Anyone working in business will tell you (and if they won’t, I will) — watch what your largest customers are doing.
What killed the video store? Online movies, On-Demand, NetFlix, iTunes, etc. Now I was a once a week rental guy, if that. But when their 7 day a week movie fanatics (the guys or girls that waited at the door for the latest release) went to 4 a week to 3 a week, to one a month — the signs were there, but was anyone listening?
Those loyalists are your foundation — absolutely critical relationships. Blockbuster is still playing catch up from their bricks and mortar strategy to a clicks, order and mortar strategy. Stubbornness, did someone not act, or a case of rolling over and playing victim? Even better, let’s blame gas prices and the economy!
Your loyalists may not necessarily be fans — if you’re providing convenience and someone else enters the marketplace with more convenience, you’re history. I refer to that as loyally screwed.
Convert your loyalists to fans for a stronger foundation and begin to LISTEN.
You can see your own future, your crystal ball is at your fingertips — all you have to do is listen. You may be able to determine the next curve in your industry through these relationships — pay very close attention.
It’s a slow day in a little East Texas town. The sun is beating down, and the streets are deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit…..
On this particular day a rich tourist from back east is driving through town. He stops at the motel and lays a $100 bill on the desk saying he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one to spend the night.
As soon as the man walks upstairs, the owner grabs the bill and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher.
The butcher takes the $100 and runs down the street to retire his debt to the pig farmer.
The pig farmer takes the $100 and heads off to pay his bill at the supplier of feed and fuel.
The guy at the Farmer’s Co-op takes the $100 and runs to pay his debt to the local prostitute, who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer her “services” on credit.
The hooker rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill with the hotel owner.
The hotel proprietor then places the $100 back on the counter so the rich traveler will not suspect anything.
At that moment the traveler comes down the stairs, picks up the $100 bill, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, pockets the money, and leaves town.
No one produced anything. No one earned anything. However, the whole town is now out of debt and now looks to the future with a lot more optimism.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how the United States Government is conducting business today.
I think that it can be a good thing. Waterside needs to be remade into a venue that relates more to the original purpose of the building. They need a quality seafood place, independent shops (like “All About Virginia & More” and “All about Racing & More”), locally owned restaurants, and above all, LARGE windows that give an open, public view of the waterfront. That is what the purpose of Waterside was and still should be. It is the same reason why we invest so heavily in Town Point Park. The waterfront is and ought to be the public’s domain.
Norfolk - mid-1980's - zoom in and pay close attention to the number of people at Waterside
The image above shows a Waterside full of people. It shows a Waterside tha tis not dependent on taxdollars to survive. That is what we need to rebuild. Do not tear the building down. Renovate it. Make it bright inside again.
Back to Jillian’s. They don’t need to be inside waterside. They should remain Downtown, but not in Waterside. Same goes for Hooters, Outback, and Joe’s. By themselves, they are all good places. They simply do not belong in a venue like the one that I have described. They can stay Downtown, definitely. In fact, it would improve Downtown as a whole to have those restaurants move OUT of Waterside and INTO a street-front property. The amount of pedestrian traffic would surely increase traffic and revenue to the other stores. This move is not an end, but a beginning. A good beginning.
When the U.S. was a developing nation, we expended our efforts and capital in developing the infrastructure for industry. Our government provided incentives for the development and extraction of natural resources to be used as raw materials to build, not just products, but a thriving national economy. — And that’s exactly what China and other developing nations are doing today.
But, today, the U.S. is doing the opposite. Increasingly, over the past several decades, our government has been restricting the extraction of natural resources and dismantling the infrastructure for industry. Overregulation, combined with exorbitant and ever-increasing union demands, has succeeded in driving much of our industry offshore. If we want to recover our economy, we need to reverse that trend.
Despite President Obama’s 2008 campaign promise to “Strengthen Domestic Manufacturing to Create Jobs and Meet the Challenges of the 21st Century,” this administration is thoroughly beholden to the unions and environmental lobbies and, in true Chicago style, has used the stimulus package to pay off political debts. From every indication, this president will continue the trend of dismantling the economy in favor of political correctness and payback.
