Month: November 2011

Segregation Is Just Wrong!

We here in the US have had our bout with racism, sexism and segregation and we have moved past it (now here we could stop and argue if that statement is true…personally I think NOT….but that is not what this post is about…..)……..and that democracy will eliminate the abuses like segregation…..

We have all seen how women, in particular, are treated….they must segregate themselves from the men, they are treated like chattel, and have very few rights if any in the Muslim world……and we here in the US condemn this treatment of women and we almost universally state that if democracy is to flourish then this type of situation must be resolved…..

First of all…CRAP!

When it comes to the Middle East conservatives point to Israel as this shining beacon of democracy that all countries should aspire to accomplish…….here we could argue that it is NOT as democratic as its cheerleaders would have you believe…..all that democracy seems to be only for the Jews…….the Israeli Arabs would most likely give a good case for this statement being erroneous…..and that would be a discussion for another day……….

In the democratic state of Israel there seems to be a bit of a problem with the segregation of women……

Israel boasts a female opposition leader, high-profile women soldiers, and a female former prime minister. But walk the streets of Jerusalem these days and, in some areas, you’ll see gender-segregated sidewalks, buses, health clinics, and supermarkets—and few billboards or ads depicting women. The capital city has become increasingly segregated as ultra-Orthodox rabbis fight back against what they see as secularization, the AP reports. In one of several examples, the AP notes that Jerusalem debuted its long-awaited light rail with a big ad campaign this summer—one devoid of women’s faces. The growing segregation is most obvious in Jerusalem, where the ultra-Orthodox population is growing quickly (it’s expected to jump from its current 9% to 15% by 2025) and has a disproportionate amount of political power, but it’s moving into other areas as well. Even the military is considering reassigning female soldiers, as some religious men don’t want to serve alongside them. But Israel’s Supreme Court has made moves against the trend, and last month ordered that barriers intended to segregate a sidewalk during a popular religious ceremony be removed.

Of course I am sure that the cheerleaders will find some way to justify this practice…..you know….kinda like they justified it in the South in the 1950’s…..

FLASH!  There is NO justification of the practice of segregation in a democracy……either eliminate the practice or STOP calling yourself a democracy!

On Capitalism

College of Political Knowledge

As my loyal readers know that I try to make complex issues and theories more easily absorbed by the average person….for it is my belief that if it cannot be understood there is NO way that it will ever be changed…..I started off with a post about alienation of workers from the dream that is truly American (will be posted soon)….then I realized that without a grasp of the workings of capitalism there would be a difficult time understanding what is meant by alienation…..

There are conditions for capitalism and it is explained well by Alan Woods and Rob Sewell……

Today, modern production is concentrated in the hands of giant companies. Unilever, ICI, Fords, British Petroleum, are some examples of the firms which dominate our lives. Although it is true that small businesses do exist, they really represent the production of the past and not the present. Modern production is essentially a mass, large-scale business.

At present, 200 top companies together with 35 banks and finance houses control the British economy, and account for 85 per cent of output. This development has come about over the past few hundred years through ruthless competition, crisis and war. At the time when the classical economists predicted free trade in the future, Marx explained the development of monopoly from competition as the weaker firms went to the wall. Monopoly capitalism grew out of and abolished free competition.

At first sight, it looks as if goods and things are produced mainly for people’s needs. Obviously every society has to do this. But under capitalism, goods are not merely produced to satisfy someone’s want or need, but primarily for sale. That is the paramount function of capitalist industry.

The capitalist process of production requires the existence of certain conditions.  Firstly, the existence of a large class of property-less workers who are obliged to sell themselves piece-meal in order to live.  Thus the Tory conception of a “property owning democracy” is an absurdity under capitalism, because if the mass of the population owned sufficient property to be self-sufficient, the capitalists would not find the workers to produce their profits.  Secondly, the means of production must be concentrated in the hands of the capitalists.  Over the centuries, the peasants and those who owned their own means of subsistence were ruthlessly crushed and their means of life appropriated by the capitalists and landlords. They in turn hire the workers to work these means of production and produce surplus value.

Capitalism!  No man, including Adam Smith, thought it was a permanent state for the economy….but it has been resilient and very adaptable ……not so surprising when you understand the concept of….GREED!  And that greed breeds alienation…….and that is the next post……

What Are They Really Saying?

