Friday, July 31, 2009
fuck herny waxman -- like many dems voted for first stimulus wanker joker commy
fuck herny waxman -- like many dems voted for first stimulus wanker joker commy
Poll: Obama's Anti-Cop Comments Angered Many
Poll: Obama's Anti-Cop Comments Angered Many
Thursday, July 30, 2009 10:41 AM
Article Font Size
WASHINGTON -- Americans are more likely to disapprove than approve of how President Barack Obama dealt with the racially tinged dispute between a white Cambridge, Mass., police officer and a well-known black Harvard scholar — with disapproval especially strong among white voters, according to a poll released Thursday.
The July 16 arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr. for disorderly conduct in his own home sparked a national debate over racial profiling and police conduct. The controversy intensified after Obama last Wednesday said police "acted stupidly" when they arrested Gates, who is a friend of his.
The poll by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center found that 41 percent disapproved of Obama's handling of the Gates arrest, compared with 29 percent who approved. The poll also found the incident and Obama's reaction saturated the public consciousness. As many as 80 percent of Americans said they are now aware of Obama's comments on the matter.
The president's approval ratings fell, especially among working class whites, as the focus of the Gates story shifted from details about the incident to Obama's remarks, the poll said. Among whites in general, more disapprove than approve of his comments by a two-to-one margin.
The poll was conducted Wednesday to Sunday last week. Among those interviewed on Wednesday and Thursday, 53 percent of whites approved of Obama's job performance. This slipped to 46 percent among whites interviewed Friday through Sunday as the Gates story played out.
Obama's overall job approval in the poll was 54 percent, down from 61 percent in a mid-June Pew poll.
White House aides had sought to play down the president's comment, but the subsequent outcry and constant commentary reached such a pitch that Obama acknowledged publicly that he should have been more diplomatic with his words.
"Over the last two days as we've discussed this issue, I don't know if you've noticed, but nobody has been paying much attention to health care," Obama told reporters on Friday when he surprised them in the White House briefing room to revisit the Gates issue.
Gates, who is black, was taken into custody by Cambridge Sgt. James Crowley, who is white, after Crowley accused him of disorderly conduct for protesting the policeman's actions in responding to a mistaken report of a possible burglary at Gates' home. The charges were later dropped.
White House aides said it became clear the matter was not going away.
So Obama made phone calls to each participant and invited them to join him for a beer at the White House. The meeting is set for Thursday evening.
Pew re-contacted 480 of the poll respondents on Monday, July 27, to ask them more questions about the Gates matter. They found that people are divided as to who should be blamed for the Gates arrest: 27 percent blame Gates and 25 percent Crowley. Another 13 percent of respondents say both or neither are at fault.
A separate poll said almost a third blame both the scholar and the sergeant. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found 27 percent think Gates was at fault, 11 percent blamed Crowley and 29 percent said each was equally at fault.
The Pew poll of 1,506 adults was conducted July 22-26. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. For the re-interview survey of 480 adults on July 27, the margin of error is plus or minus 5.5 percentage points.
The NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll of 1,011 people was conducted Friday through Monday. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
Thursday, July 30, 2009 10:41 AM
Article Font Size
WASHINGTON -- Americans are more likely to disapprove than approve of how President Barack Obama dealt with the racially tinged dispute between a white Cambridge, Mass., police officer and a well-known black Harvard scholar — with disapproval especially strong among white voters, according to a poll released Thursday.
The July 16 arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr. for disorderly conduct in his own home sparked a national debate over racial profiling and police conduct. The controversy intensified after Obama last Wednesday said police "acted stupidly" when they arrested Gates, who is a friend of his.
The poll by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center found that 41 percent disapproved of Obama's handling of the Gates arrest, compared with 29 percent who approved. The poll also found the incident and Obama's reaction saturated the public consciousness. As many as 80 percent of Americans said they are now aware of Obama's comments on the matter.
The president's approval ratings fell, especially among working class whites, as the focus of the Gates story shifted from details about the incident to Obama's remarks, the poll said. Among whites in general, more disapprove than approve of his comments by a two-to-one margin.
The poll was conducted Wednesday to Sunday last week. Among those interviewed on Wednesday and Thursday, 53 percent of whites approved of Obama's job performance. This slipped to 46 percent among whites interviewed Friday through Sunday as the Gates story played out.
Obama's overall job approval in the poll was 54 percent, down from 61 percent in a mid-June Pew poll.
White House aides had sought to play down the president's comment, but the subsequent outcry and constant commentary reached such a pitch that Obama acknowledged publicly that he should have been more diplomatic with his words.
"Over the last two days as we've discussed this issue, I don't know if you've noticed, but nobody has been paying much attention to health care," Obama told reporters on Friday when he surprised them in the White House briefing room to revisit the Gates issue.
Gates, who is black, was taken into custody by Cambridge Sgt. James Crowley, who is white, after Crowley accused him of disorderly conduct for protesting the policeman's actions in responding to a mistaken report of a possible burglary at Gates' home. The charges were later dropped.
White House aides said it became clear the matter was not going away.
So Obama made phone calls to each participant and invited them to join him for a beer at the White House. The meeting is set for Thursday evening.
Pew re-contacted 480 of the poll respondents on Monday, July 27, to ask them more questions about the Gates matter. They found that people are divided as to who should be blamed for the Gates arrest: 27 percent blame Gates and 25 percent Crowley. Another 13 percent of respondents say both or neither are at fault.
A separate poll said almost a third blame both the scholar and the sergeant. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found 27 percent think Gates was at fault, 11 percent blamed Crowley and 29 percent said each was equally at fault.
The Pew poll of 1,506 adults was conducted July 22-26. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. For the re-interview survey of 480 adults on July 27, the margin of error is plus or minus 5.5 percentage points.
The NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll of 1,011 people was conducted Friday through Monday. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
obama the image control president as he ruins everything (wow)
obama the image control president as he ruins everything (wow)
Date: 2009-07-31, 8:25AM PDT
Reply To This Post
obama is bush with mega deficits
he spends more than bush on military, all more than governmetn takes in = deficit
yep trillion for first time, and deficit costs interest = massive tax rasies
when governmetn spends what it doesnt have it a tax hke
we are having taxes hiked to biggest in history and no one is calling it
how you morons who voted for mr tax hike and jack the economy feel now? remember he spends MORE than bush on military!! lol
Date: 2009-07-31, 8:25AM PDT
Reply To This Post
obama is bush with mega deficits
he spends more than bush on military, all more than governmetn takes in = deficit
yep trillion for first time, and deficit costs interest = massive tax rasies
when governmetn spends what it doesnt have it a tax hke
we are having taxes hiked to biggest in history and no one is calling it
how you morons who voted for mr tax hike and jack the economy feel now? remember he spends MORE than bush on military!! lol
Socialized Healthcare vs. The Laws of Economics
http://mises.org/story/3586
Socialized Healthcare vs. The Laws of Economics
Mises Daily by Thomas J. DiLorenzo | Posted on 7/28/2009 12:00:00 AM
The government's initial step in attempting to create a government-run healthcare monopoly has been to propose a law that would eventually drive the private health insurance industry out of existence. Additional taxes and mandated costs are to be imposed on health insurance companies, while a government-run "health insurance" bureaucracy will be created, ostensibly to "compete" with the private companies. The hoped-for end result is one big government monopoly which, like all government monopolies, will operate with all the efficiency of the post office and all the charm and compassion of the IRS.
Of course, it would be difficult to compete with a rival who has all of his capital and operating costs paid out of tax dollars. Whenever government "competes" with the private sector, it makes sure that the competition is grossly unfair, piling costly regulation after regulation, and tax after tax on the private companies while exempting itself from all of them. This is why the "government-sponsored enterprises" Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were so profitable for so many years. It is also why so many abysmally performing "public" schools remain in existence for decades despite their utter failure at educating children.
America's Healthcare Future?
Some years ago, the Nobel-laureate economist Milton Friedman studied the history of healthcare supply in America. In a 1992 study published by the Hoover Institution, entitled "Input and Output in Health Care," Friedman noted that 56 percent of all hospitals in America were privately owned and for-profit in 1910. After 60 years of subsidies for government-run hospitals, the number had fallen to about 10 percent. It took decades, but by the early 1990s government had taken over almost the entire hospital industry. That small portion of the industry that remains for-profit is regulated in an extraordinarily heavy way by federal, state and local governments so that many (perhaps most) of the decisions made by hospital administrators have to do with regulatory compliance as opposed to patient/customer service in pursuit of profit. It is profit, of course, that is necessary for private-sector hospitals to have the wherewithal to pay for healthcare.
Friedman's key conclusion was that, as with all governmental bureaucratic systems, government-owned or -controlled healthcare created a situation whereby increased "inputs," such as expenditures on equipment, infrastructure, and the salaries of medical professionals, actually led to decreased "outputs" in terms of the quantity of medical care. For example, while medical expenditures rose by 224 percent from 1965–1989, the number of hospital beds per 1,000 population fell by 44 percent and the number of beds occupied declined by 15 percent. Also during this time of almost complete governmental domination of the hospital industry (1944–1989), costs per patient-day rose almost 24-fold after inflation is taken into account.
The more money that has been spent on government-run healthcare, the less healthcare we have gotten. This kind of result is generally true of all government bureaucracies because of the absence of any market feedback mechanism. Since there are no profits in an accounting sense, by definition, in government, there is no mechanism for rewarding good performance and penalizing bad performance. In fact, in all government enterprises, exactly the opposite is true: bad performance (failure to achieve ostensible goals, or satisfy "customers") is typically rewarded with larger budgets. Failure to educate children leads to more money for government schools. Failure to reduce poverty leads to larger budgets for welfare state bureaucracies. This is guaranteed to happen with healthcare socialism as well.
Costs always explode whenever the government gets involved, and governments always lie about it. In 1970 the government forecast that the hospital insurance (HI) portion of Medicare would be "only" $2.9 billion annually. Since the actual expenditures were $5.3 billion, this was a 79 percent underestimate of cost. In 1980 the government forecast $5.5 billion in HI expenditures; actual expenditures were more than four times that amount — $25.6 billion. This bureaucratic cost explosion led the government to enact 23 new taxes in the first 30 years of Medicare. (See Ron Hamoway, "The Genesis and Development of Medicare," in Roger Feldman, ed., American Health Care, Independent Institute, 2000, pp. 15-86). The Obama administration's claim that a government takeover of healthcare will somehow magically reduce costs is not to be taken seriously. Government never, ever, reduces the cost of doing anything.
All government-run healthcare monopolies, whether they are in Canada, the UK, or Cuba, experience an explosion of both cost and demand — since healthcare is "free." Socialized healthcare is not really free, of course; the true cost is merely hidden, since it is paid for by taxes.
Whenever anything has a zero explicit price associated with it, consumer demand will increase substantially, and healthcare is no exception. At the same time, bureaucratic bungling will guarantee gross inefficiencies that will get worse and worse each year. As costs get out of control and begin to embarrass those who have promised all Americans a free healthcare lunch, the politicians will do what all governments do and impose price controls, probably under some euphemism such as "global budget controls."
Price controls, or laws that force prices down below market-clearing levels (where supply and demand are coordinated), artificially stimulate the amount demanded by consumers while reducing supply by making it unprofitable to supply as much as previously. The result of increased demand and reduced supply is shortages. Non-price rationing becomes necessary. This means that government bureaucrats, not individuals and their doctors, inevitably determine who will get medical treatment and who will not, what kind of medical technology will be available, how many doctors there will be, and so forth.
All countries that have adopted socialized healthcare have suffered from the disease of price-control-induced shortages. If a Canadian, for instance, suffers third-degree burns in an automobile crash and is in need of reconstructive plastic surgery, the average waiting time for treatment is more than 19 weeks, or nearly five months. The waiting time for orthopaedic surgery is also almost five months; for neurosurgery it's three full months; and it is even more than a month for heart surgery (see The Fraser Institute publication, Waiting Your Turn: Hospital Waiting Lists in Canada). Think about that one: if your doctor discovers that your arteries are clogged, you must wait in line for more than a month, with death by heart attack an imminent possibility. That's why so many Canadians travel to the United States for healthcare.
All the major American newspapers seem to have become nothing more than cheerleaders for the Obama administration, so it is difficult to find much in the way of current stories about the debacle of nationalized healthcare in Canada. But if one goes back a few years, the information is much more plentiful. A January 16, 2000, New York Times article entitled "Full Hospitals Make Canadians Wait and Look South," by James Brooke, provided some good examples of how Canadian price controls have created serious shortage problems.
A 58-year-old grandmother awaited open-heart surgery in a Montreal hospital hallway with 66 other patients as electric doors opened and closed all night long, bringing in drafts from sub-zero weather. She was on a five-year waiting list for her heart surgery.
In Toronto, 23 of the city's 25 hospitals turned away ambulances in a single day because of a shortage of doctors.
In Vancouver, ambulances have been "stacked up" for hours while heart attack victims wait in them before being properly taken care of.
At least 1,000 Canadian doctors and many thousands of Canadian nurses have migrated to the United States to avoid price controls on their salaries.
Wrote Mr. Brooke, "Few Canadians would recommend their system as a model for export."
$14
Canadian price-control-induced shortages also manifest themselves in scarce access to medical technology. Per capita, the United States has eight times more MRI machines, seven times more radiation therapy units for cancer treatment, six times more lithotripsy units, and three times more open-heart surgery units. There are more MRI scanners in Washington state, population five million, than in all of Canada, with a population of more than 30 million (See John Goodman and Gerald Musgrave, Patient Power).
In the UK as well — thanks to nationalization, price controls, and government rationing of healthcare — thousands of people die needlessly every year because of shortages of kidney dialysis machines, pediatric intensive care units, pacemakers, and even x-ray machines. This is America's future, if "ObamaCare" becomes a reality.
Thomas DiLorenzo is professor of economics at Loyola College in Maryland and a member of the senior faculty of the Mises Institute. He is the author of The Real Lincoln, Lincoln Unmasked, How Capitalism Saved America, and, more recently, Hamilton's Curse. Send him mail. See his article archives. Comment on the blog.
You can subscribe to future articles by Thomas J. DiLorenzo via this RSS feed.
You can receive the Mises Dailies in your inbox. Go here to subscribe or unsubscribe.
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by Libertarian Review
The Libertarian Review July 1980
by Libertarian Review
The Libertarian Review March 1980
by Libertarian Review
The Libertarian Review December 1975
by Libertarian Review
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The History of Banks
by Richard Hildreth
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Ludwig von Mises Institute · 518 West Magnolia Avenue · Auburn, Alabama 36832-4528
Phone: 334.321.2100 · Fax: 334.321.2119
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Socialized Healthcare vs. The Laws of Economics
Mises Daily by Thomas J. DiLorenzo | Posted on 7/28/2009 12:00:00 AM
The government's initial step in attempting to create a government-run healthcare monopoly has been to propose a law that would eventually drive the private health insurance industry out of existence. Additional taxes and mandated costs are to be imposed on health insurance companies, while a government-run "health insurance" bureaucracy will be created, ostensibly to "compete" with the private companies. The hoped-for end result is one big government monopoly which, like all government monopolies, will operate with all the efficiency of the post office and all the charm and compassion of the IRS.
Of course, it would be difficult to compete with a rival who has all of his capital and operating costs paid out of tax dollars. Whenever government "competes" with the private sector, it makes sure that the competition is grossly unfair, piling costly regulation after regulation, and tax after tax on the private companies while exempting itself from all of them. This is why the "government-sponsored enterprises" Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were so profitable for so many years. It is also why so many abysmally performing "public" schools remain in existence for decades despite their utter failure at educating children.
America's Healthcare Future?
Some years ago, the Nobel-laureate economist Milton Friedman studied the history of healthcare supply in America. In a 1992 study published by the Hoover Institution, entitled "Input and Output in Health Care," Friedman noted that 56 percent of all hospitals in America were privately owned and for-profit in 1910. After 60 years of subsidies for government-run hospitals, the number had fallen to about 10 percent. It took decades, but by the early 1990s government had taken over almost the entire hospital industry. That small portion of the industry that remains for-profit is regulated in an extraordinarily heavy way by federal, state and local governments so that many (perhaps most) of the decisions made by hospital administrators have to do with regulatory compliance as opposed to patient/customer service in pursuit of profit. It is profit, of course, that is necessary for private-sector hospitals to have the wherewithal to pay for healthcare.
Friedman's key conclusion was that, as with all governmental bureaucratic systems, government-owned or -controlled healthcare created a situation whereby increased "inputs," such as expenditures on equipment, infrastructure, and the salaries of medical professionals, actually led to decreased "outputs" in terms of the quantity of medical care. For example, while medical expenditures rose by 224 percent from 1965–1989, the number of hospital beds per 1,000 population fell by 44 percent and the number of beds occupied declined by 15 percent. Also during this time of almost complete governmental domination of the hospital industry (1944–1989), costs per patient-day rose almost 24-fold after inflation is taken into account.
The more money that has been spent on government-run healthcare, the less healthcare we have gotten. This kind of result is generally true of all government bureaucracies because of the absence of any market feedback mechanism. Since there are no profits in an accounting sense, by definition, in government, there is no mechanism for rewarding good performance and penalizing bad performance. In fact, in all government enterprises, exactly the opposite is true: bad performance (failure to achieve ostensible goals, or satisfy "customers") is typically rewarded with larger budgets. Failure to educate children leads to more money for government schools. Failure to reduce poverty leads to larger budgets for welfare state bureaucracies. This is guaranteed to happen with healthcare socialism as well.
Costs always explode whenever the government gets involved, and governments always lie about it. In 1970 the government forecast that the hospital insurance (HI) portion of Medicare would be "only" $2.9 billion annually. Since the actual expenditures were $5.3 billion, this was a 79 percent underestimate of cost. In 1980 the government forecast $5.5 billion in HI expenditures; actual expenditures were more than four times that amount — $25.6 billion. This bureaucratic cost explosion led the government to enact 23 new taxes in the first 30 years of Medicare. (See Ron Hamoway, "The Genesis and Development of Medicare," in Roger Feldman, ed., American Health Care, Independent Institute, 2000, pp. 15-86). The Obama administration's claim that a government takeover of healthcare will somehow magically reduce costs is not to be taken seriously. Government never, ever, reduces the cost of doing anything.