Every nation has a historical trajectory. This nation has apparently passed its apogee, and is now in decline. We no longer have the drive to overcome. We’ve become complacent and, instead of striving for ever greater industrial innovation and economic strength, we are focused myopically on the niceties that developing nations cannot afford to consider.
The problem is, there’s no such thing as stasis. A nation, a corporation, a species, an individual, must either advance or decline. That’s nature. And, as we sink into complacency, whining effetely about our declining economy, there will be others advancing to take our place as the dominant world power, industrially, economically, and (eventually) militarily. That’s a historical inevitability. The same pattern can be observed throughout nature and the history of civilizations. The only question is when.
At this point, we could still reverse that trend by, once again, becoming a developing nation ourselves — one can always develop further, if one is motivated to keep striving — but we, as a nation, lack that motivation. We’re apparently content to rest on our laurels as we sink into national senescence while other countries, like China, rise up on the international horizon. The world is always changing. It’s the nature of all things. The only question is, will we, as a nation, go gentle into that good night? Or will we rage, rage against the dying of the light? (Apologies to Dylan Thomas.)
Unfortunately, I believe I know the answer to that rhetorical question. History is being written even as we go about our daily lives. You can see it in our relations with other nations, as we make concessions that cede our sovereignty in so many minor ways. Stepping back and observing from a historical perspective, we see a once-great nation, that no longer has the will to sustain its rank as the leader of the free world, stepping aside and leaving the field open to whoever will step up and take its place. Sadly, there’s no way to choose our successor. Once we step aside, we can only watch and hope for the best. And if we don’t like the way the world is shaping up in the post-American era, we will just have to suffer the consequences.
There is a growing anxiety that smart meter deployment being stimulated by Federal stimulus money and pressure to move faster from state utility regulators will swamp the data boat of many, if not most, utilities. As I started digging into this issue I quickly discovered I was not the only one, nor the first, to raise it. Last May, Beth Pariseau wrote extensively on this Smart Grid storage topic for Searchstorage.com. [1]
It turns out that I have a personal connection to two of the utilities most often cited on the smart meter front: Austin Energy and PG&E. Having once managed Austin Energy and Austin Water when I was Assistant City Manager for Utilities and Finance in Austin Beth’s interview with current Austin Energy’s CIO, Andres Carvallo piqued my interest. Compared to the data management issued Austin faced when I was there the expected usage trends with smart meters are staggering. My other connection to this issue is through PG&E, my energy provider here in the San Francisco Bay area. Recently, PG&E installed a smart meter from Silver Spring Network on my house. So here is the essence of Beth’s data tsunami story as represented by these two smart grid leaders.
The 400 MB Per Smart Meter Data Storage Requirement
At Austin Energy which is finishing the roll-out of its first 500,000 meters, the annual increase in data storage grew to 200 TB from 20 TB including disaster recovery backup for 15 minute meter sampling for the first stage residential integration. More frequent meter data sampling dramatically scale the data requirements. Austin’s experience to date suggests that storage of about 400 MB per meter per year are required minimally for the 15 minute sampling standard. The Pacific Gas and Electric experience was comparable adding 1.2 PB of meter data storage for its initial 700,000 smart meters rollout or about 170 MB per meter per year sufficient for a twice daily meter sampling.
The 100 Petabyte Smart Meter Storage Need and Growing
In August 2009 FERC issued its “Assessment of Demand Response and Advanced Metering” offering two scenarios for smart meter deployment data requirements. Scenario 1 was a partial rollout of 80 million meters with and the full deployment scenario 2 of 140 million meters by 2019. Based upon the Austin Energy and PG&E experience, the FERC study suggests the need for roughly 100 PB of information within the next ten years.
Think about it this way for comparison: 1 PB=1 quadrillion bytes; or 1 PB=data filling 20 million four drawer filing cabinets filled with text files.
