrats to believe in the ‘war on Christmas.’
• Democrats, by a 12-point margin, were more likely to turn Santa in for running over their grandmothers
• Republicans were twice as likely as Democrats to list It’s a Wonderful Life as their favorite movie, while Democrats preferred Miracle on 34th Street by a six-point margin.
• Almost twice as many Democrats as Republicans listed Rudolph as their favorite holiday character, and more than four times as many Democrats preferred The Grinch.

    But wait! There’s more!

For instance, 47% of respondents really and truly believe there’s a war on Christmas. (Seriously.) Oddly enough, that’s the precise percentage of votes received by presidential candidate Mitt Romney in the 2012 election (and of course, we all know the other reason 47% is a significant number for Romney).

Additionally, 51% of respondents think Santa will be bringing Barack Obama gifts rather than coal this Christmas. Again, that’s the precise percentage of votes the President received in the 2012 election. (A greater number of respondents – 63% — thought Mitt Romney was more likely to get gifts than coal, perhaps out of consolation.)

“Spending time with family,” “cookies,” and watching the movie, It’s a Wonderful Life topped the lists of favorite holiday pastimes.

Grandma loses out big time this holiday season: 61% of respondents would not press charges against Santa if his reindeer ran her over, and the “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” song came in third place for Most Annoying Holiday Song, behind “The Chipmunk Song” and “Santa Baby.”

  From Addicting Info

Technorati Tags: Santa Claus,Christmas,Democrat Santa,Democrats,Republicans,Holiday's,Barack Obama,Current Events

 

Small Business and Obamacare, The Facts

   as many of you are aware, the right-wing noise machine has made an issue of how much the ACA will have an impact on small businesses, and that employee hours will be cut back due to the increased cost to the employers. You have no doubt heard from Papa John Pizza founder and CEO John Schnatter threatening to raise his crap pizza prices by 10 – 14 cents in order to cover the added expense of Obamacare, which, as it turns out is bullshit.

   Apparently Papa forgot that this is the Internet age and that there are people out there who can actually still do math, and that is exactly what Maggie Mahar over at HealthBeatBlog.com has done. She basically sums up what economist and others have reported on the obamacare costs to Papa.

Managed Care Matters’ Joe Paduda recently took a hard look at the numbers that led Papa John Pizza founder and CEO John Schnatter to announce that he’s going to have to hike the price of his pizzas by 10 to 14 cents to cover the added cost of complying with Obamacare’s provisions.

“Turns out that it’s only 3.4 to 4.6 cents” for an average-sized pie,” Paduda observes.  “Let’s think about that,” he continues. “Fourteen cents a pizza gets all of his employees excellent health coverage (only about a third are covered now), even though Schnatter says he’d ‘like to cover all of them.’”

Over at Forbes, Caleb Malby eyeballed Schnatter’s balance sheet and confirms Paduda’s appraisal: Obmacare does not constitute a major threat to profit margins. “Last year, Papa John’s International captured $1.218 billion in revenue,” he reports. “Operating expenses were $1.131 billion.” Schnatter claims that Obamacare will his cost his company $5-8 million annually. “If Schnatter’s math is accurate,” Malby writes, “ the new regulation translates into a .4% to .7% (yes, fractions of a percent) expense increase.”

“Using Schnatter’s figures,” he concludes, “the costs his company will incur due to Obamacare are not equal to the price increases he mentions. Those increases would more than make up for damage done to the company’s net income through increases to operational expenses.”

    So, Papa Johns, Denny’s, and The Olive Garden are not making good business decision when it comes to the workers and health insurance, they are making political decisions by vendetta. Their claims are nothing more than the usual conservative BULLSHIT.

Technorati Tags: Affordable Care Act,Obamacare,Papa Johns,Health Care,Current Events.