All government-run healthcare monopolies, whether they are in Canada, the UK, or Cuba, experience an explosion of both cost and demand — since healthcare is "free." Socialized healthcare is not really free, of course; the true cost is merely hidden, since it is paid for by taxes.
Whenever anything has a zero explicit price associated with it, consumer demand will increase substantially, and healthcare is no exception. At the same time, bureaucratic bungling will guarantee gross inefficiencies that will get worse and worse each year. As costs get out of control and begin to embarrass those who have promised all Americans a free healthcare lunch, the politicians will do what all governments do and impose price controls, probably under some euphemism such as "global budget controls."
Price controls, or laws that force prices down below market-clearing levels (where supply and demand are coordinated), artificially stimulate the amount demanded by consumers while reducing supply by making it unprofitable to supply as much as previously. The result of increased demand and reduced supply is shortages. Non-price rationing becomes necessary. This means that government bureaucrats, not individuals and their doctors, inevitably determine who will get medical treatment and who will not, what kind of medical technology will be available, how many doctors there will be, and so forth.
All countries that have adopted socialized healthcare have suffered from the disease of price-control-induced shortages. If a Canadian, for instance, suffers third-degree burns in an automobile crash and is in need of reconstructive plastic surgery, the average waiting time for treatment is more than 19 weeks, or nearly five months. The waiting time for orthopaedic surgery is also almost five months; for neurosurgery it's three full months; and it is even more than a month for heart surgery (see The Fraser Institute publication, Waiting Your Turn: Hospital Waiting Lists in Canada). Think about that one: if your doctor discovers that your arteries are clogged, you must wait in line for more than a month, with death by heart attack an imminent possibility. That's why so many Canadians travel to the United States for healthcare.
All the major American newspapers seem to have become nothing more than cheerleaders for the Obama administration, so it is difficult to find much in the way of current stories about the debacle of nationalized healthcare in Canada. But if one goes back a few years, the information is much more plentiful. A January 16, 2000, New York Times article entitled "Full Hospitals Make Canadians Wait and Look South," by James Brooke, provided some good examples of how Canadian price controls have created serious shortage problems.
A 58-year-old grandmother awaited open-heart surgery in a Montreal hospital hallway with 66 other patients as electric doors opened and closed all night long, bringing in drafts from sub-zero weather. She was on a five-year waiting list for her heart surgery.
In Toronto, 23 of the city's 25 hospitals turned away ambulances in a single day because of a shortage of doctors.
In Vancouver, ambulances have been "stacked up" for hours while heart attack victims wait in them before being properly taken care of.
At least 1,000 Canadian doctors and many thousands of Canadian nurses have migrated to the United States to avoid price controls on their salaries.
Wrote Mr. Brooke, "Few Canadians would recommend their system as a model for export."
$14
Canadian price-control-induced shortages also manifest themselves in scarce access to medical technology. Per capita, the United States has eight times more MRI machines, seven times more radiation therapy units for cancer treatment, six times more lithotripsy units, and three times more open-heart surgery units. There are more MRI scanners in Washington state, population five million, than in all of Canada, with a population of more than 30 million (See John Goodman and Gerald Musgrave, Patient Power).
In the UK as well — thanks to nationalization, price controls, and government rationing of healthcare — thousands of people die needlessly every year because of shortages of kidney dialysis machines, pediatric intensive care units, pacemakers, and even x-ray machines. This is America's future, if "ObamaCare" becomes a reality.
Thomas DiLorenzo is professor of economics at Loyola College in Maryland and a member of the senior faculty of the Mises Institute. He is the author of The Real Lincoln, Lincoln Unmasked, How Capitalism Saved America, and, more recently, Hamilton's Curse. Send him mail. See his article archives. Comment on the blog.
You can subscribe to future articles by Thomas J. DiLorenzo via this RSS feed.
You can receive the Mises Dailies in your inbox. Go here to subscribe or unsubscribe.
User-Contributed Tags:
Medicine price control wrong price controls health care obama lies canadian healthcare socialized obamacare scare resources
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Thomas J. DiLorenzo
Thomas DiLorenzo is professor of economics at Loyola College in Maryland and a member of the senior faculty of the Mises Institute. He is the author of The Real Lincoln, Lincoln Unmasked, How Capitalism Saved America, and, more recently, Hamilton's Curse. Send him mail.
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Content: Choice in Currency
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PDF: Human Action Homepage
Content: Biography of Murray N. Rothbard (1926-1995)
Content: Biography of Gottfried Haberler (1901-1995)
DailyArticle: The Non-Issue that Should Be an Issue
DailyArticle: Hyperinflation in Germany, 1914-1923
DailyArticle: The Illusions of Hedonics
Content: An Introduction to Austrian Economics Ch 8
Content: The Austrian Theory of the Trade Cycle, Can We Still Avoid Inflation?
Content: INTRODUCTION: Resume
Product: Ethics of Money Production
Content: XV. THE MARKET: The Characteristics of the Market Economy
Product: Against the Tide
Product: Gold, Peace, and Prosperity
Product: Aspects of the Pathology of Money
Product: Age of Inflation
Product: Economics of the Free Society
Content: Economics and Knowledge
Content: The Austrian Theory of the Trade Cycle
Product: Theory of Money and Credit, The
The Free Market: The Recession Explained
The Free Market: Chaos Theory: Destroying Mathematics from Within?
The Free Market: Four-Step Health Care Solution, AFeatured
Future of Austrian Economics, The (DVD)
Author: Ludwig von Mises Institute
$15.00
view all…
Literature
rss
The Freeman 1995
by Foundation for Economic Education
The Freeman 1986
by Foundation for Economic Education
The Freeman 1985
by Foundation for Economic Education
The Libertarian Review December 1980
by Libertarian Review
The Libertarian Review September 1980
by Libertarian Review
The Libertarian Review July 1980
by Libertarian Review
The Libertarian Review March 1980
by Libertarian Review
The Libertarian Review December 1975
by Libertarian Review
The Libertarian Review August 1975
by Libertarian Review
The Libertarian Review 1974
by Libertarian Review
Too Much Government, Too Much Taxation
by Charles Normon Fay
The History of Banks
by Richard Hildreth
view all…
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rss
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Mises University 2009
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Seattle, Washington September 12, 2009
The Greatest Depression? (Mises Circle, sponsored by James M. Wolfe)
Greenville, South Carolina October 3, 2009
Depression, Monetary Destruction, and the Path to Sound Money (Mises Circle sponsored by Atlantic Bullion and Coin, and Professional Planning of Easley LLC)
view all…
The Quotable Mises
Ludwig von Mises: "Most of the tyrants, despots, and dictators are sincerely convinced that their rule is beneficial for the people, that theirs is government for the people." - Bureaucracy
Ludwig von Mises Institute · 518 West Magnolia Avenue · Auburn, Alabama 36832-4528
Phone: 334.321.2100 · Fax: 334.321.2119
contact@mises.org · webmaster· AOL-IM MainMises · Save to MyMises
mises.org sitemap · ·
Thursday, July 30, 2009
http://www.midlifebachelor.com/truths/truths-intro.html
http://www.midlifebachelor.com/truths/truths-intro.html
Web midlifebachelor.com
Some Fundamental Truths
about Women and Midlife Dating Today
Okay – so you are either a brand-new midlife bachelor or you are about to become one … and you may shortly face the prospect of having to date again. Perhaps you haven’t dated in quite a while – maybe it has even been many, many years. You really don’t know what to expect out in the dating world. This section (expandable section index on the right >>>) is dedicated to explaining the dating landscape for a midlife bachelor so that you can be better prepared to cope with what’s coming. If instead you are more of a perpetual midlife bachelor – one who has been single for a while, then consider this section a reminder of the totality of what is out there. Maybe you’ve already seen or experienced some of it – maybe it will help give you an idea of what you like, or what you want to stay away from. This section highlights a number of fundamental truths about dating as a midlife bachelor, and also about the women we as midlife bachelors are likely to date. My goal is to help you put various behaviors (or potential behaviors) of yours into perspective so that you don’t necessarily get hung up, discouraged or distracted by some of the letdowns that often occur in dating. I specifically try to explain some of the common out-of-gate mistakes that we as midlife bachelor brothers sometimes make. The whole point of this section is to help you recognize what is coming – whether it be types of women you are likely to encounter, early mistakes you might make, or maybe even just how to keep many different things in their proper perspective as you define your own personal path through midlife bachelorhood.
Consider Your Midlife Dating Objective
Preparation is the key to success in just about any endeavor. Before going to war, the battlefield and enemy are fully assessed by military leaders. A boxer studies the previous fights of his opponent. A football coach reviews the opposing team’s offensive and defensive plays, strengths, and weaknesses. The more prepared you are, the more likely you will be to achieve what you want from the dating world. [Studying this site is certainly an excellent step toward being prepared.] This brings me to my first key issue for a brand-new midlife bachelor to consider – what is your objective with respect to dating? You’ve got to think hard about this – as your answer may essentially determine your own happiness in the near-term. This question of mine right now about your dating objective is somewhat premature – as I dedicate another entire section ("Develop a Strategy for Midlife Bachelor Success") to the subject of establishing realistic dating objectives and strategies … but right now, I have to assume that YOU DO WANT TO DATE – and that you are prepared to get back out there into the midlife dating world. My first piece of advice for anyone just coming out of a long-term relationship is to focus not on getting right back into a serious relationship, but rather to take things slowly and not get tied down right away. Rushing right into another full-time relationship is risky – your likelihood of choosing a non-optimal partner is greater than if you take your time. There is no hurry - you’ve got plenty of time!
I’ve seen many men make the mistake of believing they need to be in another relationship right away. I, myself, have felt this way numerous times in my own past – most often when I had been the one who was recently dumped. I think it is a normal reaction to want to jump right back into a relationship because you are not used to being by yourself. The newness of “being alone” can be overwhelming … sleeping alone, eating alone, coming home to a quiet and empty home or apartment. It makes you feel like you are missing something – like you have a hole in your heart, or a general feeling of emptiness inside.
Feeling sad and empty after the end of a relationship is actually part of your grieving process. That’s right – grieving. Someone didn’t die, some THING died … your prior relationship. And you have to recognize this, and deal with it in the best way possible. Rushing out and getting into another relationship is one way of dealing with it – but this “substitution method”, as I call it, may not necessarily be what is best for you in the long run. This brings me to the first of the so-called “Fundamental Truths”:
Next >>> Fundamental Truth #1 - Be Happy & Comfortable w/Yourself
Privacy | Terms of Service
© 2009, midlifebachelor.com, All rights reserved.
Section Index (auto-expands to right as browser widens >>)
Fundamental Truths about Women and ML Dating Today
Consider Your Midlife Dating Objective
Fundamental Truth #1 – Be Happy & Comfortable w/Yourself
Spread Good Karma
Too Eager
Fundamental Truth #2 – Don’t Take Things Too Personally
False Starts and Energy Conservation
Fundamental Truth #3 – Be Careful Right Out of the Starting Gate
Great Sex Hides the Truth
Fundamental Truth #4 - Female friends are a Critical Asset
Fundamental Truth #5 - Don’t Confuse NICE with INTERESTED
Fundamental Truth #6 - Women are Crazy
Dealing with Craziness – or Not Dealing with It
Crazy Woman Example – She is Always Upset at You
Crazy Woman Example – She Hates Your Friends
Crazy Woman Example – She is Never Happy
Crazy Woman Example – She's Obsessed w/the Way She Looks
Crazy Woman Example – Women go for Money 1st & Foremost
ML Bachelor Lessons Learned from Crazy Women
Fundamental Truth #7 – Types of Women
Party Girl
High Maintenance
Psycho
Dullard
Housecat
Housewife
Caterer
Stalker
Nymphomaniac
Jealous
Showgirl
Religious
The Boss
Jackpot
Fundamental Truth #8 - You Cannot Change a Woman
Fundamental Truth #9 - Women with Children can be Challenging
Seven Key Principles when Dating a Woman w/Children
1) Don’t be upset if she excludes you from being around her children
2) Be prepared to offer to help her with anything having to do with the children.
3) When in the company of her children, be good to them and they will like you.
4) Never question or differ with the opinion of the mother concerning her children.
5) If the children act up, let the mother deal with it.
6) Do not badmouth the father of the children, no matter what.
7) Always conduct yourself in a responsible manner around her children because you are a role model at all times.
Fundamental Truth #10 – Women Don’t Know What They Want in a Relationship
Web midlifebachelor.com
Some Fundamental Truths
about Women and Midlife Dating Today
Okay – so you are either a brand-new midlife bachelor or you are about to become one … and you may shortly face the prospect of having to date again. Perhaps you haven’t dated in quite a while – maybe it has even been many, many years. You really don’t know what to expect out in the dating world. This section (expandable section index on the right >>>) is dedicated to explaining the dating landscape for a midlife bachelor so that you can be better prepared to cope with what’s coming. If instead you are more of a perpetual midlife bachelor – one who has been single for a while, then consider this section a reminder of the totality of what is out there. Maybe you’ve already seen or experienced some of it – maybe it will help give you an idea of what you like, or what you want to stay away from. This section highlights a number of fundamental truths about dating as a midlife bachelor, and also about the women we as midlife bachelors are likely to date. My goal is to help you put various behaviors (or potential behaviors) of yours into perspective so that you don’t necessarily get hung up, discouraged or distracted by some of the letdowns that often occur in dating. I specifically try to explain some of the common out-of-gate mistakes that we as midlife bachelor brothers sometimes make. The whole point of this section is to help you recognize what is coming – whether it be types of women you are likely to encounter, early mistakes you might make, or maybe even just how to keep many different things in their proper perspective as you define your own personal path through midlife bachelorhood.
Consider Your Midlife Dating Objective
Preparation is the key to success in just about any endeavor. Before going to war, the battlefield and enemy are fully assessed by military leaders. A boxer studies the previous fights of his opponent. A football coach reviews the opposing team’s offensive and defensive plays, strengths, and weaknesses. The more prepared you are, the more likely you will be to achieve what you want from the dating world. [Studying this site is certainly an excellent step toward being prepared.] This brings me to my first key issue for a brand-new midlife bachelor to consider – what is your objective with respect to dating? You’ve got to think hard about this – as your answer may essentially determine your own happiness in the near-term. This question of mine right now about your dating objective is somewhat premature – as I dedicate another entire section ("Develop a Strategy for Midlife Bachelor Success") to the subject of establishing realistic dating objectives and strategies … but right now, I have to assume that YOU DO WANT TO DATE – and that you are prepared to get back out there into the midlife dating world. My first piece of advice for anyone just coming out of a long-term relationship is to focus not on getting right back into a serious relationship, but rather to take things slowly and not get tied down right away. Rushing right into another full-time relationship is risky – your likelihood of choosing a non-optimal partner is greater than if you take your time. There is no hurry - you’ve got plenty of time!
I’ve seen many men make the mistake of believing they need to be in another relationship right away. I, myself, have felt this way numerous times in my own past – most often when I had been the one who was recently dumped. I think it is a normal reaction to want to jump right back into a relationship because you are not used to being by yourself. The newness of “being alone” can be overwhelming … sleeping alone, eating alone, coming home to a quiet and empty home or apartment. It makes you feel like you are missing something – like you have a hole in your heart, or a general feeling of emptiness inside.
Feeling sad and empty after the end of a relationship is actually part of your grieving process. That’s right – grieving. Someone didn’t die, some THING died … your prior relationship. And you have to recognize this, and deal with it in the best way possible. Rushing out and getting into another relationship is one way of dealing with it – but this “substitution method”, as I call it, may not necessarily be what is best for you in the long run. This brings me to the first of the so-called “Fundamental Truths”:
Next >>> Fundamental Truth #1 - Be Happy & Comfortable w/Yourself
Privacy | Terms of Service
© 2009, midlifebachelor.com, All rights reserved.
Section Index (auto-expands to right as browser widens >>)
Fundamental Truths about Women and ML Dating Today
Consider Your Midlife Dating Objective
Fundamental Truth #1 – Be Happy & Comfortable w/Yourself
Spread Good Karma
Too Eager
Fundamental Truth #2 – Don’t Take Things Too Personally
False Starts and Energy Conservation
Fundamental Truth #3 – Be Careful Right Out of the Starting Gate
Great Sex Hides the Truth
Fundamental Truth #4 - Female friends are a Critical Asset
Fundamental Truth #5 - Don’t Confuse NICE with INTERESTED
Fundamental Truth #6 - Women are Crazy
Dealing with Craziness – or Not Dealing with It
Crazy Woman Example – She is Always Upset at You
Crazy Woman Example – She Hates Your Friends
Crazy Woman Example – She is Never Happy
Crazy Woman Example – She's Obsessed w/the Way She Looks
Crazy Woman Example – Women go for Money 1st & Foremost
ML Bachelor Lessons Learned from Crazy Women
Fundamental Truth #7 – Types of Women
Party Girl
High Maintenance
Psycho
Dullard
Housecat
Housewife
Caterer
Stalker
Nymphomaniac
Jealous
Showgirl
Religious
The Boss
Jackpot
Fundamental Truth #8 - You Cannot Change a Woman
Fundamental Truth #9 - Women with Children can be Challenging
Seven Key Principles when Dating a Woman w/Children
1) Don’t be upset if she excludes you from being around her children
2) Be prepared to offer to help her with anything having to do with the children.
3) When in the company of her children, be good to them and they will like you.
4) Never question or differ with the opinion of the mother concerning her children.
5) If the children act up, let the mother deal with it.
6) Do not badmouth the father of the children, no matter what.
7) Always conduct yourself in a responsible manner around her children because you are a role model at all times.
Fundamental Truth #10 – Women Don’t Know What They Want in a Relationship
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Bad Boy Berlusconi’s Bacchanals
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Bad Boy Berlusconi’s Bacchanals
by Eric Margolis
by Eric Margolis
Recently by Eric Margolis: The US Has No Business Being in the Murder Business
The New York Times just prudishly denounced Italy’s fun-loving prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, as "an aging Lothario." That’s the same newspaper that applauded President George Bush’s trumped-up war against Iraq that left up to one million dead and four million refugees.