Data Tsunami Ahead to Make Smart Grid Work
Obviously big network and storage providers are rubbing their hands together in glee at the prospect of suctioning up a big share of the money to be spent on smart meters. Utilities, on the other hands, must be wondering whether smart grid is really a dumb idea especially if they try to do it “on the cheap” with low frequency sampling. Just like our own home computer experience, I predict that the roll out of smart meters will lead to the insatiable appetite for more and more and more storage, frequency sampling and applications to make use of this tsunami of data coming our way. Otherwise, why bother.
Hackers See Smart Grid as the Ultimate Video Game
And if you think just the demand for additional data storage is the biggest problem facing smart grid rollouts, they you just have not heard about the smart grid data hackers. At a utility security conference this past summer, one security firm set up a graphic simulation showing how simple it would be to take over the smart grid today. Their simulation showed how over 24 hours an average hacker could gain access and control over about 15,000 out of 22,000 homes by infecting their smart meters with a worm that captured control over the device. Great, you say, just let the utility send the hacker your next utility bill and see how they like it!
But Terrorists See Smart Grid as their Ticket to Ride the Grid
But the problem is there are a lot of bad guys out there who are quite capable of using that control to do serious damage to our critical infrastructure. This is the nightmare scenario for Federal , State and Utility security officials—a cyber attack. That is why FERC has set out a set of critical infrastructure protection rules that require utilities to beef up their security. The National Institute of Standards and Technology is working actively to tighten the nation’s critical infrastructure protection standards. [2] The Federal stimulus grants for smart meter installation all come with regulations requiring utilities to take proactive and immediate steps to boost security. The question is whether the advances of smart grid technology will actually make us more vulnerable to these kinds of cyber attacks than the good old dumb meters that controlled nothing but our utility bill.
So what?
One more thing to think about, not only will you have to pay for all these smart meters and the data storage to keep up with the vast amount of information they produce, but now you have to pay for the security needed to keep some terrorist or teenage mutant ninja hacker from attacking your smart meter or worse the smart grid.
It makes you long for the good old days when all the terrorists did was toilet paper your front yard or egg the car windows.
Kecebong, anak kodok, muncul di kolam, membuat Nasrudin gembira karena dia mengira kecebong itu anak ikan lele. Kegembiraannya itu sirna dan dia tersipu malu ketika diberi tahu bahwa yang dikira anak ikan lele itu adalah kecebong. Kodok betina yang masuk ke kolam tanpa diketahui, bertelur dan menetas bersama dua indukan ikan lele betina dan seekor jantan.
Itu pengalaman pertama Nasrudin (61) sejak delapan tahun lalu saat belajar beternak ikan lele.
”Kecebong disangka anak lele. Ngerakeun pisan (sangat memalukan),” kata Nasrudin, menuturkan awal usahanya menjadi peternak ikan lele delapan tahun lalu, di Saung Pertemuan Pusat Pelatihan Pertanian dan Pedesaan Swadaya (P4S) Jaya Sentosa, awal November lalu. Saung itu berdiri di tepi puluhan kolam ikan lele yang terbuat dari terpal dan tembok di lahan seluas 12.000 meter persegi di Kampung Sukabirus, Desa Gadog, Kecamatan Mega Mendung, Kabupaten Bogor, Jawa Barat.
Kini, dia tak lagi dipermalukan atas ketidaktahuannya. Nasrudin sudah tersohor berkat lele sangkuriang yang mulai dikembangbiakkan pada 2001. Dia mengawali usaha beternak lele dengan benih sekitar 100.000 lele sangkuriang yang diperoleh dari Balai Besar Pengembangan Budidaya Air Tawar Sukabumi. Nama sangkuriang yang diberikan itu memang diambil dari legenda Tanah Pasundan untuk menandakan lokasi asal pembiakan lele jenis tersebut.
Lele sangkuriang ini merupakan perbaikan genetik melalui silang balik antara induk betina lele dumbo generasi kedua (F2) dan jantan lele dumbo generasi keenam (F6). Induk betina (F2) berasal dari keturunan kedua lele dumbo yang diintroduksi ke Indonesia pada 1985.
Petugas penyuluh pertanian dan perikanan setempat memberikan bimbingan beternak ikan secara benar. Berkat ketekunannya, Nasrudin berhasil mengembangkan ikan lele sangkuriang.