We have heard all the hoopla about the economy…..it looks slow but steady….it looks like a piece of bovine fecal matter….tax cuts will save us all…..without demand there is NO recovery….on and on….everybody has an opinion on the direction of the economy in the next year, maybe 5…….but what are the economic experts really saying about what is going to happen?

Michael Synder of blacklisted news.com has put together 17 quotes of what we can expect in the future……

The following are 17 quotes about the coming global financial collapse that will make your hair stand up….

#1 Credit Suisse’s Fixed Income Research unit: “We seem to have entered the last days of the euro as we currently know it. That doesn’t make a break-up very likely, but it does mean some extraordinary things will almost certainly need to happen – probably by mid-January – to prevent the progressive closure of all the euro zone sovereign bond markets, potentially accompanied by escalating runs on even the strongest banks.”

#2 Willem Buiter, chief economist at Citigroup: “Time is running out fast.  I think we have maybe a few months — it could be weeks, it could be days — before there is a material risk of a fundamentally unnecessary default by a country like Spain or Italy which would be a financial catastrophe dragging the European banking system and North America with it.”

#3 Jim Reid of Deutsche Bank: “If you don’t think Merkel’s tone will change then our investment advice is to dig a hole in the ground and hide.”

#4 David Rosenberg, a senior economist at Gluskin Sheff in Toronto: “Lenders are finding it difficult to finance their day-to-day operations with short-term funding. This is a lot like 2008 but with more twists.”

#5 Christian Stracke, the head of credit research for Pimco: “This is just a repeat of what we saw in 2008, when everyone wanted to see toxic assets off the banks’ balance sheets”

#6 Paul Krugman of the New York Times: “At this point I’d guess soaring rates on Italian debt leading to a gigantic bank run, both because of solvency fears about Italian banks given a default and because of fear that Italy will end up leaving the euro. This then leads to emergency bank closing, and once that happens, a decision to drop the euro and install the new lira. Next stop, France.”

#7 Paul Hickey of Bespoke Investment Group: “More and more, we are hearing anecdotal comments from individual and professionals that this is the most difficult environment they have ever experienced as the market is like a fish flopping around after being taken out of the water.”

#8 Bob Janjuah of Nomura International: “Germany appears to be adamant that full political and fiscal integration over the next decade (nothing substantive will happen over the short term, in my view) is the only option, and ECB monetisation is no longer possible. I really think it is that clear and simple. And if I am wrong, and the ECB does a U-turn and agrees to unlimited monetisation, I will simply wait for the inevitable knee-jerk rally to fade before reloading my short risk positions. Even if Germany and the ECB somehow agree to unlimited monetisation I believe it will do nothing to fix the insolvency and lack of growth in the eurozone. It will just result in a major destruction of the ECB‟s balance sheet which will force an ECB recap. At that point, I think Germany and its northern partners would walk away. Markets always want short, sharp, simple solutions.”

#9 Dan Akerson, CEO of General Motors: “The ’08 recession, which was a credit bubble that manifested itself through primarily the real estate market, that was a serious stress….This is much more serious.”

#10 Francesco Garzarelli of Goldman Sachs: “Pressures on Euro area sovereign bond markets have progressively intensified and spread like a wildfire.”

#11 Jim Rogers: “In 2002 it was bad, in 2008 it was worse and 2012 or 2013 is going to be worse still – be careful”