So what did the wicked Berlusconi do? Romping and frolicking with numerous young women and having one hell of a good time. It’s the kind of behavior that infuriates many women, but leaves men filled with envy and admiration.
The left wing media in Italy is in a frenzy over Berlusconi’s nocturnal escapades with a string of gorgeous young ladies.
Unable to defeat him at the polls, the left has declared jihad on Berlusconi’s sex life.
In best Italian style, Berlusconi shrugs, "I am not a saint."
Certainly not, but he has been Italy’s best prime minister in memory.
A former cruise ship singer, Berlusconi owns a big chunk of Italy’s business and media. He’s been accused of all sorts of financial misdoings, but so far has defeated every attempt by leftwing Italian magistrates to convict him. Still, a nasty odor hangs over his administration. But then again, all politics and much of business in Italy are rotten with corruption.
The latest uproar came after Berlusconi spent a night of rapture with a beautiful woman. Unbeknown to him, she was a high-priced prostitute, paid by a favor-seeking businessman in a classic "honey-trap" so beloved of intelligence agencies. Or, the tryst may have been arranged by Berlusconi’s political enemies.
The lady in question made secret tapes of their night together that she sold and are now all over Italy’s slavering media.
Italy’s leftwing opposition, unable to defeat Berlusconi at the polls, thundered he had "weakened the image and authority of the Italian government!"
Please. Every Italian over three knows the do-nothing parliament in Rome is filled with crooks and buffoons. Berlusconi in bed is a better prime minister than the political dwarfs of Italy’s leftwing opposition and the neo-fascists on the far right.
Worldly Italians have so far laughed off Berlusconi’s antics. Italians accept differences between men and women, and men’s natural urges to roam with, "boys will be boys."
A lady friend of mine says she wants to be reincarnated as a male Italian. Many Italian men live at home with their mothers until their thirties where they are spoiled, lovingly pampered, and treated like overgrown children.
Italian soldiers regularly receive care packages of goodies from home and send their laundry every weekend to mama. Italians may not be warlike, but they teach us to enjoy life and make the world a happier place.
Berlusconi’s approval rating dipped slightly from 50% to 48%, probably because some women felt sorry for his understandably embarrassed wife, who sued for divorce after Berlusconi was seen being overly attentive to an 18-year-old beauty straight out of a Boticelli painting, and bought her a $6,000 dollar piece of jewelry for her birthday.
Berlusconi even reportedly slipped away from the boredom of the recent G-8 summit in the Italian city of L’Aquila he was hosting to return to Rome and party with some very attractive young ladies.
I’m sure 99.5% of straight Italian men would give their last rigatoni to be in Berlusconi’s place. They are happy to have a prime minister who sings very well and makes Italian men proud. Even the Vatican made only gentle tut-tuts to Bad Boy Berlusconi’s bacchanals.
Let the Americans have their warlike commanders-in-chief and phony "family values." Let the Britain have their unctuous prime ministers, and Russia its scowling Vlad Putin.
Or France it’s jogger-in-chief, Nicholas "Nike" Sarkozy, who collapsed on Sunday while foolishly running in extreme heat.
Italy has a lover-in-chief.
Berlusconi is Italy’s richest man and most successful modern leader. What else is left for him to do? Start wars? Invade France? Get another hair transplant? Become secretary general of the UN? He has had prostate cancer and, from what we hear on the sex tapes, has overcome the disease with gusto. Let him enjoy a good time in his twilight years.
But fun aside, Berlusconi may have gone too far even for Italians. Once men hit 60, the most sensitive organ in their body becomes their ego. Berlusconi is being rather reckless in a country where discretion is still favored. He risks tripping over his own public indiscretions and taken for an old fool. Dabbling with an 18-year-old is dangerous, even for him. Easygoing Italians may eventually say, "basta, Silvio!"
But hold all the hypocrisy from leftwing critics and dried up prudes about Berlusconi’s zesty love life. Relations with the opposite sex are no measure of political worth.
Adolf Hitler was faithful and attentive to his mistress, and eventually married her. The renowned British prime minister, David Lloyd George, was a notorious skirt-chaser. George Bush was a perfect family man. One has nothing to do with the other.
We owe a vote of thanks to Berlusconi for livening up our summer and providing some welcome diversion from bombs, bullets and bankruptcy. Bravo, Silvio.
July 29, 2009
Eric Margolis [send him mail] is contributing foreign editor for Sun National Media Canada. He is the author of War at the Top of the World and the new book, American Raj: Liberation or Domination?: Resolving the Conflict Between the West and the Muslim World. See his website.
Copyright © 2009 Eric Margolis
The Best of Eric Margolis
Back to LewRockwell.com Home Page
Bad Boy Berlusconi’s Bacchanals
by Eric Margolis
by Eric Margolis
Recently by Eric Margolis: The US Has No Business Being in the Murder Business
The New York Times just prudishly denounced Italy’s fun-loving prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, as "an aging Lothario." That’s the same newspaper that applauded President George Bush’s trumped-up war against Iraq that left up to one million dead and four million refugees.
So what did the wicked Berlusconi do? Romping and frolicking with numerous young women and having one hell of a good time. It’s the kind of behavior that infuriates many women, but leaves men filled with envy and admiration.
The left wing media in Italy is in a frenzy over Berlusconi’s nocturnal escapades with a string of gorgeous young ladies.
Unable to defeat him at the polls, the left has declared jihad on Berlusconi’s sex life.
In best Italian style, Berlusconi shrugs, "I am not a saint."
Certainly not, but he has been Italy’s best prime minister in memory.
A former cruise ship singer, Berlusconi owns a big chunk of Italy’s business and media. He’s been accused of all sorts of financial misdoings, but so far has defeated every attempt by leftwing Italian magistrates to convict him. Still, a nasty odor hangs over his administration. But then again, all politics and much of business in Italy are rotten with corruption.
The latest uproar came after Berlusconi spent a night of rapture with a beautiful woman. Unbeknown to him, she was a high-priced prostitute, paid by a favor-seeking businessman in a classic "honey-trap" so beloved of intelligence agencies. Or, the tryst may have been arranged by Berlusconi’s political enemies.
The lady in question made secret tapes of their night together that she sold and are now all over Italy’s slavering media.
Italy’s leftwing opposition, unable to defeat Berlusconi at the polls, thundered he had "weakened the image and authority of the Italian government!"
Please. Every Italian over three knows the do-nothing parliament in Rome is filled with crooks and buffoons. Berlusconi in bed is a better prime minister than the political dwarfs of Italy’s leftwing opposition and the neo-fascists on the far right.
Worldly Italians have so far laughed off Berlusconi’s antics. Italians accept differences between men and women, and men’s natural urges to roam with, "boys will be boys."
A lady friend of mine says she wants to be reincarnated as a male Italian. Many Italian men live at home with their mothers until their thirties where they are spoiled, lovingly pampered, and treated like overgrown children.
Italian soldiers regularly receive care packages of goodies from home and send their laundry every weekend to mama. Italians may not be warlike, but they teach us to enjoy life and make the world a happier place.
Berlusconi’s approval rating dipped slightly from 50% to 48%, probably because some women felt sorry for his understandably embarrassed wife, who sued for divorce after Berlusconi was seen being overly attentive to an 18-year-old beauty straight out of a Boticelli painting, and bought her a $6,000 dollar piece of jewelry for her birthday.
Berlusconi even reportedly slipped away from the boredom of the recent G-8 summit in the Italian city of L’Aquila he was hosting to return to Rome and party with some very attractive young ladies.
I’m sure 99.5% of straight Italian men would give their last rigatoni to be in Berlusconi’s place. They are happy to have a prime minister who sings very well and makes Italian men proud. Even the Vatican made only gentle tut-tuts to Bad Boy Berlusconi’s bacchanals.
Let the Americans have their warlike commanders-in-chief and phony "family values." Let the Britain have their unctuous prime ministers, and Russia its scowling Vlad Putin.
Or France it’s jogger-in-chief, Nicholas "Nike" Sarkozy, who collapsed on Sunday while foolishly running in extreme heat.
Italy has a lover-in-chief.
Berlusconi is Italy’s richest man and most successful modern leader. What else is left for him to do? Start wars? Invade France? Get another hair transplant? Become secretary general of the UN? He has had prostate cancer and, from what we hear on the sex tapes, has overcome the disease with gusto. Let him enjoy a good time in his twilight years.
But fun aside, Berlusconi may have gone too far even for Italians. Once men hit 60, the most sensitive organ in their body becomes their ego. Berlusconi is being rather reckless in a country where discretion is still favored. He risks tripping over his own public indiscretions and taken for an old fool. Dabbling with an 18-year-old is dangerous, even for him. Easygoing Italians may eventually say, "basta, Silvio!"
But hold all the hypocrisy from leftwing critics and dried up prudes about Berlusconi’s zesty love life. Relations with the opposite sex are no measure of political worth.
Adolf Hitler was faithful and attentive to his mistress, and eventually married her. The renowned British prime minister, David Lloyd George, was a notorious skirt-chaser. George Bush was a perfect family man. One has nothing to do with the other.
We owe a vote of thanks to Berlusconi for livening up our summer and providing some welcome diversion from bombs, bullets and bankruptcy. Bravo, Silvio.
July 29, 2009
Eric Margolis [send him mail] is contributing foreign editor for Sun National Media Canada. He is the author of War at the Top of the World and the new book, American Raj: Liberation or Domination?: Resolving the Conflict Between the West and the Muslim World. See his website.
Copyright © 2009 Eric Margolis
The Best of Eric Margolis
Back to LewRockwell.com Home Page
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
wisdom
like i said before, you need to be fit and properly geared to hunt
just like your server, it needs to has the right hardware, properly built, and well maintained
just like your server, it needs to has the right hardware, properly built, and well maintained
Monday, July 27, 2009
Blue Cross of Massachusetts employs more people to administer coverage for 2.5 million New Englanders than are employed in all of Canada to administer
Blue Cross of Massachusetts employs more people to administer coverage for 2.5 million New Englanders than are employed in all of Canada to administer single payer coverage for 27 million Canadians. (health-insurance-2008.org)
http://www.health-insurance-2008.org/united-states-vs-canada.php
http://www.health-insurance-2008.org/united-states-vs-canada.php
The gargantuan mountain of cash that separates the rich from everyone else
http://www.jmooneyham.com/the-huge-mountain-of-cash-separating-the-rich-from-everyone-else.html
Max Baucus receives considerable contributions from health care industry.
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/07/23/max-baucus-health-contributions/
Canadians Love Their Health Care and Want it to be Even More Socialized
http://www.openleft.com/diary/14275/canadians-love-their-health-care-and-want-it-to-be-even-more-socialized
Canadians Love Their Health Care and Want it to be Even More Socialized
by: Daniel De Groot
Tue Jul 21, 2009 at 21:30
Digby writes about this McClatchy article, highlighting an online poll of Canadians about their (our) health care system.
While the results are generally positive for the Canadian system in comparison to the American one (though McClatchy characterizes it as a "split verdict"), my inner social scientist is always nervous about trusting opt-in online polls too much, and I know this topic actually comes up fairly regularly in Canada so here's a broader overview on the subject of comparative polling. It turns out we do have polling firms here that do real phone polling so there's no need to worry about the possibly libertarian bent of online poll respondents.
First up, this Harris-Decima scientific poll from July 5th gives an even brighter picture than McClatchy's effort, which as it relates to comparisons gives us this:
By an overwhelming margin, Canadians prefer the Canadian health care system to the American one. Overall, 82% said they preferred the Canadian system, fully ten times the number who said the American system is superior (8%).
Daniel De Groot :: Canadians Love Their Health Care and Want it to be Even More Socialized
Now granted one might expect this poll is skewed a bit by patriotism and the natural inkling to prefer the safe and familiar to that other horrid system over the border. For contrast, Harvard asked Americans some similar questions in spring 2008, and got this:
March 20 (Bloomberg) -- The majority of Americans say U.S. private health care may not be better than national systems in Canada, France and the U.K., according to a poll by the Harvard School of Public Health.
The survey, co-sponsored with Harris Interactive Inc., a Rochester, New York, research and polling company, found that 45 percent of Americans thought the U.S. medical system generally was the best. The remaining 54 percent either didn't know or thought other countries' systems were better.
Now I freely admit Canadians spend too much time comparing ourselves to Americans, and are probably a bit prouder of our health care system than it really deserves given its mediocre placement when compared on objective criteria to some other UHC systems, but no one has ever accused Americans of lacking in patriotism either. As an observer of your politicians, seeing them assert America's this or that is the best in the world without any factual basis cited is pretty common, and never fails to get applause so I take this poll as a pretty tepid endorsement of the US health care system.
Adding in ideology and party affiliation reinforces the significance of the Canadian result. Harris-Decima provides breakdowns by party, where only 12% of Conservatives preferred the American system and 76% preferred Canada's. Even among our right wing (who as a rule tend to be very pro-American), you don't find a lot of support for the American model.
More surprising to me is this from Harris-Decima:
Considering both cost and patient care factors, a majority of Canadians (55%) think that the health system should be more public, and only 12% think that more of the health system should be private. One in four (27%) believe that the current system strikes the right balance between publicly funded and pay-per-use care.
Canadians have been consistently worried about our health care system as an electoral issue for over a decade, and things like wait times, cost of drugs, and availability of family doctors (apparently not that big a problem) are regular political footballs. Amazingly, to the extent Canadians want our government run, bureaucrat ridden, inefficient, crumbling and totalitarian system to change, the majority want it to be even more "socialized."
The actual question asked here:
While emergency care, necessary treatments and trips to a family doctor are covered under the Canada Health Act, other services such as private hospital rooms, and certain medical procedures such as dentists, chiropractors and massage therapists are subject to user fees. Considering both cost and patient care factors, do you think that the current approach strikes that right balance between publicly funded and pay-per-use care, should there be more elements included in private health care, or should there be more elements included in public health care?
Again, even among Conservative party supporters, 55% want Canada's system more public, and only 12% want it more private. Canadians have had decades to see our system at work, probably most people have lived their whole lives under it, and seeing that, they would like to see their dentists and massage therapists moved under the socialist umbrella and out of the private insurance market (For dentistry I particularly agree. Basic dental care is not a cosmetic luxury). That is more than an idle endorsement in the abstract, doing any of this would probably involve an increased tax burden so we are putting our money where our mouths are.
Perhaps a bit stale, but in 2003, Gallup did a comparative poll of Canadians, Americans and Brits on health care, and here's what they found:
Pie charts of gallup results showing UK, Cdn systems more affordable
In all three countries, there is great variation of opinion within the population on both the quality of medical care and the availability of affordable healthcare. It is a testament to national health systems that people in Canada and Great Britain are significantly more satisfied with availability of affordable healthcare than their American counterparts are.
If you click through, the NHS seems to suffer in quality of care, but Canada stacks up fine and smashes the US on availability/affordability.
All of these do suffer from the flaw that presumably few of the respondents will have actual experience with the other systems in question. Not ideal, but we have this interesting poll of Americans living in Canada, which, despite the headline ("Americans in Canada prefer U.S. health care") and its statistically unscientific basis (opt-in, top heavy with 6-figure earners and masters degree holders), is an interesting look at what the best off Americans could expect to find under a single payer model:
Overall, the Americans said they preferred the U.S. system for emergency, specialist, hospital and diagnostic services, and said they preferred the timeliness and quality of the American system.
However, they also rated Canada's system high for access to drug therapy and ranked the services of family physicians almost equally in both countries. They also rated the equity and cost efficiency of Canada's system highly.
The participants were upper middle-class, mostly the kind of people likely to be well-insured in the U.S., said Lewis.
"They had high expectations of health care in Canada," he said. "I was surprised by they solidarity they showed for the Canadian system. Even their praise of the American system was qualified. They said, 'Yes, it is good. But it is expensive, and not everyone has access.' "
See the dirty secret here is that Canada has historically been notably less wealthy than the US (Nationmaster lists the US at $6K higher in GDP per capita for 2006) and there was always an element of apples to oranges in comparing our systems. We have fewer MRIs? Well, duh. Of course America should have had the better system, and at the upper end of the income spectrum, they probably do. The fact that we're ahead at all is itself an indication of how broken the US model is. Even so, the people at the top of the income pyramid in the US could expect to see their health care level decrease a bit under a single payer system, but not disastrously so. On the upside for them, people of conscience should like knowing the 47M uninsured had coverage too, and not for nothing either is this:
Meanwhile, 32 per cent also noted that while they lived in the U.S., health insurance concerns affected their decisions about where to look for a job, and 29 per cent said it influenced decisions about whether to remain at a workplace.
Even the upper middle class worries about their health care when it comes to choosing a job or a place to live. It's tempting to ignore these sorts of rich-people problems since what they could lose under a single payer system is mostly related to the hidden quota system of American health care, where the top 3/4 get much faster health care by virtue of excluding the bottom 1/4 from nearly any care. It's tremendously unjust but so broadly systemic that to the individuals benefiting from this mechanism, it is no surprise they don't really see the problem and are nervous about losing it. If you have good insurance, you just go in and get the procedures you need. It's not like you walk into the operating room and order the doctor to stop operating on someone poorer than yourself so he can treat you. The unfairness is obscured and so no one feels personally responsible for it.
So it's worth considering the benefits they'll get to blunt their opposition. It's unlikely the upper middle will ever be thrilled about UHC in America, but keeping them from vehemently opposing it is plainly important.
Overall, the picture in scientific polling is a much stronger endorsement of the Canadian model, and a stronger rebuke of the US model than found in the McClatchy survey. It really strikes me odd that right wingers fixate on attacking the Canadian model, since we do stack up so well. So be it, they're falliable and if they foolishly want to use us as their bogeyman, break out the flashlights and let's get spooky. This is one horror movie that won't qualify for a "based on a true story" tagline.
