How easy it is to make people believe a lie, and how hard it is to undo that work again! (Mark Twain)
Any fool can see that a mandate that we buy a product from a private company without a public option is immoral. Whether or not it is unconstitutional will end up in the hands of our right wing Supreme Court, and the odds are that this court will come down on Obama’s side, and against civil liberty.
Perceptions screwed up? Try adjusting them, and leaving reality as it is.
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“He’s a con man. I have no use for him.” Ralph Nader
The famous painting above is by Salvador Dali, Gala Contemplating the Mediterranean Sea. I saw the original at the Dali Museum in Figueres, Spain. It’s a beautiful image of a nude looking over the sea, but from twenty meters away you realize that it is actually a portrait of Abraham Lincoln. (I have to stand about twenty feet back from my computer screen for that effect to kick in.)
Clever, I suppose, like those Bev Doolitte paintings so popular in the west – eagles and bears concealed right out in the open among trees and snow banks.
Concealed in plain view … read here how the Obama Administration is now actually negotiating with his opponents, decorating a Christmas tree with goodies to sell tax cuts for the wealthy. They have a myriad of ways to make people vote their way. The open and obvious ones are the bribes – ethanol is the biggest scam going on right now. Underneath that and not discussed are threats – elected officials are told that their funding will dry up, that they will face a primary opponent or well-funded candidate from the other party. Committee positions are auctioned off and earmarks are used as carrots.
And then … one level below that … do you really think that wiretaps are benign, that call girls camped out on Capitol Hill are just for fun, that a little cash bribe here and there can’t be brought back to form a scandal? (When you see an abrupt resignation on Capitol Hill, it is a safe bet that someone has been cornered and threatened with exposure.)
He’s negotiating with his opposition. Who are his opposition? Democrats.
He’s a con man. I bristle when I hear Democrats and others say that Obama is actually a “centrist” or a “moderate.” He is nothing like that – he is a right wing Republican. And it is right there, out in the open. All you have to do is take a view from twenty meters back.
“So I pass a signature piece of legislation where we finally get health-care for all Americans, something that Democrats had been fighting for a hundred years, but because there was a provision in there that they didn’t get that would have affected maybe a couple million people, even though we got health insurance for 30 million people and the potential for lower premiums for a hundred million people, that somehow that was a sign of weakness and compromise. …people will have the satisfaction of having a purist position and no victories for the American people.”
The reforms?
Expanded Medicaid, is a true reform, but one affecting AIHIP and PhRMA not in the least. There was no potential for the new Medicaid clients to be profitable to the health insurers, so they allowed them to be dumped on taxpayers.
People can no longer be denied coverage due to preexisting conditions, but it isn’t the health insurance companies that offer that coverage. People formerly turned down for coverage are still turned away, but sent to state exchanges. Those exchanges suffer from adverse selection, and so offer lousy coverage with high premiums. People are staying away in droves – when the premium subsidies finally come through, low-income people will be able to get this coverage, and the health insurance companies will be paid to manage the exchanges, but will not actually face risk exposure.
Preventive care must be covered, indeed a real reform, good public policy. We who have insurance can now go to a doctor for a physical, or a man-ogram, and the insurance company has to pay for it. Here’s how my insurer, Anthem Blue Cross, handled this matter: They now cover preventive care, as required by law, but no longer cover any other office visits of any type.
Frankly, this is the worst possible outcome for our health coverage crisis – fake reform. Democrats told us that we should take what was offered because we could always come back and fix it later. Not on this planet – there will never again be an opportunity like that, and their squandering of that chance is an historic betrayal of their mission and constituency.
There are other parts of the bill that might benefit us, but it is all done under the hovering shadow of AHIP and PhRMA. Before passage of the bill, typical private insurer overhead was 20% – Wall Street watches this number very carefully – if “medical losses” exceed 80% of premiums, stock prices go down. (A Harvard study found that total medical overhead in this country is 31% – that other 11% is hospitals and doctors share of the burden). The Obama bill, in a striking reform, mandates that their overhead not exceed …. 20%. There was a push at one time to get that number down to 15% … it disappeared in the reconciliation process.
