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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 18-Oct-2015
18-Oct-15 World View -- Palestinian 'Oslo Generation' relationship with Israel extremely toxic and explosive

Web Log - October, 2015

18-Oct-15 World View -- Palestinian 'Oslo Generation' relationship with Israel extremely toxic and explosive

Colorado's largest Obamacare health insurer declares bankruptcy

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

Colorado's largest Obamacare health insurer declares bankruptcy
Deadly Palestinian-Israeli violence continues for another day
Palestinian 'Oslo Generation' relationship with Israel extremely toxic and explosive

Colorado's largest Obamacare health insurer declares bankruptcy

An October 2013 promotional campaign for Colorado HealthOP features hot, scantily clad girls carrying signs saying, 'Without health insurance, you're exposed.' (AP)

An October 2013 promotional campaign for Colorado HealthOP features hot, scantily clad girls carrying signs saying, 'Without health insurance, you're exposed.' (AP)

Colorado's biggest Obamacare health insurer announced on Friday that it was closing, and that its 83,000 Colorado customers, 40% of all the state's Obamacare customers, would have to find a new insurance agency and insurance plan for 2016.

The insurer reported a net loss of $23 million last year, and still owes $72.3 million that it had borrowed from a federal fund designed to bail out Obamacare entities at taxpayer expense.

This is now the seventh of the 23 Obamacare health insurance co-ops to go belly up. The others are Kentucky, Louisiana, Iowa/Nebraska, Nevada, New York and Tennessee, and more are expected before the end of the year, since a lot of the federal Obamacare money pots have run out of money.

I described these co-ops in my August article, "Healthcare.gov -- The greatest software development disaster in history", which I posted after months of extensive research. Obamacare health insurance co-ops are almost unbelievably hare-brained Obamacare entities, in an Obamacare scheme that's riven with stupidity, corruption and criminality.

The co-ops were supposed to be non-profits that provided competition to the evil corporate insurance companies. So since they had lots of federal funding, they signed up lots of customers by charging ridiculously low prices for insurance, and running promotions like Colorado HealthOp's 2013 sexually suggestive promotion with the scantily clad girls shown in the photo above.

The result was that they got lots of customers, but had to pay out $1.10 to $1.60 in benefits for each dollar they received in insurance premiums. They could get away with this until they ran out of other people's money - in this case federal Obamacare slush funds.

Colorado HealthOP CEO Julia Hutchins was apoplectic about the situation, and blames it on the failure of the federal government to provide more money:

"We are astonished and disappointed by the Colorado Division of Insurance’s decision. It is both irresponsible and premature. Colorado HealthOP is a profitable start-up insurance company that is in a strong financial position and, for two years, has served the critical needs of Coloradans by enhancing competition in the Colorado insurance market, driving down prices in the state health insurance marketplace and offering new, innovative choices to its more than 80,000 members throughout Colorado."

The key is her claim about "driving down prices," which is why the co-op is going bankrupt -- by charging less money for premiums than it has to pay out in benefits.

After my months of research on Obamacare, I really don't believe Hutchins anyway. I'm fairly confident that further investigation would reveal that Hutchins doesn't give a sh-t about Colorado customers, but only cares about her 6-digit salary, which she'll lose when Colorado HealthOp goes down.

Meanwhile, health insurance premiums are expected to increase substantially for 2016, with 20-50% increases being fairly common. That's because, as usual, sick people are more likely to purchase health insurance than healthy people. Who would have expected that? AP and Colorado HealthOp press release and Minn NPR News and Zero Hedge

Deadly Palestinian-Israeli violence continues for another day

According to Israeli authorities, Palestinians carried out five separate stabbing attacks. According to Israeli Defense Forces, three of the attacks occurred in Hebron, one in Jerusalem and one in Qalandia. None of them were fatal, at least for the person stabbed; IDF said the Palestinian assailants in four of the five incidents were shot and killed. In at least one case, Palestinian reports claim that a 16-year-old boy was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers without provocation.

The Palestinian knife attacks are being called "lone wolf attacks," because it's not believed that they are organized in any way, or that they're being directed by any Palestinian leader. Israeli security officials are somewhat baffled about how to handle the knife attacks because, unlike suicide bomber vests, a knife can easily and openly be carried from place to place and wielded at a moment's notice. No matter how many soldiers Israel puts on the street, there no way to prevent a 14-18 year old Palestinian boy from stabbing an Israeli walking down the street. NBC News and Jerusalem Post and WAFA (Palestine News & Information Agency) and CNN

Palestinian 'Oslo Generation' relationship with Israel extremely toxic and explosive

With Syria dominating the news, the Israeli-Palestinian issue has been getting less attention, with fewer and fewer headlines in recent months. But the atmosphere in Jerusalem and the West Bank has become increasing toxic and explosive, bringing it back to the headlines again.