#12 Dr. Pippa Malmgren, the President and founder of Principalis Asset Management who once worked in the White House as an adviser to President Bush: “Market forces are increasingly determining what the options are and foreclosing on options policymakers thought they had. One option which is now under discussion involves permitting a country to temporarily leave the Euro, return to its native currency, devalue, commit to returning to the Euro at a better debt to GDP ratio, a better exchange rate and a better growth trajectory and yet not sacrifice its EU membership. I would like to say for the record that this is precisely the thought process that I expected to evolve,but when I proposed this possibility back in 2009, and again in September 2010, I had a 100% response from clients and others that this was “impossible” and many felt it was “ridiculous”. They may be right but this is the current state of the discussion. The Handelsblatt in Germany has reported this conversation, but wrongly assumes that the country that will exit is Germany. I think that Germany will have to exit if the Southern European states do not. Germany’s preference is to stay in the Euro and have the others drop out. The problem has been the Germans could not convince the others to walk away. But, now, market pressures are forcing someone to leave. Germany is pushing for that someone to be Italy. They hope that this would be a one off exception, not to be repeated by any other country. Obviously, though, if Italy leaves the Euro and reverts to Lira then the markets will immediately and forcefully attack Spain, Portugal and even whatever is left  of the already savaged Greeks. These countries will not be able to compete against a devalued Greece or Italy when it come to tourism or even infrastructure. But, the principal target will be France. The three largest French banks have roughly 450 billion Euros of exposure to Italian debt. So, further sovereign defaults are certainly inevitable, but that is true under any scenario. Growth and austerity will not do the trick, as ZeroHedge rightly points out. Ultimately, I will not be at all surprised to see Europe’s banking system shut for days while the losses and payments issues are worked out. People forget that the term “bank holiday” was invented in the 1930’s when the banks were shut for exactly the same reason.”

#13 Daniel Clifton, a policy strategist with Strategas Research Partners on the potential for more downgrades of U.S. debt: “We would expect further downgrades, a first downgrade from Moody’s and Fitch and possibly a second downgrade from S&P.”

#14 Warren Buffett on the problems in the eurozone: “The system as presently designed has revealed a major flaw. And that flaw won’t be corrected just by words. Europe will either have to come closer together or there will have to be some other rearrangement because this system is not working”

#15 David Kostin, equity strategist for Goldman Sachs: “The wide range of possible outcomes on both the super committee process and the unstable political economy in Europe drives our view that investors should assume the worst while hoping for the best.”

#16 Mark Mobius, the head of the emerging markets desk at Templeton Asset Management: “There is definitely going to be another financial crisis around the corner”

#17 Gerald Celente, founder of The Trends Research Institute: “The whole system is going down. Pull your money out your Fidelity account, your Scwhab accout, and your ETFs.”

So basically, what are these experts really saying (the simplified version)……

They are telling us that “time is running out”.

They are telling us that “there is definitely going to be another financial crisis”.

They are telling us that this “is going to be worse” than 2008.

They are telling us that “the whole system is going down”.

The time is NOW to remove your head from the sand….there is very little in the economic world that is GOOD news…..

Can You Say “Bladerunner”?

Sunday…..the serenity of four days is coming to an end and I must return to the world of insanity, better known as politics!

In the past I have written about the technology of robotics and AI….I have said that the many improvements and advancements could be leading us down the road to situations of I. Robot and the ever popular Terminator series, the villain of Skynet…..but I read one the othjer day that made me think of the Philip K. Dick story, Bladerunner.

in case you are not sure about the story…….four androids steal a off world shuttle and return to earth in search of their maker…..they are, for the most part, off world soldiers and assassins with a pleasure model thrown in for kicks (wink, wink)……very short synopsis and very literal…..but it seems that the idea of a robotic soldier is not so far fetched……

It is no surprise that the US government fund technological research to aid in the advancement of the war machine. Every government in the world does so, and scientific advances have undoubtedly led to lives being saved in the battlefield, as well as lost. But with computers predicted to equal the power of the human brain by the 2020s, is sufficient time being given to public debate about the ethics of technology in warfare? At what point will operational decisions be handed over to machines? Is the public in danger of finding themselves outflanked by the speed of scientific advance before they have properly considered the moral and ethical consequences of it? While we are joyfully browsing late ski deals, and deciding what the make of our next car will be, are there ethical issues that should perhaps be more at the forefront of our minds?

Robotics is one area of research the military are very interested in at present, with the US government investing over $4 billion in research into robotics, known by them as ‘autonomous systems’. The advantages of having a Terminator style warrior who will show no fear in the face of the enemy is a moving from sci-fi to reality. One only has to look at the BigDog robot created by Boston Dynamics to appreciate the potential. But the government aware of the ethical dimension to this scenario, and have consulted Colin Allen, scientific philosopher and robotics expert at Indiana University, to advise them on whether a robot soldier can be built that could be programmed not to violate the terms of the Geneva Convention. Many human combatants do just that of course, due to the extreme stress of the battlefield, which leads to a desire for retribution on the captured enemy, for example, and subsequent violation of international law. A computer scientist at Georgia Tech university, Ronald Arkin, who is currently working for the US military has recently concluded that robots are “more likely to perform ethically” than human beings in a warzone, simply because they are not governed by fear or emotion.