Yes, we will have health insurance. We’ll be required to buy it, and if we can’t afford it, the government will pay … the insurers. There’s very little in the bill regarding quality of coverage – deductibles and co-pays, policy premiums – all of that untouched. Lifetime coverage caps are gone now – perhaps that is the one thing that the insurers did not like, as it introduces a wild card feature into their rate structure – they cannot precisely define their risk. But it all gets built into the premium structure anyway, and so will not affect their bottom line, as they are free to charge whatever they feel they need as a buffer.
Screw you, Democrats, screw you, Obama. You are worthless. We cannot afford your good works, don’t need that kind of help anymore. The tragedy of business-run America is that as bad as the Democrats are, and they are truly bad, our only other choice is worse.
I want to get this up for consideration, as it makes sense to me. Thom Hartmann, the liberal radio chatterbox, has speculated that the financial attacks on Wikileaks did not start until the group announced that they had collected a large cache of documents on a Wall Street bank, thought to be the Bank of America. The day after that announcement, in short order, Amazon, PayPal, VISA, Mastercard and others pulled the plug.
PayPal’s vice president, Osama Bedier, says that it pulled out on advice from the U.S. State Department. P.J. Crowley of the State Department denied that, saying they had no communication with PayPal.
Someone is obviously lying, and my initial gut reaction was that it must be the State Department. Everyone lies all the time about everything – that’s not my concern. But consider the possibilities:
PP telling truth, SD lying: This would mean that the U.S. government is orchestrating the attack on Wikileaks. Since Wikileaks has committed no crime, this is tyranny.
PP lying, SD telling truth: This would mean that the attack on Wikileaks is orchestrated from another source, possibly Wall Street, and Hartmann’s speculation factors in.
PP and SD both telling the truth: This would indicate a scam or covert operation against PayPal.
PP and SD both lying: This is unlikely but would indicate a covert operation with involvement by both PP and SD.
Wikileaks is doing important work, and I find it hard to imagine how they can be stopped short of executions and imprisonment. That would really expose our government’s true nature. As it stands, however, and totally out of the blue, a huge blow has been struck for freedom of speech. That the guy that did it is in jail? Read history. Rights are never given. They are taken, and it usually requires force. (The only exception I know of to this rule – a peaceful transition from tyranny to representative government, was the fall of the Soviet Union. Factor that into your thinking, report back.)
WikiLeaks coined a new type of journalism: scientific journalism. We work with other media outlets to bring people the news, but also to prove it is true. Scientific journalism allows you to read a news story, then to click online to see the original document it is based on. That way you can judge for yourself: Is the story true? Did the journalist report it accurately?
From the New York Times, Around the World, Distress Over Iran, written by David E. Sanger, James Glanz and Jo Becker:
The cables also contain a fresh American intelligence assessment of Iran’s missile program. They reveal for the first time that the United States believes that Iran has obtained advanced missiles from North Korea that could let it strike at Western European capitals and Moscow and help it develop more formidable long-range ballistic missiles.
From Counterspin, December 3, 2010: (I’m summarizing, as it is an audio broadcast): The Times faithfully gave the U.S. side of Iran’s weapons program, as cited in the leaked memo, but failed to tell the whole story. In the memo, which the Times refused to publish, representatives of Russian intelligence doubt that Iran has such missile capability, and note the North Korea has never successfully tested such a missile. Other news outlets cite American sources that downplay any Iranian missile threat.
In other words, the New York Times, in giving only half the story, is again lying to us about the weapons capability of a country that, as it so happens, our government (and the military-industrial complex behind it) want to attack. Seems we’ve been through this before.
If, as the jailed Assange asserts, “scientific” journalism should now show us the source of stories being reported on, the Times story would have immediately been seen as a lie. Ergo, the Times refused to allow access to the memo, which Counterspin obtained at the Wikileaks site.
It reminds me of the report put out by the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, aka the “Church Committee,” back in 1975.
The committee noted that the CIA had moles in most of our large newspapers, and even then, pre-Bush, maintained surveillance of members of congress, the White House and cabinet departments. They plant stories in the media (a favorite technique is to plant a story in a foreign newspaper so that it can be “discovered” by an American news source).
The Church Committee found 500 editors, journalists and publishers to be supported by the CIA. The CIA had subsidized publication of hundreds of books, and even owned wire services, newspapers, magazines, a publishing complex. It had recruited 5,000 or more academics around the country as spies and researchers, secretly financing them as they present themselves as independent scholars to the media.
As the Church Committee fades into history, the New York Times carries on with its disinformation, and Julian Assange is in jail for a broken condom.
