tmh711

What is up with the banks and the rest of the financial industry? The people running this system remind me of gangsters who manage to walk out of the courthouse with a suspended sentence and can't wait to get back to their nefarious activities.

These malefactors of great wealth (thank you, Teddy) developed hideously destructive credit policies and took insane risks that hurt millions of American families and nearly wrecked the economy. Then they were bailed out with hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars, money that came from the very people victimized by the industry's outlandish practices.

Now the industry is fighting against creation of an agency that would protect taxpayers and ordinary consumers from a similarly devastating onslaught in the future. And at the same time they are scrambling to raise credit card interest rates and all manner of exploitive fees to build a brand new superstructure of questionable profits on the backs of the taxpayers who came to their rescue.

We're reaching a whole new level of chutzpah here.

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But wait, there's more ... go see!

The American economy remains in dire straits, with one worker in six unemployed or underemployed. Yet Goldman Sachs just reported record quarterly profits - and it's preparing to hand out huge bonuses, comparable to what it was paying before the crisis. What does this contrast tell us?

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Read on. But it brings two questions, again, to my mind.

These are "conservative values" in action, this story so ...

1) Does anyone really wonder what's wrong with our country? Why our future is in doubt? Why we are in the mess we are in?

Goldman Sachs and their "kind" have much to do with the end of America, do not doubt this. Creative parasitic finance for short term gains, extreme excess, greed run amuck ... it is unsustainable and unstoppable.

2) Why are their conservatives other than the very rich?

Because they are led by carrots ... ignorant and obsessed with social and fear socialism distractions which are orchestrated by these same crooks running our country into the ground. Do you really think any of these pricks in power who talk about social "values" or socialism really give a shit about any of that? A few probably do, but the rhetoric against socialism is really the rhetoric to scare the masses into allowing the Goldman Sachs criminals to continue their raping of the country into perpetuity.

And it works, it works very well.

Health costs in the United States this year will be about $2.5 trillion-nearly 17 percent of the economy.

The United States spends far more on health care than any other nation, 50 percent more than the second highest spender and about twice as high as the average for other developed countries.

Overall health outcomes in the United States lag behind those achieved in other countries.

Consistent with the per capita figures, many researchers studying the nature of U.S. health expenditures feel that 20 percent of our expenditures do not contribute to better health.

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So what's the debate? Our shit's broken and expensive.

A public option is part of the solution. Do not believe the GOP's hype, it's all bullshit.

They say:

1) It will reduce the quality because it will pay welfare prices and good doctors won't accept those amounts.

Naw ... the plan will pay a fair and reasonable amount acceptable to the market, albeit it will be, and SHOULD BE, less than now. It must be fair and reasonable because if it under pays _to much_ then there will be an outflux of doctors and the medical field could crash. They won't let that happen.

2) It'll run private insurance out of business.

Naw .... that's REALLY crap and spoken from the self-interest of lobbyist-paid political hacks who want to maintain current PROFIT levels. Insurance really is the biggest part of our problem with healthcare! Any who "can't" compete, and remain viable, are either very poor at their business or overly greedy and unwilling.

3) It will cost 1.2 Trillion dollars of "taxpayer" money!

Yes, it very well might. But, "taxpayers" are currently spending that on healthcare anyway as part of the GDP ... can you say 2.5 TRILLION dollars this year on healthcare? The idea is to shift some of hat to the government, which means shifting the burden of paying what is essentially a similar amount to everyone, rather than only some while ensuring everyone. It broadens the base of support for all. Sounds great. But it still must be paid for .... it will be, one way or another, but it should still reduce cost per capita (although maybe not for you and me).

4) The rich are getting a tax increase and that will affect small business.

Whatever ... I still don't make the connection between the "super rich" and small business. And, I personally have little sympathy for the top 1,2,3% of incomes earners .... they are mostly super-rich off the backs of the masses anyway. They can lose 10% additional taxes and remain WELL above my living standard.

4a) Oh, but when did we start taxing "accomplishment?"

More stupid shit .... but I'll entertain it ... how about when the "accomplished" began to dismantle our nation through their greed? How about some of that "country first" attitude from the top? How about ... it probably won't hurt them as much as they want us to believe because a likely scenario is this ... they get taxed more, so they become more creative to hide wealth OR increase what the rest of us pay into their coffers by affluent-created-and-nurtured inflation?

So, for me ... affluent-created-and-nurtured inflation is probably my greatest fear. There is a line in America. They tell us "all boats raise with the tide" but what is true is this line is a standard of living maintained by the "affluent" and no matter the laws that are passed, that line is maintained, across the globe. The tide only changes for the other 90% of us and our rise and fall is all dictated and orchestrated BY the TOP 10%. If you don't think this is basically true, you are in la la land.

(10% being more or less, but is my created generality for illustration, it might be 26%)

But have no doubts, there is a line.

But we aren't allowed to know who is really on the other side. All "we" know is it is not us.

You can't judge a judge by her cover.