Tags: Canada, health care, public option, UHC, Single Payer, Polling, Digby, mcclatchy, (All Tags)
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Canadians Love Their Health Care and Want it to be Even More Socialized | 5 comments
by: you @ soon
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Anecdotally (4.00 / 1)
my sister who has lived in Canada for the last 35 years loves the National Health Service single-payer system both in terms of quality and speed of care. The proof though is in the fact that no party in Britain or Canada dares to oppose the health system...were it unpopular there is no question the Tories would be calling for its removal.
by: VLaszlo @ Tue Jul 21, 2009 at 20:56:35 PM CDT
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Good post (4.00 / 2)
and reflects my anecdotal experience talking to Canadians and Americans.
by: Ian Welsh @ Tue Jul 21, 2009 at 21:00:12 PM CDT
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A truly excellent and complete article. (4.00 / 1)
There is an ad running in the US, for the Republican Party or Health Insurance Companies, with a woman who says she is a Canadian, and that she spends 10's even hundreds of thousands of dollars in the US to avoid the Health Care system.
She represents that 8% and a few who would love to make money off of the need of Canadians for good Health Care. I would bet my bottom dollar that at any big enough public event you could get 50,000 thousand people to scream "Canada is our Health Care System." Or "Health must be free!!"
This not an ignored topic, this is not shallow, this wasn't a gift, it was demanded and earned. Canadians do not let people , politicians, hurt their system, even philosophical wondering about what is called "two tier" health will end your political career. 80% won't vote for you.
If they connect you to your party as if others might agree with you can sink you party for a decade. "Two tier" health means a system that has two kinds of healthcare, one for people with money and one for those without. Canadians want a system that delivers healthcare for one reason, for health of the person involved, no more, no less. There are Doctors in Canada who do cosmetic surgery and are paid to do it, by the client. But if you need plastic surgery to repair damage to achieve a normative look for example, its covered. If you need sex reassignment surgery, its covered.
Oh By the way, on abortion, Canada pays for that, its called: women's health, period. The man who fought long and hard, who drove government to recognize woman's health as a right, just got the Order of Canada. And because real sexual education is taught and for many other reasons, Canada has much much lower rates of unwanted pregnancies, and obviously fewer abortions, not more like Republican propagandists have suggested, even today.
The present Minority Conservative government promised very formally that they would not touch Canada's Health Care model in the middle of the last two elections.
Picture 30 million people, who like you like good relatives and neighbours, who, if you asked them, and only if you asked, would tell you your health system sucks, and the alternative is single payer. You can have a mixture if you need to, to see the differences, to watch what happens, like Canada did.
But the choice is either a right to health, like a right to vote, like a right to justice and a right to schools or a system that lets its people be victimized by the most powerful lobby, the richest, most manipulative con artists on the earth.
Pass this line in the Sand Bill, with the State Single Payer Amendment, start being healthy, for a change.
Very good article Daniel.
Change
"We must break up the banks and never again let them get so big that they distort our politics and take down the economy.
by: HousesofProgress @ Tue Jul 21, 2009 at 21:36:32 PM CDT
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History (0.00 / 0)
In 1972 I was in my senior year of my under-grad studies and I wrote a term paper on socialized medicine. In the paper I did a comprehensive analysis of the health care systems in Canada, Britain, Germany and the U.S.. I don't remember many of the details of that term paper but I remember the bottom line. All 3 counties with socialized medicine had impressive statistics regarding infant mortality and other metrics of good health and in these countries health care was only consuming about 3.8% of their GDP. In the U.S. the health metrics were poorer and health care was consuming over 7% of our GDP. The merits of socialized medicine were perfectly clear.
In 1972 I never would have believed that our country would remain with such a flawed system and watch the cost of health grow to over 16% of our GDP.
by: richgreer @ Wed Jul 22, 2009 at 07:33:58 AM CDT
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Dual Relatives Strong for Canadian System (4.00 / 1)
My relatives in Canada, dual US-Canada citizens all, both well off and OK (in the arts and non-profits), users of both US and Canadian citizens, all strongly support the Canadian system. They cannot believe the mendacious blather against the Canadian system that they hear from US sources.
My niece, on a highly selective fellowship in DC, found her US HMO experience disgusting. She was glad to get back to Canada. The older relatives have gone from being US conservatives to being US semi-liberals while remaining conservatives in Canada.
The term "conservative" in other developed nations does not include he nuttiness you get in the US nor does it mean letting the equivalent of Wall St run the government.
Canadians Love Their Health Care and Want it to be Even More Socialized
by: Daniel De Groot
Tue Jul 21, 2009 at 21:30
Digby writes about this McClatchy article, highlighting an online poll of Canadians about their (our) health care system.
While the results are generally positive for the Canadian system in comparison to the American one (though McClatchy characterizes it as a "split verdict"), my inner social scientist is always nervous about trusting opt-in online polls too much, and I know this topic actually comes up fairly regularly in Canada so here's a broader overview on the subject of comparative polling. It turns out we do have polling firms here that do real phone polling so there's no need to worry about the possibly libertarian bent of online poll respondents.
First up, this Harris-Decima scientific poll from July 5th gives an even brighter picture than McClatchy's effort, which as it relates to comparisons gives us this:
By an overwhelming margin, Canadians prefer the Canadian health care system to the American one. Overall, 82% said they preferred the Canadian system, fully ten times the number who said the American system is superior (8%).
Daniel De Groot :: Canadians Love Their Health Care and Want it to be Even More Socialized
Now granted one might expect this poll is skewed a bit by patriotism and the natural inkling to prefer the safe and familiar to that other horrid system over the border. For contrast, Harvard asked Americans some similar questions in spring 2008, and got this:
March 20 (Bloomberg) -- The majority of Americans say U.S. private health care may not be better than national systems in Canada, France and the U.K., according to a poll by the Harvard School of Public Health.
The survey, co-sponsored with Harris Interactive Inc., a Rochester, New York, research and polling company, found that 45 percent of Americans thought the U.S. medical system generally was the best. The remaining 54 percent either didn't know or thought other countries' systems were better.
Now I freely admit Canadians spend too much time comparing ourselves to Americans, and are probably a bit prouder of our health care system than it really deserves given its mediocre placement when compared on objective criteria to some other UHC systems, but no one has ever accused Americans of lacking in patriotism either. As an observer of your politicians, seeing them assert America's this or that is the best in the world without any factual basis cited is pretty common, and never fails to get applause so I take this poll as a pretty tepid endorsement of the US health care system.
Adding in ideology and party affiliation reinforces the significance of the Canadian result. Harris-Decima provides breakdowns by party, where only 12% of Conservatives preferred the American system and 76% preferred Canada's. Even among our right wing (who as a rule tend to be very pro-American), you don't find a lot of support for the American model.
More surprising to me is this from Harris-Decima:
Considering both cost and patient care factors, a majority of Canadians (55%) think that the health system should be more public, and only 12% think that more of the health system should be private. One in four (27%) believe that the current system strikes the right balance between publicly funded and pay-per-use care.
Canadians have been consistently worried about our health care system as an electoral issue for over a decade, and things like wait times, cost of drugs, and availability of family doctors (apparently not that big a problem) are regular political footballs. Amazingly, to the extent Canadians want our government run, bureaucrat ridden, inefficient, crumbling and totalitarian system to change, the majority want it to be even more "socialized."
The actual question asked here:
While emergency care, necessary treatments and trips to a family doctor are covered under the Canada Health Act, other services such as private hospital rooms, and certain medical procedures such as dentists, chiropractors and massage therapists are subject to user fees. Considering both cost and patient care factors, do you think that the current approach strikes that right balance between publicly funded and pay-per-use care, should there be more elements included in private health care, or should there be more elements included in public health care?
Again, even among Conservative party supporters, 55% want Canada's system more public, and only 12% want it more private. Canadians have had decades to see our system at work, probably most people have lived their whole lives under it, and seeing that, they would like to see their dentists and massage therapists moved under the socialist umbrella and out of the private insurance market (For dentistry I particularly agree. Basic dental care is not a cosmetic luxury). That is more than an idle endorsement in the abstract, doing any of this would probably involve an increased tax burden so we are putting our money where our mouths are.
Perhaps a bit stale, but in 2003, Gallup did a comparative poll of Canadians, Americans and Brits on health care, and here's what they found:
Pie charts of gallup results showing UK, Cdn systems more affordable
In all three countries, there is great variation of opinion within the population on both the quality of medical care and the availability of affordable healthcare. It is a testament to national health systems that people in Canada and Great Britain are significantly more satisfied with availability of affordable healthcare than their American counterparts are.
If you click through, the NHS seems to suffer in quality of care, but Canada stacks up fine and smashes the US on availability/affordability.
All of these do suffer from the flaw that presumably few of the respondents will have actual experience with the other systems in question. Not ideal, but we have this interesting poll of Americans living in Canada, which, despite the headline ("Americans in Canada prefer U.S. health care") and its statistically unscientific basis (opt-in, top heavy with 6-figure earners and masters degree holders), is an interesting look at what the best off Americans could expect to find under a single payer model:
Overall, the Americans said they preferred the U.S. system for emergency, specialist, hospital and diagnostic services, and said they preferred the timeliness and quality of the American system.
However, they also rated Canada's system high for access to drug therapy and ranked the services of family physicians almost equally in both countries. They also rated the equity and cost efficiency of Canada's system highly.
The participants were upper middle-class, mostly the kind of people likely to be well-insured in the U.S., said Lewis.
"They had high expectations of health care in Canada," he said. "I was surprised by they solidarity they showed for the Canadian system. Even their praise of the American system was qualified. They said, 'Yes, it is good. But it is expensive, and not everyone has access.' "
See the dirty secret here is that Canada has historically been notably less wealthy than the US (Nationmaster lists the US at $6K higher in GDP per capita for 2006) and there was always an element of apples to oranges in comparing our systems. We have fewer MRIs? Well, duh. Of course America should have had the better system, and at the upper end of the income spectrum, they probably do. The fact that we're ahead at all is itself an indication of how broken the US model is. Even so, the people at the top of the income pyramid in the US could expect to see their health care level decrease a bit under a single payer system, but not disastrously so. On the upside for them, people of conscience should like knowing the 47M uninsured had coverage too, and not for nothing either is this:
Meanwhile, 32 per cent also noted that while they lived in the U.S., health insurance concerns affected their decisions about where to look for a job, and 29 per cent said it influenced decisions about whether to remain at a workplace.
Even the upper middle class worries about their health care when it comes to choosing a job or a place to live. It's tempting to ignore these sorts of rich-people problems since what they could lose under a single payer system is mostly related to the hidden quota system of American health care, where the top 3/4 get much faster health care by virtue of excluding the bottom 1/4 from nearly any care. It's tremendously unjust but so broadly systemic that to the individuals benefiting from this mechanism, it is no surprise they don't really see the problem and are nervous about losing it. If you have good insurance, you just go in and get the procedures you need. It's not like you walk into the operating room and order the doctor to stop operating on someone poorer than yourself so he can treat you. The unfairness is obscured and so no one feels personally responsible for it.
So it's worth considering the benefits they'll get to blunt their opposition. It's unlikely the upper middle will ever be thrilled about UHC in America, but keeping them from vehemently opposing it is plainly important.
Overall, the picture in scientific polling is a much stronger endorsement of the Canadian model, and a stronger rebuke of the US model than found in the McClatchy survey. It really strikes me odd that right wingers fixate on attacking the Canadian model, since we do stack up so well. So be it, they're falliable and if they foolishly want to use us as their bogeyman, break out the flashlights and let's get spooky. This is one horror movie that won't qualify for a "based on a true story" tagline.
Tags: Canada, health care, public option, UHC, Single Payer, Polling, Digby, mcclatchy, (All Tags)
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Canadians Love Their Health Care and Want it to be Even More Socialized | 5 comments
by: you @ soon
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Anecdotally (4.00 / 1)
my sister who has lived in Canada for the last 35 years loves the National Health Service single-payer system both in terms of quality and speed of care. The proof though is in the fact that no party in Britain or Canada dares to oppose the health system...were it unpopular there is no question the Tories would be calling for its removal.
by: VLaszlo @ Tue Jul 21, 2009 at 20:56:35 PM CDT
by: you @ soon
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Good post (4.00 / 2)
and reflects my anecdotal experience talking to Canadians and Americans.
by: Ian Welsh @ Tue Jul 21, 2009 at 21:00:12 PM CDT
by: you @ soon
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A truly excellent and complete article. (4.00 / 1)
There is an ad running in the US, for the Republican Party or Health Insurance Companies, with a woman who says she is a Canadian, and that she spends 10's even hundreds of thousands of dollars in the US to avoid the Health Care system.
She represents that 8% and a few who would love to make money off of the need of Canadians for good Health Care. I would bet my bottom dollar that at any big enough public event you could get 50,000 thousand people to scream "Canada is our Health Care System." Or "Health must be free!!"
This not an ignored topic, this is not shallow, this wasn't a gift, it was demanded and earned. Canadians do not let people , politicians, hurt their system, even philosophical wondering about what is called "two tier" health will end your political career. 80% won't vote for you.
If they connect you to your party as if others might agree with you can sink you party for a decade. "Two tier" health means a system that has two kinds of healthcare, one for people with money and one for those without. Canadians want a system that delivers healthcare for one reason, for health of the person involved, no more, no less. There are Doctors in Canada who do cosmetic surgery and are paid to do it, by the client. But if you need plastic surgery to repair damage to achieve a normative look for example, its covered. If you need sex reassignment surgery, its covered.
Oh By the way, on abortion, Canada pays for that, its called: women's health, period. The man who fought long and hard, who drove government to recognize woman's health as a right, just got the Order of Canada. And because real sexual education is taught and for many other reasons, Canada has much much lower rates of unwanted pregnancies, and obviously fewer abortions, not more like Republican propagandists have suggested, even today.
The present Minority Conservative government promised very formally that they would not touch Canada's Health Care model in the middle of the last two elections.
Picture 30 million people, who like you like good relatives and neighbours, who, if you asked them, and only if you asked, would tell you your health system sucks, and the alternative is single payer. You can have a mixture if you need to, to see the differences, to watch what happens, like Canada did.
But the choice is either a right to health, like a right to vote, like a right to justice and a right to schools or a system that lets its people be victimized by the most powerful lobby, the richest, most manipulative con artists on the earth.
Pass this line in the Sand Bill, with the State Single Payer Amendment, start being healthy, for a change.
Very good article Daniel.
Change
"We must break up the banks and never again let them get so big that they distort our politics and take down the economy.
by: HousesofProgress @ Tue Jul 21, 2009 at 21:36:32 PM CDT
by: you @ soon
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History (0.00 / 0)
In 1972 I was in my senior year of my under-grad studies and I wrote a term paper on socialized medicine. In the paper I did a comprehensive analysis of the health care systems in Canada, Britain, Germany and the U.S.. I don't remember many of the details of that term paper but I remember the bottom line. All 3 counties with socialized medicine had impressive statistics regarding infant mortality and other metrics of good health and in these countries health care was only consuming about 3.8% of their GDP. In the U.S. the health metrics were poorer and health care was consuming over 7% of our GDP. The merits of socialized medicine were perfectly clear.
In 1972 I never would have believed that our country would remain with such a flawed system and watch the cost of health grow to over 16% of our GDP.
by: richgreer @ Wed Jul 22, 2009 at 07:33:58 AM CDT
by: you @ soon
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Otherwise click cancel.
# You must enter a subject for your comment
Dual Relatives Strong for Canadian System (4.00 / 1)
My relatives in Canada, dual US-Canada citizens all, both well off and OK (in the arts and non-profits), users of both US and Canadian citizens, all strongly support the Canadian system. They cannot believe the mendacious blather against the Canadian system that they hear from US sources.
My niece, on a highly selective fellowship in DC, found her US HMO experience disgusting. She was glad to get back to Canada. The older relatives have gone from being US conservatives to being US semi-liberals while remaining conservatives in Canada.
The term "conservative" in other developed nations does not include he nuttiness you get in the US nor does it mean letting the equivalent of Wall St run the government.
The Legalized Theft That Is High Frequency Trading
Justin Gardner
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Jul. 25 2009 - 1:39 pm | 2,357 views | 2 recommendations | 5 comments
The Legalized Theft That Is High Frequency Trading
Another day, another incredibly questionable Wall Street practice. And this one is particularly galling.
Basically, some of the stock exchanges allow companies to see trades 3 milliseconds before they hit the market. It’s called “flash” trading, and the only folks who can take advantage of such information are the ones who pay a fee (of course) and have computers powerful enough to parse the data and make automatic trades of their own before the first trades hit the market.
From NY Times:
It is called high-frequency trading — and it is suddenly one of the most talked-about and mysterious forces in the markets.
Powerful computers, some housed right next to the machines that drive marketplaces like the New York Stock Exchange, enable high-frequency traders to transmit millions of orders at lightning speed and, their detractors contend, reap billions at everyone else’s expense.
These systems are so fast they can outsmart or outrun other investors, humans and computers alike. And after growing in the shadows for years, they are generating lots of talk.
Nearly everyone on Wall Street is wondering how hedge funds and large banks like Goldman Sachs are making so much money so soon after the financial system nearly collapsed. High-frequency trading is one answer.
Now, the exchanges that take part in this practice argue that it’s about transparency, but who are they kidding? Showing a trade for 3 milliseconds only allows a computer to check it out and I think it’s pretty obvious what this was always intended to do. You think investment firms were calling for this information for a long time because they had powerful automatic trading algorithms developed that could utilize the data? Naw…
Understandably, politicians are raising their eyebrows and Chuck Schumer is already calling for a ban…
Senator Charles E. Schumer, the New York Democrat who is chairman of the Senate rules and administration committee, said in a letter to the S.E.C. Mr. Schumer wrote that he intended to introduce legislation barring the technique, if the agency failed to act.
“The hallmark of our markets are that they are open and above board and the little guy has as much of a chance as the big guy,” Mr. Schumer said in an interview. “This takes a dagger to the heart of that concept.”