Social Security is not “retirement.” The “I” in FICA stands for “insurance.” That’s an important distinction. If I were to buy a life insurance policy and then die the next day, the company would have to pay off in full. If insurance were like retirement, the company would refund my premium plus earnings minus expenses.
Social Security is a “defined benefit” system. The private sector hates defined benefits, and insists on “defined contributions” like IRA’s and 401K’s and the like. With the latter, retirees are always in fear that their funds will expire before they do. Social Security benefits are available for so long as people live. That’s why it’s called “Security.”
Social Security is also survivor and disability payments – as much as a third of the payments are for widows and orphans and disabled people. Private plans offering such payments are not affordable for ordinary people. And there is nothing in the private sector that offers defined benefit retirement, survivor and disability benefits. It’s not feasible.
The private sector cannot afford to fund a program like Social Security. That sector is laden with bureaucrats, administrative costs, and high-bonus executives along with the regular assortment of Wall Street criminals who recently brought down the banking system. The boom-bust cycle means that a large percentage of privatized retirees would be regularly wiped out.
Social Security, in its eighty years, has never had a scandal or failed to pay a benefit. People have ripped it off, but the people who run the program have been remarkably honest, and (!!!) have not gotten rich off the system.
Social Security is affordable. It has survived for eighty years without debt (it is illegal for it to go into debt.) It is not in debt now, nor will it be for decades.
Social Security is paid for by the people who benefit from it. The tax is applied only against wages and current recipients, and not against corporate profits, dividends, rents and royalty and interest. There is no transfer involved from the wealthy sector to workers. It is entirely self-funded.
Social Security does not add to the deficit. Over the past thirty years, due to accounting legerdemain, the program has been used to mask the true size of general fund deficits. The government spends all excess Social Security funds, but using an accounting trick called the “Unified Budget” (where Social Security surpluses are combined with general fund deficits), funds borrowed from Social Security are not reported as such. The true general fund deficit over the last 30 years is $3 trillion higher than reported.
That $3 trillion is called the “Trust Fund.” Unlike generations before us, we baby boomers were asked, by Ronald Reagan and the Democrats in the early 1980’s, to pre-fund our Social Security benefits. We have been paying in excess tax for thirty years now based on his promise that those excess taxes would fund our own benefits.
Repayment of the debt to the Trust Fund is not Peter paying Paul. We boomers are now in a position where we expect all taxpayers, including those who live off the dividends and corporate profits etc. that have not been taxed, to repay the money borrowed from us, most of which was used to finance their Pentagon and its many wars.
The $3 trillion will be repaid over the come 20-30 years. Our country can easily afford it. (If not, we’re all sunk anyway.)
After we boomers are gone, Social Security will again be on pay-as-you-go funding, with no need for a Trust Fund. (Think of the boomers as a snake swallowing a pig. We will pass.) It will, in theory, survive indefinitely. However, it is constant need of adjustment. That’s all it takes to maintain it.
The Trust Fund is a legal obligation. In order to walk away from that obligation, the government is going to have to legally renege on us. Even though the reneging will be “legal,” it will be highly immoral and disreputable. The people who know how the systems works and still want to renege on us are the Wall Street bankers and their allies in both parties. They are criminals who never have to pay for their crimes.
Ronald Reagan was the first president to openly challenge Social Security. He fell on his face – the program is wildly popular. On failing to undo it, “he” (“he” being his people, as he was clueless) jacked up the FICA tax to recoup some of the massive revenues lost with his tax cuts for the wealthy. That was the “Trust Fund” promise. Many of us felt that he was lying at the time, and that there was never any intention of honoring the bargain.
The only way the bargain will be honored is if we, the people who fund the system, hold them, the people who want to plunder and loot the system, to our bargain. That takes organization and effort. A contract means nothing if there is no will to enforce it.
I expect to see no comments beneath this post for the following reason: I will insist on integrity. I will not suffer ignorance or empty arguments based on the false “facts” that are regularly spread about how the system is going to fail, how it “won’t be there for me when I need it” as young people have been taught to believe. If such comments are put up, I will not take them down, as I don’t do that. But I will edit the comment, not to change content, but only to embolden the part that has no substance. If you see a comment below and part or all of it is in bold, that is the part that has no substance.
