Delta Air Lines: Next Year, Our Health Care Costs Will Increase By ‘Nearly $100 Million’

That audience also has been hugely attracted by Sync, the infotainment system that Ford used to blaze a trail for the whole industry. “Technology is the key driver with the Millennial age cohort,” Merkle told me. The recent troubles Ford has experienced with MyFord Touch, which essentially is Sync 2.0, largely weren’t reflected in these results, in part because MyFord Touch is only now becoming available, in the new Fiesta. Other enhancements in the 2014 Fiesta will include the availability of a new 1.0-liter EcoBoost engine. Another boost for Fiesta has been Ford’s concentrated, and successful, efforts to sell them in California, where the brand was limp for a long time.
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The insurer has overhead expenses—let’s say 15 percent of premiums—which include its labor costs and perhaps a small profit margin. Self-insurance works a different way. Many large employers, instead of paying premiums to an insurance company, cut out the middleman and pay directly for the health costs that their workers incur. This involves additional financial risk for the employer, but the company saves money that would otherwise go to an insurer’s overhead. And there’s an additional benefit. Under Section 514 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 , or ERISA, companies who directly fund their workers’ health benefits, instead of purchasing health insurance on their behalf, are not bound by state insurance regulations. Because state insurance regulations often act to drive up the cost of health insurance, many companies—especially large ones with a broad risk pool—are better off if they self-insure their workers. ERISA plans are also exempt from a number of Obamacare’s regulations. But the new health law does impose a number of mandates on self-insuring employers.
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On Peace, Freedom And The Fearsome Reputation Of The Ford Falcon

Last week, I had the privilege of attending a Naturalization Ceremony. If you have never had the opportunity to be there when immigrants to our country take the oath of citizenship and exchange their Green Cards for their Naturalization Certificates, you are missing out on one of those special things that makes the United States of America a truly great place to be. Looking out across the crowd you can see people who began their lives in the far corners of the world sitting beside one another without regard for gender, race or national origin. It matters little where they came from, whether or not they once lived on one side of some armed border or the other, today they are Americans and the old hatreds, if not forgotten, are at least set aside. On that day, they are united in their desire to join in our great experiment, to offer their descendents to the great American melting pot in the hopes that they will blend seamlessly into the fabric of our nation in the same way that we, the descendants of so many who made that journey before them, have done. The stories they tell are often powerful. We often think they come to our shores simply for freedom and to take advantage of the economic opportunity our country offers, but often they are here because we are an island of peace in a terrible world and because they have endured horrors that would keep most of us awake at night if we spent too long thinking about them. At the ceremony I attended the speaker, a young man from Rwanda, told of his childhood experiences hiding in a thorn bush to avoid being murdered and of walking over corpses so thick on the ground that he could not avoid stepping on them as he sought to escape his war ravaged land. Other people have spoken to me about poverty, hopelessness and, worst of all, what happens when your own government institutes a reign of terror and people begin to vanish. Such was the case in Argentina in the mid 1970s and, although the reign of terror is now ended and the situation improved, one icon of those times still strikes fear into the populace whenever it appears: the otherwise unremarkable Ford Falcon. In 1961, Ford sent two examples of their recently introduced Falcon to Argentina in order to help their factory in La Boca set up a production line.
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A Postman’s 1963 Walk For Justice, Cut Short On An Alabama Road

CEO Tim Armstrong axed one of his employees during a conference call heard by more than 1,000 other staffers. “I acted too quickly,” the AOL boss now says.

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Before the nation’s attention turned to the March on Washington, William Moore was making his own pilgrimage for racial equality. He intended to walk from Tennessee to Jackson, Miss., to ask the Mississippi governor to end segregation — but the Baltimore mail carrier never reached his destination.

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Tennessee Stage Company draws crowd to Market Square with Twelfth Night

The crash happened just before 6:30 p.m. when a 1995 Acura Integra travelling northbound during a heavy rain went onto the right shoulder then through a grassy area , striking a tree, the report stated. Alcohol was believed to have been involved in the accident, the report stated, and the driver was not wearing a seat belt. North Carolina man dies in park crash Great Smoky Mountains National Park officials have released the name of the man killed Friday evening in a one-vehicle wreck in front of park headquarters near Gatlinburg. James E. Bigmeat Jr, 44, of Cherokee, N.C., was killed and his wife, 34-year-old Angie Murphy, also of Cherokee, was transported by Gatlinburg Emergency Medical Services to the University of Tennessee Medical Center according to a news release from the national park. Murphy was listed in fair condition this afternoon, according to UT Medical Center personnel Officials said that at approximately 7:16 p.m. on Friday, the driver of a 2005 Ford Explorer Sport died as a result of injuries suffered in a single car collision. The vehicle was traveling northbound on Newfound Gap Road when it ran off the roadway in front of Park Headquarters near Gatlinburg and collided into a tree, authorities said.
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“We both turned up here at the same time and didn’t realize our people were in the same show,” Morgan said. Mason said she has come to the Shakespeare on the Square productions for at least three years and the community always turns out. “It’s always crowded. It was raining an hour ago and you see how crowded it is getting now,” she said. “They’re here and they’re going to support the Tennessee Stage Company.” Actors Andi Morrow and Mark Jennings, both of Knoxville, talked about bringing “Twelfth Night” to Market Square. “It translates well to the openness of the square,” Jennings said.
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BoE guidance can help sustain the UK recovery

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This week official data will confirm the status of Britain’s recovery. Many expect an annualised growth rate of above 2% – close to its pre-crisis level and far better than most euro zone economies. But Britain still faces big risks, both at home and abroad. We are inviting experts in the field to comment on the recovery. Kevin Daly, UK economist for Goldman Sachs, is first up. 
 
 
 
BRTIAIN’S economic growth improved markedly in the first half of the 2013. Having been flat through much of 2012, output rose by +0.3%qoq (+1.2%qoq annualised) in the first quarter and the consensus expectation is that it rose by +0.6%qoq in Q2 (the ONS’s preliminary estimate of Q2 GDP is released on July 25).
UK GDP data tend to be volatile from quarter to quarter and are prone to significant revision over time. But the improvement witnessed in the official  data is also evident… Continue reading
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