Multiple analysts I've heard are all saying the same things. The Palestinian perpetrators of the knife attacks are young boys, 15-22, in what is being called the "Oslo generation," kids born after the 1993 Oslo accords that were supposed to bring peace to the Mideast, but are perceived as accomplishing nothing.

Analysts saying the same things about Oslo generation:

The kids in the Oslo generation are contemptuous of both Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leaders, and considers them irrelevant.

The kids are extremely angry and frustrated.

Palestinian politicians are not leading the Oslo generation, but Hamas and al-Jazeera are encouraging them.

The kids are looking for a new leader, someone who will "get things done" with the Israelis, using whatever tactics are necessary.

They view the Israelis as increasingly willing to use live gunfire to defend against rock throwing and knife attacks, and wish to retaliate.

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, I frequently distinguish between non-crisis wars, which come from the politicians, and crisis wars, which come from the people. It's crisis wars that are the most visceral, bloody and genocidal, since ordinary people are more visceral, more bloody, and more genocidal than politicians.

It's now clear that the young "Oslo generation" of Palestinians have no fear of another visceral, bloody, genocidal war, and have no respect for Abbas and other Palestinian leaders who want to prevent one.

The situation on the Israel side is not as clear, but it appears to be similar. Israel's population seems to be deeply divided between people who want to do everything possible to keep the violence from spiraling, and people, led by settlers, who openly talk about wiping out all the Palestinians.

When President George Bush announced his "Roadmap to Mideast Peace" in 2003, I wrote that the Mideast peace plan would not be implemented, because Israelis and Palestinians would be refighting the 1948 genocidal crisis war that followed the partitioning of Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel. In that article, I said that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli leader Ariel Sharon hated each other but, consciously or unconsciously, they were cooperating to prevent an all-out war, because they both survived the bloody 1948 war and didn't want it to happen again. And I speculated that their deaths could trigger a new generational crisis war.

Arafat and Sharon have both been gone for several years.

Since 2006, there have been five Mideast wars, and they've all turned out to be non-crisis wars, with operations dictated by political leaders: the war between Israelis and Hezbollah, fought largely on Lebanon's soil in 2006; the war between Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah in Gaza in 2008, that led to Hamas control of Gaza; Operation Cast Lead, the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza early in 2009; the two wars between Israel and Hamas in Gaza in November, 2012 and July-August 2014.

Arafat was succeeded by Mahmoud Abbas, born 1935, another 1948 war survivor, who has done everything he could to prevent another genocidal war. Sharon was succeeded by Benjamin Netanyahu, born 1949, who was not a 1948 war survivor, but is old enough to be sufficiently aware of the war that he has also done everything possible to prevent another genocidal war. Palestinians and Israelis, for the most part, have been listening to Abbas and Netanyahu for years, and have resisted anything but low-level violence.

But now we're seeing a new situation that's drastically different from the past. Young people on the Palestinian side, and probably the Israeli side as well, are contemptuous of their political leaders and no longer willing to listen to them. This is exactly the kind of situation that can spiral into a visceral, bloody, genocidal crisis war.

However, there's one more piece missing. Even a generational crisis war that comes "from the people" still needs a leader.

There's a concept in foundational generational theory of the "Grey Champion," a usually older person who emerges to lead the younger generation into war. It's pretty clear that the Palestinian Grey Champion will not be Mahmoud Abbas, who is unalterably opposed to such a war. However, there are plenty of younger Palestinian leaders who, judging from public statements, would be only too happy to lead the Palestinians into war against Israel. A similar statement might be made on the Israeli side, but since it would be a defensive war for Israel, Netanyahu himself could become the war leader.

How long can things go on the way they are now? Days? Months? We can't say for sure. What we can say for sure is that the pressure inside the pressure cooker is increasing by leaps and bounds, and that at some point the pressure cooker will explode. The other thing that we can say for sure is that those on either side who are encouraging the explosion will either be killed in the war, or else will live to regret their encouragement.

There are many people who automatically assume that the current Israeli-Palestinian clashes will fizzle out before long. They believe this because that's what's always happened since 1949. These people don't understand how the world works, and this is why Generational Dynamics does work -- once the survivors of the previous visceral, bloody, genocidal war are gone, the generations that follow assume that it wasn't so bad, and anyway, it can't happen again. That's why they're always so shocked and surprised when it does happen again. Al-Jazeera

(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 18-Oct-15 World View -- Palestinian 'Oslo Generation' relationship with Israel extremely toxic and explosive thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be posted anonymously.) (18-Oct-2015) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 18-Oct-2015 18-Oct-15 World View -- Palestinian 'Oslo Generation' relationship with Israel extremely toxic and explosive

Colorado's largest Obamacare health insurer declares bankruptcy

Deadly Palestinian-Israeli violence continues for another day

Palestinian 'Oslo Generation' relationship with Israel extremely toxic and explosive

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 18-Oct-2015
18-Oct-15 World View -- Palestinian 'Oslo Generation' relationship with Israel extremely toxic and explosive