Dia kini sudah menjadi ”pendekar lele”, bukan saja mahir dalam membesarkan lele dengan jurus-jurus yang jitu, tetapi juga mampu mengobati lele yang diserang penyakit, seperti radang kulit, dengan obat herbal ramuannya sendiri. Obat ini diberikan cuma-cuma kepada yang memerlukan.
”Letkol”
Sejak 2005, dia menjadi pelatih bagi kelompok dari sejumlah daerah, termasuk sejumlah karyawan perusahaan swasta dan pemerintah menjelang pensiun yang ingin beternak lele. Namanya pun sohor menjadi ”Nasrudin Lele” dari Desa Gadog. Bahkan, kalangan pembudidaya lele dan warga setempat menjuluki Nasrudin dengan sebutan Bapak Letkol—akronim dari Lele Kolam yang dipelesetkan menjadi Letkol—sehingga dia kemudian disebut ”Letkol” Nasrudin.
Petani lele sangkuriang dari Desa Gadog ini kini lebih jauh berangan-angan membantu pemerintah mengurangi angka pengangguran dengan memelihara lele. ”Budidaya lele tidak terlalu sulit, teknologinya juga mudah dan tiga bulan sudah bisa dipanen. Masyarakat kecil bisa membudidayakan lele di halaman rumahnya. Cukup dengan lahan minim, hanya dengan luas 1 meter x 1 meter, serta modal Rp 75.000 untuk bibit dan pakan, sudah bisa beternak lele skala kecil,” kata Nasrudin.
Dia tak segan-segan membagi pengetahuan memelihara lele secara benar kepada mereka yang ingin membudidayakan lele. Dia juga siap membantu mereka yang datang menimba ilmu di P4S Gadog tanpa dipungut biaya.
Sejumlah petugas penyuluh pertanian dan perikanan serta pakar perikanan pun mendukung kegiatan Nasrudin membudidayakan lele sangkuriang dan melakukan pelatihan. Dukungan ini membuat Nasrudin bersemangat dan bertambah yakin akan angan-angannya untuk menjadikan Desa Gadog sebagai sentra budidaya lele sangkuriang.
Bahkan, 7 September lalu, Nasrudin diangkat menjadi Ketua Gabungan Kelompok (Gapok) Budidaya Ikan Lele Sangkuriang ”Cahaya Kita” untuk wilayah tengah Provinsi Jabar dengan pusat aktivitas di wilayah Kabupaten/Kota Bogor.
-The Washington Post is reporting this morning that promises made by AIG executives to return retention bonuses paid out earlier this year have largely gone unfulfilled. Some of the employees have left the company, taking their money with them.
-According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Elkhart County Indiana, once the poster child of the recession, has seen workers return to work, signaling a revival may be near in heartland America.
-Thousands have incorrectly claimed tax benefits under the Obama administration’s stimulus plan, the New York Times reports, and the IRS may not be able to verify eligibility for the majority of tax benefit recipients. -CPP
With Obama’s approval rating at a new low, well under 50%, Congressional job approval under 30%, the generic Congressional ballot favoring Republians, and most Americans against the Democrat Obamacare plan for socialized medicine, Parker Griffith has seen the light, smelled the coffee, and jumped from the sinking Democrat ship. Smart move.
Democratic congressman defects to the GOP
Rep. Parker Griffith of Alabama switched his party affiliation from Democrat to Republican on Tuesday, a startling defection from the majority party in the House that underscores the difficulties facing Democrats in midterm elections next year.
Mr. Griffith, a 67-year-old radiation oncologist, blasted the Democratic leaderships’ health care overhaul, saying the bill is bad for doctors and patients.
“I believe our nation is at a crossroads and I can no longer align myself with a party that continues to pursue legislation that is bad for our country, hurts our economy and drives us further and further into debt,” said the freshman lawmaker form a conservative-leaning district in northern Alabama that includes his hometown of Huntsville.
Mr. Griffith often sided with Republicans on major votes, and his switch does little to deflate House Democrats’ overwhelming majority. But his unusual decision to join the minority party sent a strong message to Democratic leaders.
Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), said Mr. Griffith had betrayed his Democratic colleagues and demanded that Mr. Griffith return campaign funds.
“Mr. Griffith, failing to honor our commitment to him, has a duty and responsibility to return to Democratic members and the DCCC the financial resources that were invested in him,” Mr. Van Hollen said. “His constituents will hold him accountable for failing to keep his commitments.”
Mr. Griffith’s party switch follows retirement announcement from several moderate House Democrats, fueling expectations that Republicans will pick up a significant number of seats in the midterm elections. Democrats maintain a 79-seat majority, 257 to 178. But several polls show a strong majority of Americans disapprove of the Democratic-led Congress’ performance. A Gallup Poll released last week found that 69 percent of Americans disapprove of Congress’ performance.
Republicans welcomed Mr. Griffith, who was considered one of the most vulnerable Democratic incumbents, and said his conversion reflected a disconnect between Democrats and most Americans.
“From the massive stimulus bill that wasted billions of dollars and failed to create jobs, to a job-killing cap-and-trade energy tax, to a government takeover of health care – the Democrat majority has pursued an agenda far outside the mainstream,” said House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, Virginia Republican.
“Democrats are beginning to realize what most Americans did months ago,” he said, “that their priorities are not in line with what Americans want right now, which is job growth, economic security, a safe and secure nation and a fiscally sane Congress that doesn’t spend money that it doesn’t have.”
Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana, chairman of the House Republican Conference, said Mr. Griffith’s decision should send a “deafening message” to President Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, that their “agenda of borrowing, spending, bailouts and takeovers is being rejected by the American people.”
See also: House Democrat announces switch to GOP Rep. Griffith of Alabama leaves Democrats for Republicans Ala. Dem defects to GOP over health care, policy Parker Griffith’s departure forewarns Dems Democratic Rep. Parker Griffith becomes a Republican — and a straw in the wind? Democratic Representative Griffith to Switch Parties Parker Griffith, Democratic Representative, Switches Parties to GOP Griffith Switches Party A Democrat Defects Voters speak out on Griffith’s decision to switch political parties Congressman Parker Griffith : Home Parker Griffith
It’s extremely rare and takes guts for a politician to switch from the majority to the minority party, it almost exclusively happens the other way around in the form of cynical political opportunism. As a physician, Griffith isn’t stupid, he can see the writing on the wall and the damage Obama and the Democrats are doing to this country, which is making the American public increasingly angry and frustrated.
/the 2010 elections won’t be kind to Democrats, especially since they seem to be hell bent on galloping down the massive deficit spending, expanding socialist government path
“Can a finite Earth support an infinite project? The thesis of capitalism, infinite development, is a destructive pattern, let’s face it. How long are we going to tolerate the current international economic order and prevailing market mechanisms? How long are we going to allow huge epidemics like HIV/AIDS to ravage entire populations? How long are we going to allow the hungry to not eat or to be able to feed their own children? How long are we going to allow millions of children to die from curable diseases? How long will we allow armed conflicts to massacre millions of innocent human beings in order for the powerful to seize the resources of other peoples?”
– Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez, speaking at COP15, December 16, 2009
As the US economy disintegrated this year, millions of Americans faced unemployment, mortgage foreclosures, needing social services, or homelessness for the first time in their lives. The Allegheny County Department of Human Services identified 1,308 homeless people, including 164 families with children, in January 2008. That number grew to 2,242 in January of this year. That’s an increase of more than 71 percent.
Today marks the 20th annual observance of Homeless Persons Memorial Day. Begun in 1990, it is sponsored by the National Coalition for the Homeless, National Health Care for the Homeless Council, and the National Consumer Advisory Board. They chose December 21 because it’s the first day of winter and the longest night of the year. They want to bring public attention to the tragedy of homelessness and to remember those who suffered and died because our nation has failed to end it. Service and advocacy groups in more than 120 US cities held events to honor the homeless in 2008.
Here is an interesting excerpt from an interview of Paul Volcker by Spiegel this weekend:
SPIEGEL: The US has not yet instituted any kind of reform policy. What we see is the government and the Federal Reserve pouring money into the economy. If one looks beyond that money, one sees that the economy is in fact still shrinking.