Do know that this is BIG business and is said to be part of the reason why we’ve seen a 164% bump in the trading volume since 2005 and one of the reasons why a firm like Goldman Sachs continues to post profits during the downturn. In fact, firms that take part in this practice made $21 billion in profits in 2008 and high frequency trades accounted for half of their transactions.
Here’s the question: How much of the wealth we created in the past 8 years is real?
(Photo: Getty via Daylife)
Political Pulse
* My Profile
* My Headline Grabs
* My RSS Feed
Jul. 25 2009 - 1:39 pm | 2,357 views | 2 recommendations | 5 comments
The Legalized Theft That Is High Frequency Trading
Another day, another incredibly questionable Wall Street practice. And this one is particularly galling.
Basically, some of the stock exchanges allow companies to see trades 3 milliseconds before they hit the market. It’s called “flash” trading, and the only folks who can take advantage of such information are the ones who pay a fee (of course) and have computers powerful enough to parse the data and make automatic trades of their own before the first trades hit the market.
From NY Times:
It is called high-frequency trading — and it is suddenly one of the most talked-about and mysterious forces in the markets.
Powerful computers, some housed right next to the machines that drive marketplaces like the New York Stock Exchange, enable high-frequency traders to transmit millions of orders at lightning speed and, their detractors contend, reap billions at everyone else’s expense.
These systems are so fast they can outsmart or outrun other investors, humans and computers alike. And after growing in the shadows for years, they are generating lots of talk.
Nearly everyone on Wall Street is wondering how hedge funds and large banks like Goldman Sachs are making so much money so soon after the financial system nearly collapsed. High-frequency trading is one answer.
Now, the exchanges that take part in this practice argue that it’s about transparency, but who are they kidding? Showing a trade for 3 milliseconds only allows a computer to check it out and I think it’s pretty obvious what this was always intended to do. You think investment firms were calling for this information for a long time because they had powerful automatic trading algorithms developed that could utilize the data? Naw…
Understandably, politicians are raising their eyebrows and Chuck Schumer is already calling for a ban…
Senator Charles E. Schumer, the New York Democrat who is chairman of the Senate rules and administration committee, said in a letter to the S.E.C. Mr. Schumer wrote that he intended to introduce legislation barring the technique, if the agency failed to act.
“The hallmark of our markets are that they are open and above board and the little guy has as much of a chance as the big guy,” Mr. Schumer said in an interview. “This takes a dagger to the heart of that concept.”
Do know that this is BIG business and is said to be part of the reason why we’ve seen a 164% bump in the trading volume since 2005 and one of the reasons why a firm like Goldman Sachs continues to post profits during the downturn. In fact, firms that take part in this practice made $21 billion in profits in 2008 and high frequency trades accounted for half of their transactions.
Here’s the question: How much of the wealth we created in the past 8 years is real?
(Photo: Getty via Daylife)
1-Percenters Launch Attack On Health Care
1-Percenters Launch Attack On Health Care
By David Sirota
July 24, 2009 "Information Clearing House" -- - Here's a truism: The wealthiest 1 percent have never had it so good.
According to government figures, 1-percenters' share of America's total income is the highest it has been since 1929, and their tax rates are the lowest they've faced in two decades. Through bonuses, many 1-percenters will profit from the $23 trillion in bailout largesse the Treasury Department now says could be headed to financial firms.
And, most of them benefit from IRS decisions to reduce millionaire audits and collect zero taxes from the majority of major corporations.
But what really makes the ultra-wealthy so fortunate, what truly separates this moment from a run-of-the-mill Gilded Age, is the unprecedented protection the 1-percenters have bought for themselves on the most pressing issues.
To review: With 22,000 Americans dying each year because they lack health insurance, Congress is considering universal health care legislation financed by a surcharge on income above $280,000 — that is, a levy almost exclusively on 1-percenters. This surtax would graze just 5 percent of small businesses and would recoup only part of the $700 billion the 1-percenters received from the Bush tax cuts.
In fact, it is so minuscule, those making $1 million annually would pay just $9,000 more in taxes every year — or nine-tenths of 1 percent of their 12-month haul.
Nonetheless, the 1-percenters have deployed an army to destroy the initiative before it makes progress.
The foot soldiers are the Land Rover Liberals. These Democratic lawmakers secure their lefty labels by wearing pink-ribbon lapel pins and supporting good causes like abortion rights. However, being affluent and/or from affluent districts, they routinely drive their luxury cars over middle-class economic interests. Hence, this week's letter from dot-com tycoon Rep. Jared Polis, D-Boulder, Colo., and other Land Rover Liberals calling for the death of the surtax.
Echoing that demand are the Corrupt Cowboys — those like Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., who come from the heartland's culturally conservative and economically impoverished locales. These cavalrymen in both parties quietly build insurmountable campaign war chests as the biggest corporate fundraisers in Congress. At the same time, they publicly preen as jes' folks, make twangy references to "voters back home," and now promise to kill the health care surtax because they say that's what their communities want. Cash payoffs made, re-elections purchased, the absurd story somehow goes that because blue-collar constituents in Flyover America like guns and love Jesus, they must also reflexively adore politicians who defend 1-percenters' bounty.
That fantastical fairly tale, of course, couldn't exist without the Millionaire Media — the elite journalists and opinionmongers who represent corporate media conglomerates and/or are themselves extremely wealthy. Ignoring all the data about inequality, they legitimize the assertions of the 1-percenters' first two battalions, while actually claiming that America's fat cats are unfairly persecuted.
For example, Washington Post editors deride surtax proponents for allegedly believing "the rich alone can fund government." Likewise, Wall Street Journal correspondent Jonathan Weisman wonders why the surtax "soak(s) the rich" by unduly "lumping all of the problems of the finances of the United States on 1 percent of (its) households?"
And most brazenly, NBC's Meredith Vieira asks President Obama why the surtax is intent on "punishing the rich?"
For his part, Obama has responded with characteristic coolness — and a powerful counter-strike. "No, it's not punishing the rich," he said.
"If I can afford to do a little bit more so that a whole bunch of families out there have a little more security, when I already have security, that's part of being a community."
If any volley can thwart this latest attack of the 1-percenters, it is that simple idea.
# David Sirota is the bestselling author of "Hostile Takeover" (2006) and "The Uprising" (2008). Contact him at ds@davidsirota.com.
y
By David Sirota
July 24, 2009 "Information Clearing House" -- - Here's a truism: The wealthiest 1 percent have never had it so good.
According to government figures, 1-percenters' share of America's total income is the highest it has been since 1929, and their tax rates are the lowest they've faced in two decades. Through bonuses, many 1-percenters will profit from the $23 trillion in bailout largesse the Treasury Department now says could be headed to financial firms.
And, most of them benefit from IRS decisions to reduce millionaire audits and collect zero taxes from the majority of major corporations.
But what really makes the ultra-wealthy so fortunate, what truly separates this moment from a run-of-the-mill Gilded Age, is the unprecedented protection the 1-percenters have bought for themselves on the most pressing issues.
To review: With 22,000 Americans dying each year because they lack health insurance, Congress is considering universal health care legislation financed by a surcharge on income above $280,000 — that is, a levy almost exclusively on 1-percenters. This surtax would graze just 5 percent of small businesses and would recoup only part of the $700 billion the 1-percenters received from the Bush tax cuts.
In fact, it is so minuscule, those making $1 million annually would pay just $9,000 more in taxes every year — or nine-tenths of 1 percent of their 12-month haul.
Nonetheless, the 1-percenters have deployed an army to destroy the initiative before it makes progress.
The foot soldiers are the Land Rover Liberals. These Democratic lawmakers secure their lefty labels by wearing pink-ribbon lapel pins and supporting good causes like abortion rights. However, being affluent and/or from affluent districts, they routinely drive their luxury cars over middle-class economic interests. Hence, this week's letter from dot-com tycoon Rep. Jared Polis, D-Boulder, Colo., and other Land Rover Liberals calling for the death of the surtax.
Echoing that demand are the Corrupt Cowboys — those like Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., who come from the heartland's culturally conservative and economically impoverished locales. These cavalrymen in both parties quietly build insurmountable campaign war chests as the biggest corporate fundraisers in Congress. At the same time, they publicly preen as jes' folks, make twangy references to "voters back home," and now promise to kill the health care surtax because they say that's what their communities want. Cash payoffs made, re-elections purchased, the absurd story somehow goes that because blue-collar constituents in Flyover America like guns and love Jesus, they must also reflexively adore politicians who defend 1-percenters' bounty.
That fantastical fairly tale, of course, couldn't exist without the Millionaire Media — the elite journalists and opinionmongers who represent corporate media conglomerates and/or are themselves extremely wealthy. Ignoring all the data about inequality, they legitimize the assertions of the 1-percenters' first two battalions, while actually claiming that America's fat cats are unfairly persecuted.
For example, Washington Post editors deride surtax proponents for allegedly believing "the rich alone can fund government." Likewise, Wall Street Journal correspondent Jonathan Weisman wonders why the surtax "soak(s) the rich" by unduly "lumping all of the problems of the finances of the United States on 1 percent of (its) households?"
And most brazenly, NBC's Meredith Vieira asks President Obama why the surtax is intent on "punishing the rich?"
For his part, Obama has responded with characteristic coolness — and a powerful counter-strike. "No, it's not punishing the rich," he said.
"If I can afford to do a little bit more so that a whole bunch of families out there have a little more security, when I already have security, that's part of being a community."
If any volley can thwart this latest attack of the 1-percenters, it is that simple idea.
# David Sirota is the bestselling author of "Hostile Takeover" (2006) and "The Uprising" (2008). Contact him at ds@davidsirota.com.
y
Maybe this is a dumb question but... why do we even need political parties? Why don't politicians run based on the issues and not their party platform
Maybe this is a dumb question but... why do we even need political parties? Why don't politicians run based on the issues and not their party platform? (self.politics)
submitted 6 days ago by CaspianX2
For the longest time, I've felt that the two-party system is the real problem that's destroying America. Political races devolve into mudslinging contests because no one has to prove they're the best candidate for the job, they only have to prove they're better than the other guy. The two party system encourages people to wedge issues into one group or another, too - if you're pro-life, you must be for fewer gun restrictions too, right? And if you support gay marriage, you must also want decreased military spending...
I wanted a presidential candidate who would end the war on drugs... but I didn't want to vote for Ron Paul. And if I'm dissatisfied with Obama's performance, my choices are to either vote Republican or "throw my vote away" with a third-party? And that's assuming I even like any of the third-parties.
Why do we even have political parties? I thought America was all about freedom, so why is it the only valid choices I have the freedom to decide between are column A and column B? It's like telling me I have the freedom to choose any drink I want, so long as it's Coke or Pepsi (or if you're one of "those" people, you could get Shasta or R.C. cola, I guess... hippie). What if I want to drink a goddamn root beer? What if I'm one of those people that likes to go up to the soda dispenser and get a little of each flavor (I'm still making a metaphor here - in real life I think that's disgusting)?
I think Obama was on to something when he said we're not the red states of America and the blue states of America, but the United States of America, so why can't we shed our party system and just vote for the guy we think is the best person for the job, and not the guy the political party thought was the best person for the job?
If America is supposed to be truly free, why can't we be free from partisan politics? Why can't we be free from our political parties?
submitted 6 days ago by CaspianX2
For the longest time, I've felt that the two-party system is the real problem that's destroying America. Political races devolve into mudslinging contests because no one has to prove they're the best candidate for the job, they only have to prove they're better than the other guy. The two party system encourages people to wedge issues into one group or another, too - if you're pro-life, you must be for fewer gun restrictions too, right? And if you support gay marriage, you must also want decreased military spending...
I wanted a presidential candidate who would end the war on drugs... but I didn't want to vote for Ron Paul. And if I'm dissatisfied with Obama's performance, my choices are to either vote Republican or "throw my vote away" with a third-party? And that's assuming I even like any of the third-parties.
Why do we even have political parties? I thought America was all about freedom, so why is it the only valid choices I have the freedom to decide between are column A and column B? It's like telling me I have the freedom to choose any drink I want, so long as it's Coke or Pepsi (or if you're one of "those" people, you could get Shasta or R.C. cola, I guess... hippie). What if I want to drink a goddamn root beer? What if I'm one of those people that likes to go up to the soda dispenser and get a little of each flavor (I'm still making a metaphor here - in real life I think that's disgusting)?
I think Obama was on to something when he said we're not the red states of America and the blue states of America, but the United States of America, so why can't we shed our party system and just vote for the guy we think is the best person for the job, and not the guy the political party thought was the best person for the job?
If America is supposed to be truly free, why can't we be free from partisan politics? Why can't we be free from our political parties?
The gargantuan mountain of cash that separates the rich from everyone else
http://www.jmooneyham.com/the-huge-mountain-of-cash-separating-the-rich-from-everyone-else.html
Alan Grayson: "Which Foreigners Got the Fed's $500,000,000,000?" Bernanke: "I Don't Know."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0NYBTkE1yQ&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.afterdowningstreet.org%2F&feature=player_embedded
Can’t Miss Plan for Health Care Reform
user
Can’t Miss Plan for Health Care Reform
By: Jim Moss Thursday July 23, 2009 8:30 am
1) Cancel the health insurance of all our Senators and U.S. Representatives.
2) Give a debilitating disease to a member of each of their immediate families that is very expensive to treat.
3) Freeze all of their financial assets.
4) Lock them all in a room and tell them to figure out a solution to our health care crisis.
What do you think?
Can’t Miss Plan for Health Care Reform
By: Jim Moss Thursday July 23, 2009 8:30 am
1) Cancel the health insurance of all our Senators and U.S. Representatives.
2) Give a debilitating disease to a member of each of their immediate families that is very expensive to treat.
3) Freeze all of their financial assets.
4) Lock them all in a room and tell them to figure out a solution to our health care crisis.
What do you think?
tommy douglass the greatest canadien of all time
http://www.cbc.ca/greatest/top_ten/nominee/douglas-tommy.html
kucinich with philosophy is a commy or no
Kucinich: The Democrats' Plan Lets the Insurance Industry to Pick the American People's Pockets
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/7/21/as_o...
Image...
[video at link]
Welcome to Democracy Now!, Congressman Kucinich. What exactly did you get passed?
AMY GOODMAN: And explain exactly what you mean by the single-payer plan that, state by state, it could be adopted.
REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Well, Medicare is a single-payer plan. It’s the government pays the bills. Now, government doesn’t own all the hospitals under the legislation that I wrote with John Conyers, HR 676, that is co-sponsored by eighty-five members of Congress. Government would essentially be the person or the institution that pays the bills.
Right now, we have a system with 50 million people uninsured, another 50 million underinsured, where you have thousands of different insurance companies that are involved in jacking up administrative costs. One out of every three dollars goes for the activities of the for-profit system, for corporate profit, stock option, executive salary, advertising, marketing, and cost of paperwork. You eliminate that $800 billion a year in overhead, and you have enough money to be able to meet the needs of all people in this country. And when you eliminate the overhead at a state level, you can meet the needs of people of a state level.
AMY GOODMAN: And so, what is happening right now, Congressman Kucinich? The latest, the possibility that the bill will not be passed by August, which some have taken to mean it’s going to give more time for Republicans and the Blue Dog Democrats to water it down. But they’re not even with the public plan. I’d like you to explain what is being offered, even coming close to the idea of single payer.
REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Well, it’s not close to the idea of single payer. It’s mandating that people buy insurance. And it’s telling insurance companies they have to sell insurance. Well, you know who wins in that deal.
The fact of the matter is, this debate is all skewed right now. You know, there are—both political parties are in trouble on the issue of healthcare. Our political system is failing the American people, and it’s a bipartisan affair. So, what we have right now is a mishmash, which is being offered up as reform. Well, no wonder it’s in trouble from all sides.
I mean, if people were offered a clear choice of a single-payer plan or not and told what the advantages are of having the government paying the bills, eliminating the overhead, enabling all Americans to have not just basic coverage with doctor of choice, but vision care, dental care, mental healthcare, prescription drugs, long-term care, all covered, if people knew that was the choice they could have, there wouldn’t even—there wouldn’t be much of a debate at all.
But we’re falling back on old ideological arguments, when the fact of the matter is the insurance companies are running Washington and we have to break their hold. And that’s why the single-payer amendment that I offer that gives states an option is a small step in the direction of trying to give states the ability to be able to determine their own destiny, and then hopefully America will be able to see in these laboratories of states that we can have a single-payer plan that can save people money and protect people’s economic security and their health. Healthcare is a basic right. We still don’t hear of that talked about in the major debate here in Washington about the bill that is being presented.
[more at link]
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/7/21/as_o...
Image...
[video at link]
Welcome to Democracy Now!, Congressman Kucinich. What exactly did you get passed?
AMY GOODMAN: And explain exactly what you mean by the single-payer plan that, state by state, it could be adopted.
REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Well, Medicare is a single-payer plan. It’s the government pays the bills. Now, government doesn’t own all the hospitals under the legislation that I wrote with John Conyers, HR 676, that is co-sponsored by eighty-five members of Congress. Government would essentially be the person or the institution that pays the bills.
Right now, we have a system with 50 million people uninsured, another 50 million underinsured, where you have thousands of different insurance companies that are involved in jacking up administrative costs. One out of every three dollars goes for the activities of the for-profit system, for corporate profit, stock option, executive salary, advertising, marketing, and cost of paperwork. You eliminate that $800 billion a year in overhead, and you have enough money to be able to meet the needs of all people in this country. And when you eliminate the overhead at a state level, you can meet the needs of people of a state level.
AMY GOODMAN: And so, what is happening right now, Congressman Kucinich? The latest, the possibility that the bill will not be passed by August, which some have taken to mean it’s going to give more time for Republicans and the Blue Dog Democrats to water it down. But they’re not even with the public plan. I’d like you to explain what is being offered, even coming close to the idea of single payer.
REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Well, it’s not close to the idea of single payer. It’s mandating that people buy insurance. And it’s telling insurance companies they have to sell insurance. Well, you know who wins in that deal.
The fact of the matter is, this debate is all skewed right now. You know, there are—both political parties are in trouble on the issue of healthcare. Our political system is failing the American people, and it’s a bipartisan affair. So, what we have right now is a mishmash, which is being offered up as reform. Well, no wonder it’s in trouble from all sides.
