Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Stumbling Social Security shows potential for Health Care Reform

The Associated Press reported that Early retirement and job losses is causing the tide to go out on Social Security over the next two years. More benefits will be paid out than revenues will be collected for the fund.

This raises the spectre of free-market manipulation of public programs such as social security, medicare, and a health care public option.

Public programs are supported by taxes paid by people who are incapable or are not knowledgeable enough to hide their wealth off-shore.

Employers on the other hand, specifically those savvy enough to hide their money off-shore are typically corporations with the largest number of employees.

Theoretically, corporations such as these could lay-off just enough employees to bankrupt Social Security and other government social programs within a few years.

Ironically, laying off more employees makes the corporation's bottom line look better, and consequently creates the false impression that the economy is recovering, drawing investors, employees looking for 401(K) opportunities and first-time home owners into a deadly trap.

Since the larger multinational corporations have their risk spread around the world, they can go country by country, systematically manipulating governments that rely on income tax.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h6BfoloJOnV0TeI7eIHC1ZWuBxygD9AVS0202

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Laptop bandit strikes again

The State Journal Register reported this morning that another apartment on Seven Pines road was robbed of at least $2000 worth of computers and cash. Last October, another laptop was stolen from a different apartment in the same neighborhood.

This time the door was left unlocked. In the previous case, the front door was forced open.

In another nearby incident occurring in December of 2008, a tenant was visited by some men who suddenly turned on him, beating him and robbing him of various electronic equipment.

The options of escape from this area are plentiful, and the level of activity at these apartment complexes is high, perhaps because of the youthful demographic, which means burglars might not be noticed, even in broad daylight.

One might wonder if the laptop bandit looks at night for windows glowing with the blue haze of computer monitors, or might be a returning student at UIS or Lincoln Land who happens to notice someone at school with a nice laptop and then targets them not by befriending them, but by befriending others around them and then getting invited to parties where they get more and more information. Too much.

It might be someone posing as a lawn care specialist or maintenance person, checking the doors every few days until one is finally left unlocked.

It might be some punk kid who lives right nearby in one of the other buildings. My grandparents were robbed by a kid who lived right across the street.


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Thursday, September 10, 2009

Real Health Care Reform.

It's unfortunate that insurance is still on the table. Health care reform would mean removing insurance entirely from health care. Costs go up simply because insurance companies dangled the bait of their wealth in front of pharmaceutical companies, medical equipment manufacturers, and hospital administrators.

Those companies jacked up their prices to favor the need for insurance. Insurance companies in-turn convinced the public that their drugs, wheel chairs and oxygen tanks cost so much "because that's just the way it is. Live with it or die without it."

Tuesday, September 08, 2009

Freaky Fringe Groups.

What do weird fringe groups have in common with Republicans?

A “Birther” is someone who doesn’t believe Barack Obama should be president because they allege that he was born in Kenya and not the United States of America. Despite the publication of Obama’s Hawaiian birth certificate, and confirmation by WorldNetDaily.com that Obama is indeed a U.S. Citizen, “Birthers” still insist that Obama is Kenyan.

A “Deather” is someone who believes that the public health care option will involve panels of people who decide whether or not someone should receive treatment because they are beyond a certain age. They called these fictional panels “Death Panels.” They do not exist in any form, and there is no plan for any such panels.

A “Secessionist” can reside in either Texas or Alaska. They want their state to become a nation separate from the United States, independent of any federal taxation or intervention of any kind. But they still want Medicare and Social Security, and their governors, despite supporting the idea of secession, went ahead and spent the federal stimulus money anyway.

What do these groups have in common? They are all narcissistic. In other words, they have an inflated sense of self-importance. However, it’s not really their fault that they think their beliefs are more common than reality.

The news media is responsible for picking up these tiny freakish mind-sets and creating groups out of them. The news media latches on to the bizarre and insignificant, inflates the idea to create the impression that these twisted views represent almost half the country’s opinion. How do they do that?

The media continues to associate these fringe groups with conservative Republicans.

So the liberal left wing news media is lumping freaky fringe groups together with the Republicans, but why are no Republican congressmen distancing themselves or making an effort to correct the media about what it really means to be a Republican?

Perhaps because the media doesn’t cover it. The last time the media covered a Republican correcting a distorted belief was when John McCain corrected a woman at one of his campaign stops. She thought that Barack Obama was a Muslim and he shut her down immediately.

After that, not a whimper of corrective action from level-headed Republicans can be heard in the media.

Now the news media is all-over President Obama’s speech to the kids today. They are focusing on those few schizophrenic parents who don’t want their kids to hear his speech. But they never report the actual number of people who are protesting Obama’s speech.



There may only be as many as a thousand in the whole country.

Thursday, September 03, 2009

Springfield Clinic needs Healthcare Reform quick!

I know someone who is going on a trip to the Amazon later this fall. We'll call him Hal. His doctor is a physician at Springfield Clinic.

Hal needs to start taking an anti-malaria pill weeks in advance for it to be effective against the disease should he encounter malaria infected mosquitoes while he's on the Amazon River.

Hal only needs a prescription for the anti-malaria. There is Doxycycline which is reported by a post at Yahoo Answers to be the cheapest at around "$50 for 6 months" whatever that means.

Springfield Clinic wants $400 up front for nothing more than the appointment, and Hal's doctor won't prescribe the medicine.