Despite the best efforts of Republicans to root out any sign that Sonia Sotomayor has emotions that color her views on the law, the Bronx Bomber kept a robotic mask in place.

A wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not know that a gaggle of white Republican men afraid of extinction are out to trip her up.

After all, these guys have never needed to speak inspirational words to others like them, as Sotomayor has done. They've had codes, handshakes and clubs to do that.
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Tell it Maureen!!

Brilliant! Matt Taibbi is a great writer and investigator. I believe ever word of this story.

WAY over the top.

There are not words to describe how over played, over done, and absurd the coverage has been. I did not even turn on my TV yesterday during the memorial coverage.

As a person, I am sorry he died so young. As a child molester, which I fear he was, I do not miss him. As a one of the greatest 20th century figures, I say bullshit.

As an American, interested in our potential demise, I can't fathom the interest in so much bullshit coverage. But, Ted Koppel said it right on NPR Monday night (Talk of the Nation), "Readers, listeners, viewers... When the numbers go up, so does income. It was true 80 years ago. It's true now."

And that, dear friends, short term profits, is the soul of America. All we are is a short term profit motivated society. Nothing else matters and everything has that as its underlying motive ... all business, religion, everything. Not profits, mind you, SHORT-TERM profits, at all costs.

Today's America, on the way to existence only in the history books, just another failed state. I wonder what the new America will look like in say 100-150 years. Socialist? Speaking Chinese? A Latin state? Or maybe it will break up into several smaller countries ... I think that is the most likely scenario.

Awesome! Maureen ROCKS!!

QUOTE:

Sarah wanted everyone to know that she's not having fun and people are being mean to her and she doesn't feel like finishing her first term as governor.

She can hunt wolves from the air and field-dress a moose, but she fears being a lame duck? Some brickbats over her ethics and diva turns as John McCain's running mate, and that dewy skin turns awfully thin.

UNQUOTE

And so on .... great short read. Maureen nailed it!

Thoughts on Health Care "Reform"

((((FROM THE RIGHT - NOTE THE ABSENSE OF SUBSTANCE AND THE PRESENCE OF FEAR!!))))

One of my law partners asked me yesterday which of the Democrats' current initiatives is worse, the tax on carbon or the health care "public option," otherwise known as socialized medicine. I replied unhesitatingly that socialized medicine is much worse. Carbon tax-and-trade can rather easily be repealed once people realize what a dumb idea it is. However, once our health care system has been destroyed and replaced with "single payer" socialized medicine, there is no going back.

My friend Bob Cunningham offers these observations on the Democrats' plan:

[I]n fact, having the public "option" crowd out private insurance will result in a monopsony not a monopoly....i.e., one buyer rather than one seller.

This is, of course, the whole point of the plan... constructively, a single payer system which is, by definition, a monopsony which will exercise monopsony purchasing power....in effect confiscating as much of the incomes of providers as it can get away with...and managing the resulting supply shortage by its complementary monopoly position as a seller (or provider) of insurance to the public....only one place to go on either side of the trade....nice work if you can get it.

What is being overlooked this time around compared to 1993 is this: to prevent "leakage" from the system, draining of supply to other providers of insurance/purchasers of health care services...the "public option" has to effectively outlaw them. The mechanisms will be various and include provisions in law such as a prohibition on "topping off" fees paid independently by patients to physicians or hospitals above the public option's reimbursement rates to get better service or, indeed, any service at all in some circumstances (already in Medicare, I believe). A prohibition against taking private patients if a provider accepts ANY public patients...it's an all or none situation...unless your entire practice is exclusively private, you must accept the government's terms and conditions and no others. Severe penalties for the economic "crime," probably deemed to be medical fraud, of engaging in free market medicine, for violators. Private provision and private insurance is all but forbidden in Canada (despite the provincial court decision a few years ago) and that is where we would be headed, too.

Otherwise....you get a two-tier system...wealthy people will pay their health care tax but then just opt out of the system...analogous to public schools vs. private schools.....a very few health care providers will cater to them and not need the public option...they would then "disproportionately" "consume" medical "resources" and the best resources...but only a very, very few....and there will be nowhere to hide...no suburban school district to flee to that is the equivalent of private school. So that's how Bill and Hillary would avoid standing in that line at the clinic. And why it is ESSENTIAL that all public employees and those on public pensions be required to participate in the public option...make Congress have the exact same requirements as everyone else.

That, of course, won't happen. Our would-be masters have no intention of relying on hideously substandard socialized medicine--that's for those who are without influence in the Democratic Party. In what many have viewed as a watershed moment, Barack Obama, during the ABC News infomercial last night, refused to commit to treating his own family under the "public option," insisting that he "always want[s] them to get the very best care." Well, sure, so do we all. The difference is, Barack is special. He gets to write his own exception into the statute, along with Democrats in Congress.

Opinions vary as to whether our political system is temporarily out of whack or pushing-up-daisies dead. Congress's willingness to adopt socialized medicine strikes me as a sort of acid test