I mean, if people were offered a clear choice of a single-payer plan or not and told what the advantages are of having the government paying the bills, eliminating the overhead, enabling all Americans to have not just basic coverage with doctor of choice, but vision care, dental care, mental healthcare, prescription drugs, long-term care, all covered, if people knew that was the choice they could have, there wouldn’t even—there wouldn’t be much of a debate at all.
But we’re falling back on old ideological arguments, when the fact of the matter is the insurance companies are running Washington and we have to break their hold. And that’s why the single-payer amendment that I offer that gives states an option is a small step in the direction of trying to give states the ability to be able to determine their own destiny, and then hopefully America will be able to see in these laboratories of states that we can have a single-payer plan that can save people money and protect people’s economic security and their health. Healthcare is a basic right. We still don’t hear of that talked about in the major debate here in Washington about the bill that is being presented.
[more at link]
single payer health care
The Healthcare Option the Media Doesn’t Want to Talk About
By David Swanson
The Public Record
Jul 27th, 2009
single-payerPresident Obama said last week:
“Now, the truth is that, unless you have a — what’s called a single-payer system, in which everybody is automatically covered, then you’re probably not going to reach every single individual because there’s always going to be somebody out there who thinks they’re indestructible and doesn’t want to get health care, doesn’t bother getting health care, and then, unfortunately, when they get hit by a bus, end up in the emergency room and the rest of us have to pay for it.”
Another name for “what’s called a single-payer system” would be: healthcare as a human right, not a commodity to be purchased. Many humans have this right. They just aren’t Americans.
Obama’s mention of single-payer, in passing, as something that would be better than anything else, but something that mysteriously lies out of reach, is typical of the very few mentions of single-payer healthcare in the U.S. corporate media.
I just did some searches in the Lexis-Nexis databases of major U.S. and world publications, news wire services, and TV and radio broadcast transcripts. Searching for “healthcare” in July 2009 found over 1,000 documents, the maximum number that Lexis-Nexis will display.
In fact, searching just the past two days found over 1,000 documents. Another search confirmed that this is “Michael Jackson” level coverage.
And another search confirmed that virtually none of these documents mentioned single-payer at all, much less told anyone what it was. A search for documents later than July 1 containing single-payer OR “single payer” turned up only 197 documents.
Americans have consistently told pollsters for decades that they want single-payer. But America’s government refuses to provide it, and therefore America’s state media refuses to discuss it.
Of the 197 records of the media mentioning single-payer in July, almost half were congressional records or press releases or otherwise not media reports at all. Others were articles in medical trade publications.
Even so, those articles tended to mention single-payer very briefly and dismiss it — in the unfortunate phrase used by Kaiser Health News — as “dead on arrival.” Several others were transcripts of unidentified local shows that mentioned the word in passing. Others were blurbs in local newspapers announcing events. And several were reports and columns in British and Canadian newspapers.
The Canadians, by the way, seem to be under the impression that President Obama is seeking to create single-payer healthcare. Several more documents — by far the best and most extensive U.S. coverage of single-payer — consisted of letters to the editor.
A Boston Globe editorial mentions single-payer in a list but says nothing about it. A four-sentence Associated Press report on an event mentions the word. A Washington Post column by Dana Milbank attempts to mock all humanity and somehow mentions single-payer in the process.
Several articles report on town hall forums at which people have asked President Obama why he doesn’t support single-payer. The Washington Times complained that such questions were permitted.
The Washington Post praised Obama for appearing ready for such a question and answering it “calmly.” No word on whether his answer made any sense or not.
There’s a report of an event at which the Secretary of Health and Human Services opposed single-payer. There are several reports of a press conference held by the White House Press Secretary at which someone apparently shouted out “single payer” for a laugh and got it.
There are a number of reports and transcripts that attack single-payer without explaining what it is.
Most of them attack the so-called “public option” as leading to single-payer. That is to say, the media is afraid that people will overwhelmingly prefer precisely what the media opposes, and the media opposes it precisely because people would prefer it. The public option could only lead to single-payer if everyone decided they preferred it to the high costs and poor health provided by the for-profit insurers.
The reports taking this approach include a CNBC interview in which the host makes this claim; a Washington Times column by Sen. Judd Gregg, R-New Hampshire; an Associated Press story quoting Sen. Gregg; a transcript of the Ed Schultz Show on which another Republican senator made the same claim; another MSNBC transcript with Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa; a Copley News column by Phyllis Schlafly; a Fox News interview by Sean Hannity of Louisiana’s Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal; a Fox News transcript with Rep. John Fleming, R-Louisiana; and a transcript of Chris Matthews interviewing Sen. Orin Hatch, R-Utah.
Other transcripts attack single-payer more directly, if no more substantively. Two of these are from Fox News. One is from CNN. Two are from Bloomberg TV.
There’s a short New York Times interview of Howard Dean opposing single-payer. (Dean favors a strong public option, while arguing that single-payer would infringe on the American desire for “choice”).
There’s an NPR Morning Edition transcript of Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-New York, saying he’d like single-payer but that it’s “off the table.”
There’s an NPR “Talk of the Nation” transcript that briefly mentions single-payer. There’s an NPR “Fresh Air” transcript in which Terry Gross asks a guest whether he would really prefer single-payer and the guest says “Yes, but . …”
There’s a four-sentence editorial by the Boston Globe explaining that “Harry and Louise” advertisements are false because single-payer is not under consideration. There’s a Washington Times article suggesting that Obama might move away from single-payer. Never mind that Obama has not supported it for years.
There’s a Toronto Star report on Wal-Mart’s proposal to solve the U.S. healthcare crisis. There’s a Copley News column complaining that the “Bill Moyers’ Journal” on PBS has covered single-payer.
There’s a Washington Post column by Harold Meyerson complaining, in passing, that citizens will not create a movement for single-payer, even though it was that movement that put single-payer on Bill Moyers’s program.
There are five transcripts from the Ed Schultz Show, some of them treating single-payer honestly, including an interview of Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio. There are interviews of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, by Fox News as well as Ed Schultz.
And there are reports in print. One article from McClatchy reports on a poll finding that Canadians prefer their system. A lengthy St. Petersburg Times article compares the U.S. and Canadian systems, making Canada appear the winner.
One Boston Globe column by Jonathan Cohn supports single-payer. And a short op-ed, accompanied by two opposing op-eds, in the Los Angeles Times, was written by a Brit who wants to know what in the world is wrong with single-payer. He won’t find an answer in the U.S. media, which is barely even willing to explain what single-payer is.
But an excerpt from a recent Washington Post article that did not mention single-payer may help make clear where our government and our government media are coming from:
“Private insurers have effectively engaged in rationing, so they’re doing the dirty work for everybody else,” said Jeff D. Emerson, a former health plan chief executive. “It’s a thankless job . . . but somebody has to do it or health care will be even more expensive than it is now.”
Private insurers might be better situated than the government to do the unpopular work of saying no, said Paul B. Ginsburg, president of the Center for Studying Health System Change, because they are less susceptible to political pressure.
There you have it. For-profit companies best serve the public interest precisely because they are not subject to public control.
Why? Because the public wants what is worst for the public. And how does the Washington Post know this? It has dinner with all the right people, and charges them for the privilege.
By the way, a similar search in Lexis-Nexis’ blogs database turned up another 139 reports, with much more substance and honesty. And most blogs are not included in the search engine.
David Swanson is the founder of AfterDowningStreet.org and the author of the upcoming book “Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union” by Seven Stories Press. You can pre-order it for a discount price here.
By David Swanson
The Public Record
Jul 27th, 2009
single-payerPresident Obama said last week:
“Now, the truth is that, unless you have a — what’s called a single-payer system, in which everybody is automatically covered, then you’re probably not going to reach every single individual because there’s always going to be somebody out there who thinks they’re indestructible and doesn’t want to get health care, doesn’t bother getting health care, and then, unfortunately, when they get hit by a bus, end up in the emergency room and the rest of us have to pay for it.”
Another name for “what’s called a single-payer system” would be: healthcare as a human right, not a commodity to be purchased. Many humans have this right. They just aren’t Americans.
Obama’s mention of single-payer, in passing, as something that would be better than anything else, but something that mysteriously lies out of reach, is typical of the very few mentions of single-payer healthcare in the U.S. corporate media.
I just did some searches in the Lexis-Nexis databases of major U.S. and world publications, news wire services, and TV and radio broadcast transcripts. Searching for “healthcare” in July 2009 found over 1,000 documents, the maximum number that Lexis-Nexis will display.
In fact, searching just the past two days found over 1,000 documents. Another search confirmed that this is “Michael Jackson” level coverage.
And another search confirmed that virtually none of these documents mentioned single-payer at all, much less told anyone what it was. A search for documents later than July 1 containing single-payer OR “single payer” turned up only 197 documents.
Americans have consistently told pollsters for decades that they want single-payer. But America’s government refuses to provide it, and therefore America’s state media refuses to discuss it.
Of the 197 records of the media mentioning single-payer in July, almost half were congressional records or press releases or otherwise not media reports at all. Others were articles in medical trade publications.
Even so, those articles tended to mention single-payer very briefly and dismiss it — in the unfortunate phrase used by Kaiser Health News — as “dead on arrival.” Several others were transcripts of unidentified local shows that mentioned the word in passing. Others were blurbs in local newspapers announcing events. And several were reports and columns in British and Canadian newspapers.
The Canadians, by the way, seem to be under the impression that President Obama is seeking to create single-payer healthcare. Several more documents — by far the best and most extensive U.S. coverage of single-payer — consisted of letters to the editor.
A Boston Globe editorial mentions single-payer in a list but says nothing about it. A four-sentence Associated Press report on an event mentions the word. A Washington Post column by Dana Milbank attempts to mock all humanity and somehow mentions single-payer in the process.
Several articles report on town hall forums at which people have asked President Obama why he doesn’t support single-payer. The Washington Times complained that such questions were permitted.
The Washington Post praised Obama for appearing ready for such a question and answering it “calmly.” No word on whether his answer made any sense or not.
There’s a report of an event at which the Secretary of Health and Human Services opposed single-payer. There are several reports of a press conference held by the White House Press Secretary at which someone apparently shouted out “single payer” for a laugh and got it.
There are a number of reports and transcripts that attack single-payer without explaining what it is.
Most of them attack the so-called “public option” as leading to single-payer. That is to say, the media is afraid that people will overwhelmingly prefer precisely what the media opposes, and the media opposes it precisely because people would prefer it. The public option could only lead to single-payer if everyone decided they preferred it to the high costs and poor health provided by the for-profit insurers.
The reports taking this approach include a CNBC interview in which the host makes this claim; a Washington Times column by Sen. Judd Gregg, R-New Hampshire; an Associated Press story quoting Sen. Gregg; a transcript of the Ed Schultz Show on which another Republican senator made the same claim; another MSNBC transcript with Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa; a Copley News column by Phyllis Schlafly; a Fox News interview by Sean Hannity of Louisiana’s Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal; a Fox News transcript with Rep. John Fleming, R-Louisiana; and a transcript of Chris Matthews interviewing Sen. Orin Hatch, R-Utah.
Other transcripts attack single-payer more directly, if no more substantively. Two of these are from Fox News. One is from CNN. Two are from Bloomberg TV.
There’s a short New York Times interview of Howard Dean opposing single-payer. (Dean favors a strong public option, while arguing that single-payer would infringe on the American desire for “choice”).
There’s an NPR Morning Edition transcript of Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-New York, saying he’d like single-payer but that it’s “off the table.”
There’s an NPR “Talk of the Nation” transcript that briefly mentions single-payer. There’s an NPR “Fresh Air” transcript in which Terry Gross asks a guest whether he would really prefer single-payer and the guest says “Yes, but . …”
There’s a four-sentence editorial by the Boston Globe explaining that “Harry and Louise” advertisements are false because single-payer is not under consideration. There’s a Washington Times article suggesting that Obama might move away from single-payer. Never mind that Obama has not supported it for years.
There’s a Toronto Star report on Wal-Mart’s proposal to solve the U.S. healthcare crisis. There’s a Copley News column complaining that the “Bill Moyers’ Journal” on PBS has covered single-payer.
There’s a Washington Post column by Harold Meyerson complaining, in passing, that citizens will not create a movement for single-payer, even though it was that movement that put single-payer on Bill Moyers’s program.
There are five transcripts from the Ed Schultz Show, some of them treating single-payer honestly, including an interview of Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio. There are interviews of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, by Fox News as well as Ed Schultz.
And there are reports in print. One article from McClatchy reports on a poll finding that Canadians prefer their system. A lengthy St. Petersburg Times article compares the U.S. and Canadian systems, making Canada appear the winner.
One Boston Globe column by Jonathan Cohn supports single-payer. And a short op-ed, accompanied by two opposing op-eds, in the Los Angeles Times, was written by a Brit who wants to know what in the world is wrong with single-payer. He won’t find an answer in the U.S. media, which is barely even willing to explain what single-payer is.
But an excerpt from a recent Washington Post article that did not mention single-payer may help make clear where our government and our government media are coming from:
“Private insurers have effectively engaged in rationing, so they’re doing the dirty work for everybody else,” said Jeff D. Emerson, a former health plan chief executive. “It’s a thankless job . . . but somebody has to do it or health care will be even more expensive than it is now.”
Private insurers might be better situated than the government to do the unpopular work of saying no, said Paul B. Ginsburg, president of the Center for Studying Health System Change, because they are less susceptible to political pressure.
There you have it. For-profit companies best serve the public interest precisely because they are not subject to public control.
Why? Because the public wants what is worst for the public. And how does the Washington Post know this? It has dinner with all the right people, and charges them for the privilege.
By the way, a similar search in Lexis-Nexis’ blogs database turned up another 139 reports, with much more substance and honesty. And most blogs are not included in the search engine.
David Swanson is the founder of AfterDowningStreet.org and the author of the upcoming book “Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union” by Seven Stories Press. You can pre-order it for a discount price here.
I just went to DMV, and after 3 hours no I don't want obamacare
I just went to DMV, and after 3 hours no I don't want obamacare
ratigan spitzer expose fed as ponzi scheme
http://zerohedge.blogspot.com/2009/07/ratigan-spitzer-and-toure-clarify-feds.html
the inflation lie
http://www.politicallore.com/uncategorized/the-inflation-lie-the-silent-robbery-of-americans/733
spitzer is right fed is a ponzi scheme
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAtSmR7Z-Kg
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/24/dylan-ratigan-eliot-spitz_n_244617.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/24/dylan-ratigan-eliot-spitz_n_244617.html
Friday, July 24, 2009
Thursday, July 23, 2009
jwm is a small fast window manager
jwm is a small fast window manager with almost no dependencies, which gives a win98 look with takskbar and
min all button, a small start menu, and 4 virt desktops....minimal fast and mouse based, window have stanrd
max min adn x minibutons on top right and allow drag n drop resizing
min all button, a small start menu, and 4 virt desktops....minimal fast and mouse based, window have stanrd
max min adn x minibutons on top right and allow drag n drop resizing
forth 1% the code of c for given app
1% the code
This is a provocative statement. It warrants some discussion.
C programs
I've studied many C programs in the course of writing device drivers for colorForth. Some manufacturers won't make documentation available, instead referring to Linux open source.
I must say that I'm appalled at the code I see. Because all this code suffers the same failings, I conclude it's not a sporadic problem. Apparently all these programmers have copied each others style and are content with the result: that complex applications require millions of lines of code. And that's not even counting the operating system required.
Sadly, that is not an undesirable result. Bloated code does not just keep programmers employed, but managers and whole companies, internationally. Compact code would be an economic disaster. Because of its savings in team size, development time, storage requirements and maintainance cost.
What's wrong with C programs?
Some problems are intrinsic to the C language:
It has elaborate sytnax. Rules that are supposed to promote correctness, but merely create opportunity for error.
It has considerable redundancy. This increases trivial errors that can be detected. And program size.
It's strongly typed, with a bewildering variety of types to keep straight. More errors.
As an infix language, it encourages nested parentheses. Sometimes to a ludicrous extent. They must be counted and balanced.
It's never clear how efficiently source will be translated into machine language. Constructs are often chosen because the programmer knows they're efficient. Subroutine calls are expensive.
Because of the elaborate compiler, object libraries must be maintained, distributed and linked. The only documentation usually addresses this (apparantly difficult) procedure.
Others are a matter of style:
Code is scattered in a vast heirarchy of files. You can't find a definition unless you already know where it is.
Code is indented to indicate nesting. As code is edited and processed, this cue is often lost or incorrect.
Sometimes a line of code contains only a parenthesis, or semicolon. This reduces the density of the code, and the difficulty of reading it.
There's no documentation. Except for the ubiquitous comments. These interrupt the code, further reducing density, but rarely conveying useful insight.
Names tend to be hyphenated. This makes them unique and displays their position in the heirarchy. The significant portion of a name is hard to detect, slow to read.
Constants, particularly fields within a word, are named. Even if used, the name rarely provides enough information about the function. And requires continual cross-reference to the definition.
Preoccupation with contingencies. In a sense it's admirable to consider all possibilities. But the ones that never occur are never even tested. For example, the only need for software reset is to recover from software problems.
Conditional compilation. More constants include or exclude code for particular platforms. More indentation. More difficulty fathoming which code is relevant.
Hooks for future enhancements, or abandoned features, are abundant. This is useful only in understanding the programmer's ambitions.
It is in a programmer's best interest to exaggerate the complexity of his program.
Another difficulty is the mindset that code must be portable across platforms and compatible with earlier versions of hardware/software. This is nice, but the cost is incredible. Microsoft has based a whole industry on such compatibility.
Forth
colorForth does it differently. There is no syntax, no redundancy, no typing. There are no errors that can be detected. Forth uses postfix, there are no parentheses. No indentation. Comments are deferred to the documentation. No hooks, no compatibility. Words are never hyphenated. There's no heirarchy. No files. No operating system.
Code is organized so that a block of related words fit on the screen. Names are short with a full semantic load. The definition of a word is typically 1 line. Machine code has a one-to-one correspondance with source.