OKay, to me, we are moving in a dangerous direction….I see the need to lessen our combat losses, but we need to make sure that we, as humans, are always in control or the scenario of Bladerunner or I, Robot or even Terminator could e in  our future…….

Water Is Where You Find It!

Saturday after T’giving and not much is happening other than people shoving to be the first to get that $5 laptop…….my days of serenity is great….why?  I stay away from the madness of Xmas shopping……

Almost daily we are getting news about the possibility of life on other planets….Mars, moons of Endor, on and on…..and not to be out done it appears as if the possibility of life has been found on a moon of Jupiter……

An ice cavern containing as much water as the North American Great Lakes may provide a potential habitat for life on Jupiter’s moon Europa, scientists believe.

The salty “lake” is thought to be locked within Europa’s icy outer shell a few kilometres from the surface.

Other large pockets of liquid water are also likely to exist on the moon, it is claimed.

Scientists are excited by the discovery, which offers one of the best hopes yet of finding life beyond the Earth.

Evidence for the ice-covered lake in Europa’s Thera Macula region is seen in the shape of the terrain above it. The site appears to be marked by a fractured and collapsing “lid” of floating ice.

Scientists have long suspected that a liquid or slushy ocean exists under Europa’s surface, warmed by the tidal forces of Jupiter’s powerful gravity.

Theoretically, a liquid water ocean could provide a suitable habitat for life – but only if it was not too far from the surface.

Experts disagree about how thick the layer of covering ice is. The new research, based on images from the Galileo probe, suggests that water “lenses” could lie as little as three kilometres below the bottom of the surface crust.

Lead scientist Dr Britney Schmidt, from the University of Texas, said: “One opinion in the scientific community has been, ‘If the ice shell is thick, that’s bad for biology – that it might mean the surface isn’t communicating with the underlying ocean’.

Are we getting ever closer to finding ET?  Will it be a large amoeba like the Blob or something more ominous?  Your thoughts, please…..

When Would Enough Be Enough?

Today is Black Friday and I would imagine readership will be in the toilet….but some of us just cannot seem to take a break….I know….it is a sickness….LOL

There comes a time in everyone’s life when certain things become overwhelming and a limit has been reached and something has to change….but (there is always a but) when does one arrive at that point in one’s life?

My question is for those within the GOP….they have flirted with everybody that has entered into the fray but Mitt…..and sad to say…they need to wake up and realize that Mitt will be their candidate to face Obama in November….but there is reasons why their flirtation with the others is short lived…..

1. The endless debates expose everyone’s flaws
The Republican presidential candidates are slugging it out in an unprecedented series of debates — “10 so far, with another 12 scheduled,” says Ewen MacAskill at Britain’s Guardian. All that exposure has “changed the dynamic of the nomination race, making and breaking candidates.” Rick Perry’s poor debate performances sunk him. On TV, every weakness is amplified. Millions of viewers tune in to every installment of this new brand of reality TV, where they can curl up on the couch, “enjoyably awaiting the next gaffe.”

2. Intense media scrutiny reveals their shortcomings
Republicans like Perry and Cain have more than conservatism in common, says Adam Silbert at Politico. They’re also “newcomers to the national political stage.” And once a candidate emerges from the cellar and starts rising in the polls, says Jennifer Rubin at The Washington Post, suddenly he starts receiving more scrutiny. That means “sharper questions” and “more barbs” from opponents. Most of these guys just couldn’t handle the pressure. Now, “with time running out before the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses,” Silbert says, “a frustrated Republican Party seems willing to revisit its customary formula of nominating” a known candidate who has “paid his dues and waited his turn” — the “smart, familiar Gingrich.”

3. Clearly, the media is trying to help Obama
“The mainstream media keep pushing alternatives” to Romney because “they are terrified of running against him,” says Ann Coulter at Townhall. Liberal journalists just want to keep Republicans fighting. It’s obvious now that they’re trying to sell us Gingrich, the former House speaker who had an affair while trying to impeach Bill Clinton and called “Paul Ryan’s plan to save Social Security ‘right-wing social engineering.'” Conservatives need to stop being purists and get behind Romney, because he’s “the only Republican who has a shot at beating Obama.”