Volcker: What should I say? That’s right. We have not yet achieved self-reinforcing recovery. We are heavily dependent upon government support so far. We are on a government support system, both in the financial markets and in the economy.
In one of its last acts before adjourning for a winter break, the House of Representatives passed legislation that raises the amount of debt the US government is legally allowed to owe by an amount of $290 billion to a record $12.4 trillion in allowable government debt. The 218-214 vote saw unanimous Republican opposition, though they did vote last year to raise the debt limit before they realized that returning to some semblance of their fiscal conservative roots might be a good idea both for their image and for the country. If the bill hadn’t passed, the government would have had to delay some of its payouts, a bad situation to be sure, and one which makes its passage in the Senate seemingly assured.
One would think that coming so close to defaulting on government payouts would give Congress and the White House pause on tacking on more spending items to a fiscal year with an already record $1.4 trillion deficit. Not so for the Democrats, however, as President Obama yesterday signed a $1.1 trillion spending bill that increases budgets in many areas of government by up to 10%. Yes, you read that right – $1.1 trillion for a measure that helps out government agencies. A responsible thing to do might be to tighten the belt and curb spending, but instead Obama and the Democrats have determined that the only way back to prosperity is to spend our way back to it.
Meanwhile, the House passed a $155 billion “jobs” bill that provides for “shovel-ready” construction projects and saving the jobs of public employees. Hmmm, let me see, wasn’t there some other bill passed back in February that was supposed to engender “shovel-ready” projects and “create or save” millions of jobs? The passage of this bill seems like a tacit admission that the first stimulus bill didn’t work as advertised, and the solution is simply to throw more money at the problem – the quintessential government solution to pretty much any dilemma it faces.
So much for all that lofty “pay-go” rhetoric President Obama was spouting just a few months ago. Whatever justification is given for more spending and higher debt, the nation simply cannot sustain it. It seems Democrats are so adverse to being labelled “tax-and-spend” that they’ve become something much worse – “spend-and-tax,” where the government irresponsibility comes up front before the rest of us have to pay for the adventures with our rising taxes on our incomes, our energy, and our health care. No matter what one’s political ideology, the most basic responsibility of our government is to act judiciously with the money of the American people. Other administrations have helped contribute to the problem, but the current cast of characters is exacerbating the issue instead of helping.
We can’t keep it up. We can’t spend our way back to happiness. But we’ll sure go more broke trying.
From Tapscott’s Copy Desk
Tapscott’s Copy Desk
Fresh and insightful opinion from Tapscott’s Copy Desk, by the Washington Examiner’s Editorial Page Editor Mark Tapscott. Got a tip or an oped to place? Send an e-mail to mark.tapscott.
TODAY’S WASHINGTON EXAMINER EDITORIAL SECTION HIGHLIGHTS
Debt crisis portends the end of liberalism
Examiner Editorial
“Liberalism will owe its undoing to its blind faith that government could forever be the inexhaustible provider of ever more spending, more benefits and more prosperity, with nary a day of reckoning.”
Democrats would prefer to do away with the Senate
Noemie Emery, Examiner Columnist “It takes a perverse form of genius to talk about thwarting the will of the people when polls show most of the people prefer to have Congress do nothing, but they go on with great verve.”
Religious freedom at stake in upcoming Supreme Court case.
Alan Sears, Examiner OpEd Contributor “As Christian beliefs stand in ever starker contrast to the campus culture, it has become academic de rigueur to punish the free association of Christian students and the free expression of their ideas on campus.”
A small town that houses the nearly empty maximum-security Thomson Correctional Facility is expecting a windfall of federal dollars (1 BILLION of them and about 2,000 jobs, to be exact) thanks to President Obama’s plan to move Gitmo detainees into America’s heartland for eventual trials in civilian courts.
From CNN:
“It don’t bother me that there is going to be terrorists — or people who our government think are terrorists — living there,” said Mary Wiggins, a 43-year-old waitress at the popular Sunrise Cafe. “Murderers are in there, and terrorists are murderers. What difference does it make?