An application is organized into multiple user interactions, with unique display and keypad. Each is compiled when accessed. Its code is independent, names need not be unique. A background task is always running.
Comparison
Yes, I could write a better C program that those I've seen. It wouldn't be nearly as good as Forth. I can't write an assembler program as good as Forth. No, I don't think Forth is the best possible language. Yet.
But does this add up to 1% the code? Where is the C program I've recoded? No one has paid me to do that. One difficulty is comparing my Forth with the original C. I cheat. The 1% code merely starts an argument that they're not the same.
For example, my VLSI tools take a chip from conception through testing. Perhaps 500 lines of source code. Cadence, Mentor Graphics do the same, more or less. With how much source/object code? They use schematic capture, I don't. I compute transistor temperature, they don't.
But I'm game. Give me a problem with 1,000,000 lines of C. But don't expect me to read the C, I couldn't. And don't think I'll have to write 10,000 lines of Forth. Just give me the specs of the problem, and documentation of the interface.
My Conclusion
colorForth's incredibly small applications provide new estimates of their overstated complexity.
This is a provocative statement. It warrants some discussion.
C programs
I've studied many C programs in the course of writing device drivers for colorForth. Some manufacturers won't make documentation available, instead referring to Linux open source.
I must say that I'm appalled at the code I see. Because all this code suffers the same failings, I conclude it's not a sporadic problem. Apparently all these programmers have copied each others style and are content with the result: that complex applications require millions of lines of code. And that's not even counting the operating system required.
Sadly, that is not an undesirable result. Bloated code does not just keep programmers employed, but managers and whole companies, internationally. Compact code would be an economic disaster. Because of its savings in team size, development time, storage requirements and maintainance cost.
What's wrong with C programs?
Some problems are intrinsic to the C language:
It has elaborate sytnax. Rules that are supposed to promote correctness, but merely create opportunity for error.
It has considerable redundancy. This increases trivial errors that can be detected. And program size.
It's strongly typed, with a bewildering variety of types to keep straight. More errors.
As an infix language, it encourages nested parentheses. Sometimes to a ludicrous extent. They must be counted and balanced.
It's never clear how efficiently source will be translated into machine language. Constructs are often chosen because the programmer knows they're efficient. Subroutine calls are expensive.
Because of the elaborate compiler, object libraries must be maintained, distributed and linked. The only documentation usually addresses this (apparantly difficult) procedure.
Others are a matter of style:
Code is scattered in a vast heirarchy of files. You can't find a definition unless you already know where it is.
Code is indented to indicate nesting. As code is edited and processed, this cue is often lost or incorrect.
Sometimes a line of code contains only a parenthesis, or semicolon. This reduces the density of the code, and the difficulty of reading it.
There's no documentation. Except for the ubiquitous comments. These interrupt the code, further reducing density, but rarely conveying useful insight.
Names tend to be hyphenated. This makes them unique and displays their position in the heirarchy. The significant portion of a name is hard to detect, slow to read.
Constants, particularly fields within a word, are named. Even if used, the name rarely provides enough information about the function. And requires continual cross-reference to the definition.
Preoccupation with contingencies. In a sense it's admirable to consider all possibilities. But the ones that never occur are never even tested. For example, the only need for software reset is to recover from software problems.
Conditional compilation. More constants include or exclude code for particular platforms. More indentation. More difficulty fathoming which code is relevant.
Hooks for future enhancements, or abandoned features, are abundant. This is useful only in understanding the programmer's ambitions.
It is in a programmer's best interest to exaggerate the complexity of his program.
Another difficulty is the mindset that code must be portable across platforms and compatible with earlier versions of hardware/software. This is nice, but the cost is incredible. Microsoft has based a whole industry on such compatibility.
Forth
colorForth does it differently. There is no syntax, no redundancy, no typing. There are no errors that can be detected. Forth uses postfix, there are no parentheses. No indentation. Comments are deferred to the documentation. No hooks, no compatibility. Words are never hyphenated. There's no heirarchy. No files. No operating system.
Code is organized so that a block of related words fit on the screen. Names are short with a full semantic load. The definition of a word is typically 1 line. Machine code has a one-to-one correspondance with source.
An application is organized into multiple user interactions, with unique display and keypad. Each is compiled when accessed. Its code is independent, names need not be unique. A background task is always running.
Comparison
Yes, I could write a better C program that those I've seen. It wouldn't be nearly as good as Forth. I can't write an assembler program as good as Forth. No, I don't think Forth is the best possible language. Yet.
But does this add up to 1% the code? Where is the C program I've recoded? No one has paid me to do that. One difficulty is comparing my Forth with the original C. I cheat. The 1% code merely starts an argument that they're not the same.
For example, my VLSI tools take a chip from conception through testing. Perhaps 500 lines of source code. Cadence, Mentor Graphics do the same, more or less. With how much source/object code? They use schematic capture, I don't. I compute transistor temperature, they don't.
But I'm game. Give me a problem with 1,000,000 lines of C. But don't expect me to read the C, I couldn't. And don't think I'll have to write 10,000 lines of Forth. Just give me the specs of the problem, and documentation of the interface.
My Conclusion
colorForth's incredibly small applications provide new estimates of their overstated complexity.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
A Real Win for Single-Payer Advocates
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/452493
A Real Win for Single-Payer Advocates
posted by John Nichols on 07/17/2009 @ 12:33pm
Canada did not establish its national health care program with a bold, immediate political move by the federal government.
The initial progress came at the provincial level, led by the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation's Tommy Douglas when he served from 1941 to 1960 premier of Saskatchewan. The universal, publicly-funded "single-payer" health care system that Douglas and his socialist allies developed in Saskatchewan proved to be so successful and so popular that it was eventually adopted by other provinces and, ultimately, by Canada's federal government.
For his efforts, Douglas would be hailed in a national survey as "The Greatest Canadian" of all time. But Douglas' regional initiative also offers a lesson for Americans.
Those of us who know that the only real cure for what ails the U.S. health care system is a universal public plan that provides health care for all Americans while controlling costs recognize the frustrating reality that there are many economic and political barriers to the federal action that would create a single-payer system. This makes clearing the way experimentation at the state level all the more important.
And, remarkably, the forces of real reform have won a congressional victory on that front, a victory that ought not be underestimated.
By a 25-19 vote, the House Committee on Education and Labor on Friday approved an amendment to the House's health-care reform bill allowing states to create single-payer health care systems if they so choose.
"There are many models of health care reform from which to choose around the world – the vast majority of which perform far better than ours. The one that has been the most tested here and abroad is single-payer," explained Congressman Dennis Kucinich, the Ohio Democrat who proposed the amendment. "Under a single-payer system everyone in the U.S. would get a card that would allow access to any doctor at virtually any hospital. Doctors and hospitals would continue to be privately run, but the insurance payments would be in the public hands. By getting rid of the for-profit insurance companies, we can save $400 billion per year and provide coverage for all medically necessary services for everyone in the U.S."
Votes for the amendment came from progressive Democrats who favor single-payer -- such as Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chairs Lynn Woolsey, of California, and Raul Grijalva, of Arizona -- as well as conservative Republicans who have no taste for single-payer but want states to be able to set their own agendas.
Opposition to the amendment came mainly from Democrats such as committee chair George Miller, of California, who have resisted moves to create more flexible, innovation-friendly legislation.
The Education and Labor Committee -- one of three in the House with jurisdiction over health care -- then apporved the amended America's Affordable Health Choices Act, H.R. 3200, by a vote of 26-22.
The campaign for to add the amendment was advanced by a number of groups, in particular Progressive Democratic of America, which mounted a last-minute campaign to sway Democratic members of the House committee. PDA Tim Carpenter is right when he says: "This is a victory for single-payer advocates. Our job in the ensuing weeks will be to ensure that this amendment does not get stripped from the final legislation."
And they will have powerful allies who will fight to preserve the amendment.
After the committee vote, Rose Ann DeMoro, the executive director of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, said, "This is a historic moment for patients, for American families, and for the tens of thousands of nurses and other single-payer activists from coast to coast who can now work in state capitols to pass single-payer bills, the strongest, most effective solution of all to our healthcare crisis."
De Moro gets it.
Allowing states to do what is necessary to provide high-quality yet affordable health care for all -- even as a federal plan falls short of that goal -- opens up vital new avenues for promoting, and actually implementing, single-payer systems.
A Real Win for Single-Payer Advocates
posted by John Nichols on 07/17/2009 @ 12:33pm
Canada did not establish its national health care program with a bold, immediate political move by the federal government.
The initial progress came at the provincial level, led by the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation's Tommy Douglas when he served from 1941 to 1960 premier of Saskatchewan. The universal, publicly-funded "single-payer" health care system that Douglas and his socialist allies developed in Saskatchewan proved to be so successful and so popular that it was eventually adopted by other provinces and, ultimately, by Canada's federal government.
For his efforts, Douglas would be hailed in a national survey as "The Greatest Canadian" of all time. But Douglas' regional initiative also offers a lesson for Americans.
Those of us who know that the only real cure for what ails the U.S. health care system is a universal public plan that provides health care for all Americans while controlling costs recognize the frustrating reality that there are many economic and political barriers to the federal action that would create a single-payer system. This makes clearing the way experimentation at the state level all the more important.
And, remarkably, the forces of real reform have won a congressional victory on that front, a victory that ought not be underestimated.
By a 25-19 vote, the House Committee on Education and Labor on Friday approved an amendment to the House's health-care reform bill allowing states to create single-payer health care systems if they so choose.
"There are many models of health care reform from which to choose around the world – the vast majority of which perform far better than ours. The one that has been the most tested here and abroad is single-payer," explained Congressman Dennis Kucinich, the Ohio Democrat who proposed the amendment. "Under a single-payer system everyone in the U.S. would get a card that would allow access to any doctor at virtually any hospital. Doctors and hospitals would continue to be privately run, but the insurance payments would be in the public hands. By getting rid of the for-profit insurance companies, we can save $400 billion per year and provide coverage for all medically necessary services for everyone in the U.S."
Votes for the amendment came from progressive Democrats who favor single-payer -- such as Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chairs Lynn Woolsey, of California, and Raul Grijalva, of Arizona -- as well as conservative Republicans who have no taste for single-payer but want states to be able to set their own agendas.
Opposition to the amendment came mainly from Democrats such as committee chair George Miller, of California, who have resisted moves to create more flexible, innovation-friendly legislation.
The Education and Labor Committee -- one of three in the House with jurisdiction over health care -- then apporved the amended America's Affordable Health Choices Act, H.R. 3200, by a vote of 26-22.
The campaign for to add the amendment was advanced by a number of groups, in particular Progressive Democratic of America, which mounted a last-minute campaign to sway Democratic members of the House committee. PDA Tim Carpenter is right when he says: "This is a victory for single-payer advocates. Our job in the ensuing weeks will be to ensure that this amendment does not get stripped from the final legislation."
And they will have powerful allies who will fight to preserve the amendment.
After the committee vote, Rose Ann DeMoro, the executive director of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, said, "This is a historic moment for patients, for American families, and for the tens of thousands of nurses and other single-payer activists from coast to coast who can now work in state capitols to pass single-payer bills, the strongest, most effective solution of all to our healthcare crisis."
De Moro gets it.
Allowing states to do what is necessary to provide high-quality yet affordable health care for all -- even as a federal plan falls short of that goal -- opens up vital new avenues for promoting, and actually implementing, single-payer systems.
OMG: Robert Hormats, a vice chairman of Goldman Sachs named as Obama economic adviser (nytimes.com)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/business/18bizbriefs-GOLDMANEXECU_BRF.html?_r=1
Dennis Kucinich is the only Presidential Candidate with a plan for a Universal Single Payer, NOT FOR PROFIT Healthcare system.
Universal Health Care PDF Print E-mail
Thursday, 16 November 2006
Dennis Kucinich is the only Presidential Candidate with a plan for a Universal Single Payer, NOT FOR PROFIT Healthcare system.
MEDICARE FOR ALL
The plan is embodied in HR 676 the Conyers-Kucinich bill, written by Dennis Kucinich & John Conyers
Michael Moore supports HR 676 and thanks Dennis for running for President. You can watch the video here
The plan covers all healthcare needs, including dental care, mental health care, vision care, prescription drugs, and long-term care - at NO extra cost!
Kucinich's plan, HR 676, is supported by 78 Members of Congress , more than 260 Union Locals , and 14,000 physicians and is endorsed by the New Hampshire House of Representatives.
CAST YOUR VOTE FOR HR 676
"Health care is an essential safeguard of human life and dignity and there is an obligation for society to ensure that every person be able to realize this right."
Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, Chicago Archdiocese
Our health care system is broken, and H.R. 676, the Conyers-Kucinich bill, is the only comprehensive solution to the problem. It is also the system endorsed by more than 14,000 physicians from Physicians for a National Health Program. Nearly 46 million Americans have no health care and over 40 million more have only minimal coverage. In 2005 some 41% of moderate and middle income Americans went without health care for part of the year. Even more shocking is that 53% of those earning less than $20,000 went without insurance for all of 2005. In fact, the National Academy of Science's Institute of Medicine estimates that 18,000 Americans die each year because they have no health insurance.
The American health system is quite sick. Pulitzer Prize journalists Donald Barlett and James Steele, in their stunning analysis of the health care industry, Critical Condition (2006 Broadway Books), insist that "... U.S. health care is second-rate at the start of the twenty-first century and destined to get a lot worse and much more expensive." Consider the following facts from Tom Daschle's article for the Center for American Progress: "Paying More but Getting Less: Myths and the Global Case for U.S. Health Reform":
* Americans are The Healthiest People in the World.
FACT: Citizens of 34 nations live longer than Americans.
* The U.S. is the Best Place to Get Sick.
FACT: The World Health Organization ranked the U.S. 37th in the world for health system performance. Countries like Australia and the United Kingdom rank above the U.S. Americans have lower odds of surviving colorectal cancer and childhood leukemia than Canadians who do have national health care. Americans also experience greater problems in coordination of care than the previously mentioned countries and New Zealand.
* Covering All Americans Will Lead to Rationing.
FACT: Same-day access to primary-care physicians in the U.S. (33%) is far less available than in the United Kingdom (41%), Australia (54%) and New Zealand (60%). Per capita spending for health care averaged $2,696 in countries without waiting lists and $5,267 in the U.S.
* Global Competitiveness is Hampered in Comprehensive System.
FACT: "Health care costs are not just a burden and barrier to care for individuals; they are taking a heavy toll on American businesses." The strain on employers in 2005 was staggering. "The average total premiums for an employer-based family plan was $9,979 in 2005 ..." Most of our competitors in the world markets finance their systems outside corporate taxes and employer mandates. Without Medicare for Everyone, the U.S. will continue to hemorrhage jobs.
* We Cannot Afford to Cover All Americans.
FACT: We already spend enough to have universal health care. "The truth is, we cannot afford to not reform the health system." We spend about 50% more than the next most expensive nation and nearly twice per person what the Canadians do. On May 1, 2006 Paul Krugman explained in Death by Insurance how incredibly wasteful the current system is. The doctor he referenced has two full-time staff members for billing, and two secretaries spend half their time collecting insurance information on the 301 different private plans they deal with. This type of waste is easily 20%. Also consider that 98% of Medicare funds are spent on medical care.
IMPORTANT: The hackneyed -- and inaccurate -- mantra of Republicans when universal health care is introduced is to blame trial lawyers and malpractice cases for our lack of national health care. In fact, 0.46% of our total health spending is spent on awards, legal costs, and underwriting costs -- about the same as Canada and the United Kingdom and about the same amount we spend on dog and cat food each year. While "defensive medicine" may drive up the price, it hardly accounts for our stunning health care costs. The belief that citizens should give up their right to fair legal redress for legally proven medical mistakes in exchange for lower health care costs rings as true as the promise that if we must give up our civil rights to be safe from terrorists.
Even those with coverage too often pay exorbitant rates. The current profit-driven system, dominated by private insurance firms and their bureaucracies, has failed.
We must establish streamlined national health insurance, "Enhanced Medicare for Everyone." It would be publicly financed health care, privately delivered, and will put patients and doctors back in control of the system. Coverage will be more complete than private insurance plans; encourage prevention; and include prescription drugs, dental care, mental health care, and alternative and complementary medicine.
Perhaps the clearest and most eloquent explanation of the Conyers-Kucinich National Health Insurance Bill was given on February 4, 2003, in Washington, D.C., by Dr. Marcia Angell in introducing H.R. 676. Backed by over 14,000 doctors, this is the future of American medicine.
"We are here today to introduce a national health insurance program. Such a program is no longer optional; it's necessary.
"Americans have the most expensive health care system in the world. We spend about twice as much per person as other developed nations, and that gap is growing. That's not because we are sicker or more demanding (Canadians, for example, see their doctors more often and spend more time in the hospital). And it's not because we get better results. By the usual measures of health (life expectancy, infant mortality, immunization rates), we do worse than most other developed countries. Furthermore, we are the only developed nation that does not provide comprehensive health care to all its citizens. Some 42 million Americans are uninsured (nearly 46 million today -- updated figure) -- disproportionately the sick, the poor, and minorities -- and most of the rest of us are underinsured. In sum, our health care system is outrageously expensive, yet inadequate. Why? The only plausible explanation is that there's something about our system -- about the way we finance and deliver health care -- that's enormously inefficient. The failures of the system were partly masked during the economic boom of the 1990s, but now they stand starkly exposed. There is no question that with the deepening recession and rising unemployment, in the words of John Breaux, "The system is collapsing around us."
"The underlying problem is that we treat health care like a market commodity instead of a social service. Health care is targeted not to medical need, but to the ability to pay. Markets are good for many things, but they are not a good way to distribute health care. To understand what's happening, let's look at how the health care market works ... "
"Mainstream" writers like Ph. D. economist and columnist for the New York Times Paul Krugman now agree with those doctors and Dennis that "covering everyone under Medicare would actually be significantly cheaper than our current system." They all recognize that we already spend enough to provide national health care to all but lack the political courage to make the tough decision that doctors, nurses, and medical professionals must run our health care system -- not "for-profit" insurance companies, who make money by denying health care.