4. The GOP field is just abysmal
There’s no mystery about why every conservative flavor-of-the-month has gone down in flames, says Markos Moulitsas at The Hill. Bachmann’s baggage was her “craziness”; Perry’s was his “utter failure to string two sentences together”; Cain’s fatal flaw was his “comically bad” handling of sexual harassment allegations. The only reason Republicans are embracing Gingrich, whose pile of negatives made them laugh him off before, is that “it’s late in the game and they’re desperate.” Really, “there’s no greater indictment of the GOP field than the fact that while voters might be desperate for a Romney alternative, no permanent host can be found.

I do not know if you will agree with the list or not….but there are the reasons that could explain why there has been so many flash in the pan in the GOP search for a candidate…Repubs need to wake up and stop looking for that red meat…..your candidate will be plain vanilla (to quote Herman Cain)….

I will admit that all this up and down makes great fodder for the MSM….but to the rest of us it is just plain silly……when everyone knows that the only hope that the GOP will have in November is with Mitt.

On Thanksgiving Day

Today is turkey day and we all deserve a day of calm and reflection….so I will begin….I want to first thank all my readers for their diligence and patience and all their fine comments that keeps the conversation moving forward….we can make a difference…it just may not be overnight….but if we continue on we will make the difference that we all desire…..and thanks for all you who have started reading the newspaper The Daily Agitator…hopefully it will only get better with your help……

Hopefully today will be a down day for us political junkies….but we know that idiots are seldom silent….maybe with a turkey bone lodged in their throat they will spend more time with their mouths shut….we can hope!

Please enjoy your days of fun, family, football, food and for some of you shopping….and we will continue our conversations…….

Thank you, my friends your participation in Info Ink is much appreciated….

Will Returning Vets Be Screwed….Again?

First of all, there was another debate of the GOP candidates on foreign policy….let me sum it up the positions of ALL the candidates on foreign policy…..Obama Sucks!  There is NO definitive positions by any candidate!

Recently, our president made a speech about the need to help our vets in finding jobs because they fight so the rest of us do not have to…..it was all sorts of things….especially tax breaks for companies that hire a vet that has been unemployed for 6 months or more……first, why would they need an incentive?  The corporates have incentives for everything….probably even if they have regular bowel movements…..I think it is just sick that they (corporations) need an incentive to do the right thing……and now he has signed his proposal into law…..but will history repeat itself concerning veterans?

Let’s talk about SPN and RE  codes……..

SPD, SPN (Separation Program Number) and RE codes are issued to all discharging military personnel. These codes are placed on the DD-214 form and provide any who see the DD-214 a summary and characterization of the veteran’s military service. These codes are intended solely for use by military recruiters for re-enlistment review and the Department of Defense for statistical analysis. However, an increasing number of employers, Veterans Administration service officers, law enforcement agencies and prospective mates are using these codes to base decisions on employment, veteran benefit eligibility, criminal behavior modeling and marital compatibility.

Shortly after the Vietnam War when thousands of military personnel faced post-war, DoD drawdowns, negative SPN and SPD codes were handed out like speeding tickets at the Indy 500. Because private employers were discovered to be using these codes to deny employment during the so-called “nutty Vietnam veteran scare”, regardless of the veteran’s “Character of Discharge” being Honorable, The Ford and subsequent Carter Administrations ordered DoD to reduce its use of SPN/SPD codes and directed VA to assist veterans in obtaining a new DD-214 that did not list the codes. For a very brief time SPD and SPN codes disappeared from military use. But as America’s all-volunteer military kicked-in full steam, DoD found it necessary to provide additional reference data for military recruiters to help identify and screen-out individuals who performed less than model service in one branch then attempted to re-enlist in another branch. Hence, SPD codes were restored with a vengeance. The use and abuse of SPD codes have risen steadily since and have produced more chaos and pain in the lives of innocent veterans that make their post-Vietnam use relatively innocent in comparison.

Will returning vets have to face the discrimination that followed returning Viet Vets?  Will the codes be used again to eliminate some from good jobs?