Well, Obama has abused his base yet again, this time an open-handed bitch slap. Anyone with half a brain could see that the tax cuts were going to be extended, and the only question was how the Democrats would be made to fold their tent. Now we are going to see something that ought to bring to mind the word “contradiction” – Obama, the man who doesn’t know how to negotiate, who punts on third down, who expects the Republicans to repay his gestures of conciliation, will become a new man. He did this after the bad health care bill was a done deal. He becomes a street fighter. He’s tough, fights dirty, and is clever, kind of like a guy we would want fighting for us, instead of against us.
If they cannot see, as with Clinton, that he is a faux bonhomme, there is no hope for them. They are too stupid to live.
Until the Obama people shut it down, it is still possible to make contributions to Wikileaks via Xipwire.
Said co-founder Sibyl Lindsay today,
“We do think people should be able to make their own decisions as to who they donate to. The fact that people can’t donate to where they’d like to and make that decision for themselves does bother us.
The company has offered to process all contributions to Wikileaks free of fees. I just made a donation, and (hee-hee), charged it to my MasterCard.
Taking his cue from Chinese dictators, Senator Joe Lieberman is said to have immediately called for Lindsay’s arrest. There is also talk that she might be hauled up on a jaywalking charge in Milwaukee from 2003 – city authorities there, who say it is entirely coincidental that the matter is coming up now, have issued arrest warrants for her in Federal District Court. Attorney General Holder is said to have taken an interest in the case, saying “far too often scofflaws are allowed to walk free. I only want to see our sacred laws upheld.” Conviction could involve time at Guantanamo, and torture.
And if not then, maybe 2014. Or 2016. You know – just, not now, not while he still has large majorities in the house and senate.
Democrats barked in unison on hearing the news.
“When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.” (Thomas Jefferson)
Wow – have you ever seen such a flexing of fascist muscle as with Assange and the Wikileaks affair? Imagine what is going on behind the scenes – death threats, trumped up “rape” charges, arrested in London, and Amazon.com, PayPal, and now VISA* trying to shut down his cash flow. Assange is fighting extradition to Sweden, as he believes that that country is merely acting as an intermediary for the Obama Administration, which wants to bring him here and imprison him. Said Assange’s attorney, Mark Stephens,
‘It doesn’t escape me that Sweden was one of those lick-spittle states which used its resources and facilities for rendition flights.
And I say “fascist” not because I like to hurl epithets, but rather because we are witnessing the results of the “marriage of corporation and state, ” Mussolini’s definition of that benign form of governance. Assange exposed state secrets that should not be secret, and the government is hounding him, including the “black-ops” people who are slamming his websites. And now come the corporations, as if they and government are the same entity. (They are, Benito. They are.)
Did any in the mainstream media take note that Obama’s recent Asian trip included forty aircraft, six armored vehicles, and 200 corporate executives? If indeed the junket did cost $200 million a day, it’s just another subsidy.
If Wikileaks achieves nothing else, it is the exposure of this unholy inbreeding that has always been going on, but has happened in spades during the last thirty years. We all know now that the corporations and the state act as one to shut down freedom of speech, because the former now controls the latter. And for that we can thank the soon-to-be-imprisoned Assange.
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Just to toss in a little optimistic news, there are cyberhacks all over the globe, and the best that can happen with the current Obama crackdown on Wikileaks is to enrage them, to organize them. “I am Wikileaks” is encouraging people all over the globe to stand up and be counted. (Will Facebook take them down?)
Raw Story has revealed that one of Assange’s accusers in the Swedish case has CIA connections. (He is not accused of rape, but rather, for failure to use a condom, a unique Swedish interpretation of rape).
The web is a cranky beast, hard to cage. In the United States, net neutrality is a dead letter. Corporations cannot shut down annoying websites due to the first amendment, which still has window-dressing force. But they can marginalize them. And that has been the whole battle – an equal playing field … you know, liberty and justice for all. Quaint.
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And then, there’s this: Operation Payback threatens to hack any company’s website that acts against Wikileaks, and has already shut down the Swiss bank PostFinance, which froze Wikileaks funds. They are threatening to go after PayPal as well. Can’t wait.
The Swiss government is resisting pressure from Obama and the French government to shut down the Wikileaks.ch site running in that country. Perhaps they have leverage via their banking laws by which so many American criminals hold secret accounts there.
The website of the Swedish prosecutor’s who is going after Assange was taken down today. Too funny.
And now MasterCard is down too.
Piece of Mindful 