It is time to recognize that all the civilized countries have a solution that we must adapt to this country. American businesses can no longer be competitive shouldering the entire cost of health care. Health care is a right that all Americans deserve.
Thursday, 16 November 2006
Dennis Kucinich is the only Presidential Candidate with a plan for a Universal Single Payer, NOT FOR PROFIT Healthcare system.
MEDICARE FOR ALL
The plan is embodied in HR 676 the Conyers-Kucinich bill, written by Dennis Kucinich & John Conyers
Michael Moore supports HR 676 and thanks Dennis for running for President. You can watch the video here
The plan covers all healthcare needs, including dental care, mental health care, vision care, prescription drugs, and long-term care - at NO extra cost!
Kucinich's plan, HR 676, is supported by 78 Members of Congress , more than 260 Union Locals , and 14,000 physicians and is endorsed by the New Hampshire House of Representatives.
CAST YOUR VOTE FOR HR 676
"Health care is an essential safeguard of human life and dignity and there is an obligation for society to ensure that every person be able to realize this right."
Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, Chicago Archdiocese
Our health care system is broken, and H.R. 676, the Conyers-Kucinich bill, is the only comprehensive solution to the problem. It is also the system endorsed by more than 14,000 physicians from Physicians for a National Health Program. Nearly 46 million Americans have no health care and over 40 million more have only minimal coverage. In 2005 some 41% of moderate and middle income Americans went without health care for part of the year. Even more shocking is that 53% of those earning less than $20,000 went without insurance for all of 2005. In fact, the National Academy of Science's Institute of Medicine estimates that 18,000 Americans die each year because they have no health insurance.
The American health system is quite sick. Pulitzer Prize journalists Donald Barlett and James Steele, in their stunning analysis of the health care industry, Critical Condition (2006 Broadway Books), insist that "... U.S. health care is second-rate at the start of the twenty-first century and destined to get a lot worse and much more expensive." Consider the following facts from Tom Daschle's article for the Center for American Progress: "Paying More but Getting Less: Myths and the Global Case for U.S. Health Reform":
* Americans are The Healthiest People in the World.
FACT: Citizens of 34 nations live longer than Americans.
* The U.S. is the Best Place to Get Sick.
FACT: The World Health Organization ranked the U.S. 37th in the world for health system performance. Countries like Australia and the United Kingdom rank above the U.S. Americans have lower odds of surviving colorectal cancer and childhood leukemia than Canadians who do have national health care. Americans also experience greater problems in coordination of care than the previously mentioned countries and New Zealand.
* Covering All Americans Will Lead to Rationing.
FACT: Same-day access to primary-care physicians in the U.S. (33%) is far less available than in the United Kingdom (41%), Australia (54%) and New Zealand (60%). Per capita spending for health care averaged $2,696 in countries without waiting lists and $5,267 in the U.S.
* Global Competitiveness is Hampered in Comprehensive System.
FACT: "Health care costs are not just a burden and barrier to care for individuals; they are taking a heavy toll on American businesses." The strain on employers in 2005 was staggering. "The average total premiums for an employer-based family plan was $9,979 in 2005 ..." Most of our competitors in the world markets finance their systems outside corporate taxes and employer mandates. Without Medicare for Everyone, the U.S. will continue to hemorrhage jobs.
* We Cannot Afford to Cover All Americans.
FACT: We already spend enough to have universal health care. "The truth is, we cannot afford to not reform the health system." We spend about 50% more than the next most expensive nation and nearly twice per person what the Canadians do. On May 1, 2006 Paul Krugman explained in Death by Insurance how incredibly wasteful the current system is. The doctor he referenced has two full-time staff members for billing, and two secretaries spend half their time collecting insurance information on the 301 different private plans they deal with. This type of waste is easily 20%. Also consider that 98% of Medicare funds are spent on medical care.
IMPORTANT: The hackneyed -- and inaccurate -- mantra of Republicans when universal health care is introduced is to blame trial lawyers and malpractice cases for our lack of national health care. In fact, 0.46% of our total health spending is spent on awards, legal costs, and underwriting costs -- about the same as Canada and the United Kingdom and about the same amount we spend on dog and cat food each year. While "defensive medicine" may drive up the price, it hardly accounts for our stunning health care costs. The belief that citizens should give up their right to fair legal redress for legally proven medical mistakes in exchange for lower health care costs rings as true as the promise that if we must give up our civil rights to be safe from terrorists.
Even those with coverage too often pay exorbitant rates. The current profit-driven system, dominated by private insurance firms and their bureaucracies, has failed.
We must establish streamlined national health insurance, "Enhanced Medicare for Everyone." It would be publicly financed health care, privately delivered, and will put patients and doctors back in control of the system. Coverage will be more complete than private insurance plans; encourage prevention; and include prescription drugs, dental care, mental health care, and alternative and complementary medicine.
Perhaps the clearest and most eloquent explanation of the Conyers-Kucinich National Health Insurance Bill was given on February 4, 2003, in Washington, D.C., by Dr. Marcia Angell in introducing H.R. 676. Backed by over 14,000 doctors, this is the future of American medicine.
"We are here today to introduce a national health insurance program. Such a program is no longer optional; it's necessary.
"Americans have the most expensive health care system in the world. We spend about twice as much per person as other developed nations, and that gap is growing. That's not because we are sicker or more demanding (Canadians, for example, see their doctors more often and spend more time in the hospital). And it's not because we get better results. By the usual measures of health (life expectancy, infant mortality, immunization rates), we do worse than most other developed countries. Furthermore, we are the only developed nation that does not provide comprehensive health care to all its citizens. Some 42 million Americans are uninsured (nearly 46 million today -- updated figure) -- disproportionately the sick, the poor, and minorities -- and most of the rest of us are underinsured. In sum, our health care system is outrageously expensive, yet inadequate. Why? The only plausible explanation is that there's something about our system -- about the way we finance and deliver health care -- that's enormously inefficient. The failures of the system were partly masked during the economic boom of the 1990s, but now they stand starkly exposed. There is no question that with the deepening recession and rising unemployment, in the words of John Breaux, "The system is collapsing around us."
"The underlying problem is that we treat health care like a market commodity instead of a social service. Health care is targeted not to medical need, but to the ability to pay. Markets are good for many things, but they are not a good way to distribute health care. To understand what's happening, let's look at how the health care market works ... "
"Mainstream" writers like Ph. D. economist and columnist for the New York Times Paul Krugman now agree with those doctors and Dennis that "covering everyone under Medicare would actually be significantly cheaper than our current system." They all recognize that we already spend enough to provide national health care to all but lack the political courage to make the tough decision that doctors, nurses, and medical professionals must run our health care system -- not "for-profit" insurance companies, who make money by denying health care.
It is time to recognize that all the civilized countries have a solution that we must adapt to this country. American businesses can no longer be competitive shouldering the entire cost of health care. Health care is a right that all Americans deserve.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
better have fucked a lot of nameless faces than having loved a lot
better have fucked a lot of nameless faces than having loved a lot
GIO KEEPIN IT REAL
1: 11:50:45 PM) 1: rik say he bang stripper sunday
(11:50:46 PM) 1: lol
(11:51:05 PM) 2: did he pay with amex or mastercard ?
(11:51:57 PM) 1: [about rik][
(11:52:05 PM) 1: lol
(11:52:14 PM) 1: KEEPIN IT REAL
(11:50:46 PM) 1: lol
(11:51:05 PM) 2: did he pay with amex or mastercard ?
(11:51:57 PM) 1: [about rik][
(11:52:05 PM) 1: lol
(11:52:14 PM) 1: KEEPIN IT REAL
better have fucked a lot of nameless faces than having loved a lot
(11:47:17 PM) 1: better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved atoll!!!
(11:47:24 PM) 1: screaming baby next apartmetn over
(11:47:32 PM) 1: isnt kid bedtime liek 7pm?
(11:47:36 PM) 2: who says that shit ?
(11:47:54 PM) 1: its like a classic saying
(11:48:03 PM) 2: bs
(11:48:06 PM) 1: perhaps shakespere
(11:48:35 PM) 2: better have fucked a lot of nameless faces than having loved a lot
(11:48:41 PM) 1: LOl
(11:48:43 PM) 1: LOL
(11:48:44 PM) 1: LOL
(11:48:45 PM) 1: LOL
(11:48:49 PM) 1: ROTFLMAO
(11:47:24 PM) 1: screaming baby next apartmetn over
(11:47:32 PM) 1: isnt kid bedtime liek 7pm?
(11:47:36 PM) 2: who says that shit ?
(11:47:54 PM) 1: its like a classic saying
(11:48:03 PM) 2: bs
(11:48:06 PM) 1: perhaps shakespere
(11:48:35 PM) 2: better have fucked a lot of nameless faces than having loved a lot
(11:48:41 PM) 1: LOl
(11:48:43 PM) 1: LOL
(11:48:44 PM) 1: LOL
(11:48:45 PM) 1: LOL
(11:48:49 PM) 1: ROTFLMAO
Why the fuck does fed fedn off congression skepticism? who the f is in control here?
This is just crazy arrogance!!
How the fuck cna the fed fend of congress? Who the fuck does the fed answer to ? What the fuck!!1 You stupid democrats are giving power to evil fuckers!!
The fed is illegal!! congress can't give rights to counterfiet money to a bank not under voter control!!! unconstitutional as HELL!!
How the fuck cna the fed fend of congress? Who the fuck does the fed answer to ? What the fuck!!1 You stupid democrats are giving power to evil fuckers!!
The fed is illegal!! congress can't give rights to counterfiet money to a bank not under voter control!!! unconstitutional as HELL!!
The fed fucked up the economy and now wants supercop role? expanded power?
Bernanke Says Fed Can Take on Supercop Role
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 11:55 AM
Article Font Size
WASHINGTON -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Tuesday fended off congressional skepticism about expanding the Fed's duties to police big financial companies given the central bank's failure to catch problems that led to the financial crisis.
Bernanke also faced some grilling from the House Financial Services Committee about taxpayer bailouts of financial companies, slow moving efforts to curb home foreclosures and concerns about the Fed's track record in protecting consumers from abusive practices from lenders, credit card companies and other financial service providers.
"The Fed has made some big mistakes," said the panel's highest-ranking Republican, Spencer Bachus of Alabama. Letting the Fed become the financial supercop would be "just inviting a false sense of security" that would be shattered at taxpayers' expense, he warned.
Bernanke argued that the Obama administration's proposal would be a "modest reorientation" of the Fed's powers, not a great expansion of them.
The Fed chief also sought to beat back an administration proposal that would create a new consumer protection regulator for financial services and strip some of those duties from the central bank.
Consumer groups and lawmakers have blamed the Fed for not cracking down early on dubious mortgages practices that fed the housing boom and figured into its collapse. Later this week, the Fed will issue a proposal boosting disclosures on mortgages and home equity lines of credit. It also will include new rules governing the compensation of mortgage originators.
Bernanke urged Congress to keep proposals to audit the Fed away from monetary policy duties. "A perceived loss of monetary policy independence could raise fears about future inflation," he warned.
Bernanke's term expires early next year, and President Barack Obama will have to decide whether to reappoint him. The Fed chief's innovative policies have been credited with pulling the economy from the edge of the abyss last year. But those actions also have touched off criticism about putting taxpayers at risk and whether the government should be cleaning up Wall Street messes.
Bernanke sought to assure investors and Congress that the Fed will be able to reel in its extraordinary economic stimulus and prevent a flare up of inflation when the recovery is more firmly rooted.
Any such steps will be far off in the future and the central bank's focus remains "fostering economic recovery," he said.
To that end, Bernanke again pledged to keep its key bank lending rate at a record low near zero for an "extended period." Economists predict rates will stay at record lows through the rest of this year.
Laying out a plan now to unwind the Fed's stimulus may give Bernanke more leeway to hold rates at record lows to brace the economy. That's because doing so could tamp down investors' fears that the Fed's aggressive actions to lift the country out of its longest recession since World War II could spur inflation later on.
"It is important to assure the public and the markets that the extraordinary policy measures we have taken in response to the financial crisis and the recession can be withdrawn in a smooth and timely manner as needed, thereby avoiding the risk that policy stimulus could lead to a future rise in inflation," Bernanke said. "We are confident that we have the necessary tools to implement that strategy when appropriate."
To revive the economy, the Fed has plowed trillions into the financial system in an effort to drive down rates on mortgages and other consumer debt. It also has created programs to bust through credit clogs, a key ingredient to turning the economy around.
When the time comes, the Fed will need to soak up that money.
Besides raising its key bank lending rate, the Fed can raise the rate it pays banks on reserve balances held at the central bank, Bernanke said. That would give banks an incentive to keep their money parked there, rather having it flow back into the financial system, where it can stoke inflationary pressures. The Fed also can drain money from the financial system by selling securities from its portfolio with an agreement to buy them back at a later date or it can sell securities outright.
Steering the economy from recession to recovery will be a delicate move for Bernanke _ economically and politically.
On the economic front, Bernanke repeated the Fed's forecast that the economy should start growing again in the second half of this year, but he warned growth would be slight, leading to higher unemployment.
Despite some improvements _ including a stabilization in consumer spending and moderating declines in housing activity _ the economy remains vulnerable, he said.
"Job insecurity, together with declines in home values and tight credit, is likely to limit gains in consumer spending," Bernanke said. "The possibility that the recent stabilization in household spending will prove transient is an important downside risk to the outlook."
The nation's unemployment rate climbed to a 26-year high of 9.5 percent in June. The Fed says it could rise as high as 10.1 percent this year, and stay elevated into 2011. The post-World War II high was 10.8 percent at the end of 1982, when the country had suffered through a severe recession.
Expectations for a lethargic recovery should keep a lid on inflation this year, Bernanke said. With consumers likely to stay cautious amid rising unemployment, companies won't be able to jack up prices.
© 2009 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Tuesday, July 21, 2009 11:55 AM
Article Font Size
WASHINGTON -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Tuesday fended off congressional skepticism about expanding the Fed's duties to police big financial companies given the central bank's failure to catch problems that led to the financial crisis.
Bernanke also faced some grilling from the House Financial Services Committee about taxpayer bailouts of financial companies, slow moving efforts to curb home foreclosures and concerns about the Fed's track record in protecting consumers from abusive practices from lenders, credit card companies and other financial service providers.
"The Fed has made some big mistakes," said the panel's highest-ranking Republican, Spencer Bachus of Alabama. Letting the Fed become the financial supercop would be "just inviting a false sense of security" that would be shattered at taxpayers' expense, he warned.
Bernanke argued that the Obama administration's proposal would be a "modest reorientation" of the Fed's powers, not a great expansion of them.
The Fed chief also sought to beat back an administration proposal that would create a new consumer protection regulator for financial services and strip some of those duties from the central bank.
Consumer groups and lawmakers have blamed the Fed for not cracking down early on dubious mortgages practices that fed the housing boom and figured into its collapse. Later this week, the Fed will issue a proposal boosting disclosures on mortgages and home equity lines of credit. It also will include new rules governing the compensation of mortgage originators.
Bernanke urged Congress to keep proposals to audit the Fed away from monetary policy duties. "A perceived loss of monetary policy independence could raise fears about future inflation," he warned.
Bernanke's term expires early next year, and President Barack Obama will have to decide whether to reappoint him. The Fed chief's innovative policies have been credited with pulling the economy from the edge of the abyss last year. But those actions also have touched off criticism about putting taxpayers at risk and whether the government should be cleaning up Wall Street messes.
Bernanke sought to assure investors and Congress that the Fed will be able to reel in its extraordinary economic stimulus and prevent a flare up of inflation when the recovery is more firmly rooted.
Any such steps will be far off in the future and the central bank's focus remains "fostering economic recovery," he said.
To that end, Bernanke again pledged to keep its key bank lending rate at a record low near zero for an "extended period." Economists predict rates will stay at record lows through the rest of this year.
Laying out a plan now to unwind the Fed's stimulus may give Bernanke more leeway to hold rates at record lows to brace the economy. That's because doing so could tamp down investors' fears that the Fed's aggressive actions to lift the country out of its longest recession since World War II could spur inflation later on.
"It is important to assure the public and the markets that the extraordinary policy measures we have taken in response to the financial crisis and the recession can be withdrawn in a smooth and timely manner as needed, thereby avoiding the risk that policy stimulus could lead to a future rise in inflation," Bernanke said. "We are confident that we have the necessary tools to implement that strategy when appropriate."
To revive the economy, the Fed has plowed trillions into the financial system in an effort to drive down rates on mortgages and other consumer debt. It also has created programs to bust through credit clogs, a key ingredient to turning the economy around.
When the time comes, the Fed will need to soak up that money.
Besides raising its key bank lending rate, the Fed can raise the rate it pays banks on reserve balances held at the central bank, Bernanke said. That would give banks an incentive to keep their money parked there, rather having it flow back into the financial system, where it can stoke inflationary pressures. The Fed also can drain money from the financial system by selling securities from its portfolio with an agreement to buy them back at a later date or it can sell securities outright.
Steering the economy from recession to recovery will be a delicate move for Bernanke _ economically and politically.
On the economic front, Bernanke repeated the Fed's forecast that the economy should start growing again in the second half of this year, but he warned growth would be slight, leading to higher unemployment.
Despite some improvements _ including a stabilization in consumer spending and moderating declines in housing activity _ the economy remains vulnerable, he said.
"Job insecurity, together with declines in home values and tight credit, is likely to limit gains in consumer spending," Bernanke said. "The possibility that the recent stabilization in household spending will prove transient is an important downside risk to the outlook."
The nation's unemployment rate climbed to a 26-year high of 9.5 percent in June. The Fed says it could rise as high as 10.1 percent this year, and stay elevated into 2011. The post-World War II high was 10.8 percent at the end of 1982, when the country had suffered through a severe recession.
Expectations for a lethargic recovery should keep a lid on inflation this year, Bernanke said. With consumers likely to stay cautious amid rising unemployment, companies won't be able to jack up prices.
© 2009 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Print Page | Forward Page | E-mail Us
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