Penthouse Magazine (I can hear the women cringing in the background) broke the story of how corporations were using the DD214 against returning Viet Vets….the series made the military look bad so they have gone to an alternative…..the vet gets two copies of the DD214…one with codes, one without…..and this somehow will protect the vet from discrimination…..and that my friends is ….B*LLSH*T!

Corporations have the power….Vets DO NOT!

The Prez will do the bare minimum to appear as if the government cares……..corporations must be enticed to help those that were out protecting their assets across the world….it is time for the country to wake up and realize just what we owe our veterans…….

VETS!  Make sure that you carry ONLY the one without the codes!  Personally, I do not believe that this problem has been solved!  Do not fall to the predator corporations as so many of us from another war had to deal with in the past…..Watch Your Backs!  The government will NOT do it for you!

Thus Spake Supercommittee

Yesterday the members of the Supercommittee announced that they could not find the guts to come to a filibuster proof solution to the deficit…..all the games….all the partisanship…..and all the total bullsh*t!

WE all have waited with baited breath……will we or will we not have a deal?

And the answer is in……(drum roll and trumpets sound)……..the supercommittee was a pathetic FAILURE!  They spake not!  A DISMAL WASTE OF TIME AND RESOURCES!

These idiots ( I am sorry to call them idiots but if the shoe fits……) could have just used the Simpson-Bowles Plan…….

The plan starts with a series of “guiding principles,” most of which are exemplary. But, as this analysis explains, the specifics of the plan violate some of the co-chairs’ core principles — namely, the principle “Don’t Disrupt a Fragile Economic Recovery” and the principle to “Protect the Truly Disadvantaged.” In addition, at least one principle is deeply misguided and could do serious harm to the nation in the future — the call to hold revenues and spending to no more than 21 percent of GDP, despite the challenges the nation faces in the decades ahead. [1]

“Don’t Disrupt a Fragile Economy”

The proposal to start implementing budget cuts in fiscal year 2012 — a short 10½ months from now — runs a substantial risk of impeding the economic recovery. In its most recent economic forecast, the Congressional Budget Office projects that unemployment will still average 8.4 percent in fiscal year 2012 and that the gap between actual GDP and its potential level will not be closed until the end of 2014. A growing number of private economic forecasters are expressing deepening concern over the economy’s lack of steam and its potential to experience growth too anemic to lower unemployment significantly over the next few years. It would be far better to delay implementation of significant deficit-reduction policies at least until fiscal year 2013, when there should be less chance of stifling the recovery and locking the economy into a long period of sub-par performance.

“Protect the Truly Disadvantaged”

While the plan aims to avoid violating the co-chairs’ principle “to protect the truly disadvantaged” by not proposing widespread cuts in means-tested programs, it nevertheless threatens benefits and services for millions of Americans who have very modest incomes and would experience significant hardship.

For instance, while the proposed changes in Social Security would produce benefit increases for many among the poorest fifth of Social Security beneficiaries — a praiseworthy accomplishment — the changes would cut benefits for those in the next-to-the-bottom fifth and the middle fifth of beneficiaries. Social Security Administration data show that in 2008, the median income for elderly Social Security beneficiaries (including any income they get from other sources, as well as their spouses’ income) was only $14,100 for those in the next-to-the-bottom fifth and $20,600 for those in the middle fifth.

Indeed, the plan would cut Social Security benefits for a medium earner (one whose earnings are in the middle of the wage distribution) by 15 percent below the currently scheduled amount in 2050 and 22 percent by 2080. Yet a lifelong medium earner who retires at age 65 in 2010 receives a benefit of just $1,397 a month, or $16,764 a year — which is only about 55 percent above the poverty line — and generally does not have significant income from other sources.

