Stories I Found Of Interest (weekly)

• Obamacare's broken website cost more than LinkedIn, Spotify combined | Digital Trends

  • The exact cost to build Healthcare.gov, according to U.S. government records, appears to have been $634,320,919, which we paid to a company you probably never heard of: CGI Federal.  The company originally won the contract back in 2011, but at that time, the cost was expected to run “up to” $93.7 million – still a chunk of change, but nothing near where it ended up.
  • Government has a long history of spending money unnecessarily. But in an age when the U.S is home to the world’s largest, most successful Internet companies, how is it possible that we can’t even manage to build a functional website without blowing through hundreds of millions of dollars?
  • What I cannot stand is a nation that has vast technological resources in its citizenry spending $600 million of our collective money to slap together a product that, thus far, has only managed to waste people’s precious minutes. So the next time our government comes up with any bright idea that relies upon a massive website, let’s all be sure to ask how they plan to build it.

• Ann Coulter - October 9, 2013 - DEMOCRATS TO AMERICA: WE OWN THE GOVERNMENT!

  • Americans didn't ask for Obamacare, they don't want it, but now their insurance premiums are going through the roof, their doctors aren't accepting it, and their employers are moving them into part-time work -- or firing them -- to avoid the law's mandates
  • No doctors who went to an American medical school will be accepting Obamacare
  • Obamacare is turning America into a part-time nation

• Amazon’s ‘Login and Pay with Amazon’ Service Challenges PayPal For The Web’s Payment Business | TechCrunch

  • Amazon launched a service called Login and Pay with Amazon today at Money 2020 that lets partner sites enable a payments button that will compete with PayPal

• visualant_s1a3-15716.htm

  • We expect that we will need additional financing to implement our business plan and to service our ongoing operations and pay our current debts
  • Although the Company recently secured financing as a result of its private placement with Special Situations Fund and other investors, the funds received by the Company in that transaction may not cover all debts and other obligations due in the coming months. We may need additional financing within the next six months. If we raise additional capital through borrowing or other debt financing, we will incur substantial interest expense. Sales of additional equity securities will dilute on a pro rata basis the percentage ownership of all holders of common stock. When we raise more equity capital in the future, it will result in substantial dilution to our current stockholders
  • Some of the present shareholders have acquired shares at prices as low as $0.001 per share,

• Disability, USA - CBS News

  • It's been called a "secret welfare system" with it's own "disability industrial complex," a system ravaged by waste and fraud.
  • Go read the statute. If there's any job in the economy you can perform, you are not eligible for disability. That's pretty clear. So, where'd all those disabled people come from?
  • If the American public knew what was going on in our system, half would be outraged and the other half would apply for benefits
  • In 1971, fewer than 20 percent of claimants were represented. Now, over 80 percent of claimants are represented by attorneys or representatives.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.