Titanic Post

One of the tenants of capitalism is that the free market will regulate prices for a commodity. I personally don’t think that health should be a commodity, but some do, maybe even yourself.

If consumers get together in the “free market” and decide to start a health insurance cooperative and influence the price of health to the consumers’ advantage by initiating a new payment system, isn’t that capitalism in action?

And if health consumers decide that it would be to their advantage to enlist the aid of government in getting this new payment system in place and making it the law of the land, shouldn’t that be ok and within the functions of capitalism.

This is, by the way what the corporate health insurance lobby did when they wanted government help in deregulating their business.  Shouldn’t we be able to do this too? Please excuse my ignorance, but shouldn’t we be allowed to implement a health care payment system that is to our advantage?

Why our political system remains corrupt

It is said that our government is subject to a revolution every two years with a new congress, but this is an illusion.  The reality is that the House and Senate are a high stakes poker game with an enormous entrance fee.

“Pay to play” is the death of our democracy and is endemic in our political system. Few politicians can resist the temptation to accept money or favors in exchange for a vote. No politician within this system is likely to risk trying to change the system.

Thomas Jefferson said that every government needs a revolution every once in a while. Our last revolution was the return to a laissez faire or a free market economy in the early 80s. Its failure, the second in 80 years, was predictable.

The New Deal worked for everybody but the robber barons and it is time we gave it another chance.  It is time for citizens to hold their elected official’s collective feet to the fire.

by Paul B. Farrell

Global Research, November 7, 2008

ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) — Yes, we’re dummies. You. Me. All 300 million of us. Clueless. We should be ashamed. We’re obsessed about the slogans and rituals of “democracy,” distracted by the campaign, polls, debates, rhetoric, half-truths and outright lies. McCain? Obama? Sorry to pop your bubble folks, but it no longer matters who’s president.

Why? The real “game changer” already happened. Democracy has been replaced by Wall Street’s new “disaster capitalism.” That’s the big game-changer historians will remember about 2008, masterminded by Wall Street’s ultimate “Trojan Horse,” Hank Paulson. Imagine: Greed, arrogance and incompetence create a massive bubble, cost trillions, and still Wall Street comes out smelling like roses, richer and more powerful!

Yes, we’re idiots: While distracted by the “illusion of democracy” in the endless campaign, Congress surrendered the powers we entrusted to it with very little fight. Congress simply handed over voting power and the keys to trillions in the Treasury to Wall Street’s new “Disaster Capitalists” who now control “democracy.”Why did this happen? We’re in denial, clueless wimps, that’s why. We let it happen. In one generation America has been transformed from a democracy into a strange new form of government, “Disaster Capitalism.” Here’s how it happened: (more…)

By Joseph L. Galloway | McClatchy Newspapers

It took just eight decades but H.L. Mencken’s astute prediction on the future course of American presidential politics and the electorate’s taste in candidates came true:

On July 26, 1920, the acerbic and cranky scribe wrote in The Baltimore Sun: ” . . . all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most easily (and) adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. The presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” (more…)

by Ken Nicholson

We have 12 million “undocumented” immigrants because there are 12 million illegal jobs open for them here and none available for them in Mexico. There is nothing in play but an unregulated free market and all your fences and all your Border Patrol will not stop them from coming here.

If you really want Mexicans to stay home in Mexico, write to your representatives and urge them to put pressure on the Mexican government that they do something about the corrupt monopolies, about their destruction of the middle class, about their destroying jobs for poor Mexicans.

Complain to this government about NAFTA and our flooding the Mexican market with crops and products Mexicans should be growing and manufacturing for themselves, such as corn and tortillas.

Quit blaming the victims for Mexican and U.S. political screw-ups and their lack of imagination and concern for working people. If you are for deregulation, this, and the World Trade Organization, is what you get.

Or is it that my friend Denise Lang is right and that this whole thing really IS about race? In that case, continue to blame the victims.

Government by itself is not always the problem
by Denise Lang

Government should not be too big. But if it is too small, it can’t protect its citizens from abuses of power. President Theodore Roosevelt said, “The limitation of governmental power means the enslavement of the people by the great corporations.” This is happening now.

The libertarian notion that privatizing services traditionally performed by government is unrealistic. In 1992, Dick Cheney, as defense secretary, spearheaded the movement to privatize most of the military’s civil logistics activities. (more…)

by Ken Nicholson

I think its time to take a closer look at why Mexicans are coming here. I doubt they come because they like it here, but rather because they couldn’t otherwise support their families in Mexico. The reason for that being that NAFTA, IMF, and international agra-business has eliminated traditional farming practices and industries that hire poor people.

For example: Mexico imports corn and tortillas from the US eliminating hundreds of thousands of jobs. The immigrants previously could earn maybe $5 a day when they can earn say $5 an hour here. What would you do in their position? How far would you go to feed yourself and your family?

I don’t think it’s healthy to have this many undocumented people here either, but I do think the change has to be applied at the source of the problem rather than depriving anyone from making a living. This problem was created by corporate america with the greedy support of both parties. This situation needs to be fixed pretty soon now. And Thats Why Immigrants Imigrate!

Happy Easter,
Nicholson

Libertarians take note! It’s the quality of government that counts, not the size. You are confusing size with something else.

NM Rates B- in Pew Report

Alamogordo Daily News
By The Associated Press

Article Launched: 03/03/2008 12:49:56 PM MST

WASHINGTON New Mexico gets a B- in a new report that rates the effectiveness of all 50 of the nation’s state governments.

The Pew Center on the States report noted that at the moment, ”New Mexico has a fiscal advantage of most other states in the oil and gas money that flows into its coffers.” But it also said the state’s infrastructure has greater needs than most. (more…)