The plan’s cuts in Medicaid and Medicare would pose further problems for millions of people of modest means. The plan calls for increasing the amounts that elderly and disabled Medicare beneficiaries must pay for health care services (presumably through higher co-payments) under both Medicare and the Medigap policies that supplement Medicare coverage. The plan lacks details on how these changes would work, and they might well be reasonable parts of a balanced deficit-reduction plan — if they were not being extracted from the same modest-income seniors and people with disabilities whose Social Security benefits were being cut at the same time. As Drew Altman, the highly respected president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, recently explained, many of these modest-income Social Security and Medicare beneficiaries

have low incomes and already pay a significant share of their incomes for health care today. It will be difficult if not impossible to ask the majority of beneficiaries to pay more or make do with less. This has been the missing element in the entitlement/deficit reduction debate: Warren Buffet is not the typical Medicare beneficiary. Instead the prototype is an older woman with multiple chronic illnesses living on an income of less than $25,000 who spends more than 15 percent of her income on health care. It is the people on these programs and the realities of their lives that have been left out of the discussion.[2]

Another health-care element of the plan poses still greater risks for the nation’s most vulnerable people by threatening severe cuts over time in Medicaid, Medicare, and the subsidies to help modest-income people purchase coverage in the new insurance exchanges that the health reform law will establish. The plan proposes to contain growth after 2020 in federal health expenditures for these programs and the tax exclusion for employer-sponsored insurance to no more than 1 percent more per year than the rate of growth in GDP.

Tough, but rational, targets for slowing health care cost growth virtually always are based on per- beneficiary costs, not aggregate costs. For example, the target for Medicare cost growth that the Independent Payment Advisory Board established by the health reform law must hit is GDP plus 1 percent per beneficiary.[3] The difference here is crucial. The Bowles-Simpson target is for total health program costs, rather than costs per beneficiary, to rise no faster than GDP+1; that would likely lead to draconian results. It would mean that as the share of the population that is elderly increases, cuts of increasing severity likely would have to be made in Medicaid and Medicare to fit total federal health-care expenditures within an entirely unrealistic constraint. Over time, the effects on vulnerable Americans could be grim.

Or some form of this…sign their names to it and look like they have earned their salary for the year…..but NOOOOOO….that would be too much like right…….

This exercise in futility reminds me a a shirt I have seen…..”Never underestimate the stupidity of a large crowd”!……….

Speaking of “recreational drugs”!…….may I see a show of hands of those who thought this idea was a good one?

Enough said!

When Government Attacks!

College of Political knowledge

Subject:  American History

We have all seen the violence and the protesters vs police in this standoff between the 99% and the 1 %…there has been reports of DHS personnel involved, conference calls on how to handle the protests and even a coordinate attack by the PDs on the protesters….I have heard some on the Left call this unprecedented cooperation between the PD and the military…..interesting but unfortunately is just not so…..it has happened before and will happen again….

Let’s go back to the War to end all wars, WW1……people who fought in that war were promised a bonus for their service in 1924 Congress approved the “World War Adjusted Compensation Act”……this was vouchers issued to those who served in WW1 for the amount of their pay plus interests and not payable until 1945…..well we all know what happened on 1929….(pause here for thought)…..the Great Depression began……after about 4 years of no employment and trying to provide for their families….veterans, 17,000 of them marched on Washington on 1932 demanding that they be paid their money…..the numbers of people swelled to 43,000….this Bonus Army set up an encampment in what is now known as Anacostia Park……The camps, built from materials scavenged from a nearby rubbish dump, were tightly controlled by the veterans who laid out streets, built sanitation facilities, and held daily parades. To live in the camps, veterans were required to register and prove they had been honorably discharged.

The protesters remained in their area, now called Hooverville, waiting for Pres. Hoover to make good on the promises of the government……..But instead of treating the veterans with respect and compassion, because the Senate had defeated the bill…..the attorney general ordered the veterans to be removed, by any force necessary……when the police were unsuccessful, Hoover order then Army in with cavalry, tanks and fixed bayonets…..55 veterans were injured, 135 arrested and a 12 week old baby died from complications from the tear gas….

Now here is the rub……of the military officers involved were some of America’s greatest heroes…….Douglas MacArthur, who thought the veterans were a communist plot, George S. Patton and Dwight D. Eisenhower….do those names look familiar?

So you see the government is quite capable of entering into the fray if the need arises….and some of us believe they have already jumped into it….also as you can see there has been a long history of the government pissing on veterans…no matter what they say….vets are of NO consequence to the government….they did their part for the country and now the country has NO need for them they are shoved aside in the name of austerity!

So my advice to the Occupy Movement is to not underestimate what the government is willing to do to protect the status quo……..