“If it brings people into this cafe, well, I guess I’m fine with it,” she said.
So now the detained terrorists are good for the economy. I thought I heard of everything.
Perhaps this was the plan all along. If it is believable to liberals that George W Bush pre-planned his war in Iraq and used the 9-11 attacks as cover, then it is entirely possible that Obama used liberal outrage over the Guantanamo Bay prison to hide a massive shunting of taxpayer dollars to his adopted home state.
Will there be an investigation? Not from the Pelosi or Reid quarters. Look out if terror strikes this little town or NYC during the trials. Americans are fickle but demand blood when attacked. Ask the Japanese why they are the only nation that has suffered from a nuclear attack so far. It wasn’t because they were the world’s biggest threat by a long shot. It was because the US grew weary of fighting their radical elements and tactics and losing too many of our young men in battle. It was also because of the way they attacked Pearl Harbor. Revenge became a dish best served with massive doses of radiation.
Democrats are risking much political capital these days for things like unpopular plans for health care, climate emissions taxes and national defense (and moving terror suspects on to US soil, where they’ll be tried in US civilian courts). The liberal base is fine with all of this, but the center and right are fuming. If an attack occurs, there won’t be much left of a democrat for quite some time.
9. Reduction in working hours
One of the main demands of the working class movement in the years before the 1914-1918 War was that “the eight hour day”. A sort of “mystique” even grew up around this issue: “eight hours of work, eight hours of sleep, eight hours to live as a free man”. The idea of the First of May, which started in America, had as its aim to base an international spectacle upon this issue. In spite of strong resistance from employers, who often produced alarming statistics, the goal was achieved almost everywhere, during the ’20s. Under the influence of Albert Thomas, the Inernational Labour Office concentrated a good deal of its time on this particularly popular reform.
During the recession of the ’30s an even more radical diminution of working hours was proposed as a means of combatting unemployment. It is true it was relatively less popular in Europe, but in America the architects of the New Deal held out great hopes for it. The line of argument moreover was simple: to divide what work was available between a larger number of workers. Moreover it was thought that this reform would not be too costly, because by proceeding in this way substantial savings could be made in the payment of unemployment benefits. However, the results did not come up to these expectations.
The present “crisis” has rekindled this debate. We shall make a few general observations.
The first argument is already familiar to the reader, having already been stated elsewhere in this paper, that the scope of national action is particularly limited here. In any country where trade union pressure led to the introduction by legislation of the 36 hour week, for example, they would necessarily find costs of production increasing and consequently export opportunities diminishing. It is thus necessary to think at least in continental, and, preferably , in global terms. At least the European Economic Community offers a framework of progress, which the United Nations is far from doing. On top of which, one can hope that this is an area where Europeans will play a progressive social role. It is moreover conceivable that to safeguard such progress, it will one day be necessary to instigate (bring about or initiate) anti-dumping measures, a practice which is, on the whole, always deplorable, even thought necessary in certain limited circumstances, Again, this is a two-edged sword which must be used sparingly, since protectionism of any sort always provokes retaliation. Whatever the circumstances, however, an exclusively national demand in this area becomes worthless. The employers will always be right in claiming that foreign competition prevents them from taking the initiative.
Next, it would be very dangerous to base this demand upon an idelogy opposed to work, ne which is redesigned from the very beginning to a fatalistic (the belief that all events are predetermined and therefore inevitable) acceptance of servitude: earning your daily bread is always, inevitably, “hard labour”, while leisure alone gives man a possibility of realizing his potential. Certainly, Jean Fourastie could speak of a human existence in which professional work was limited to “40.000 hours” according to his calculation. But this number of hours, though reduced, remains so considerable that the time should not be filled with monotony and drudgery (dull work). Besides, the quality of leisure time is conditioned to a large extend by the impact of the job. This requires less physical effort than it once did, but it makes other demands on the nervous system, the impact of which cannot be ignored.
The direction, briefly, in which it seems we should proceed in this respect is as follows. The essence of what we are aiming at is not to be found in a systmatic dimunition (reducing the sice, extend or importance of something) of the quantity of work, but rather in a humanisation of our technology. In other words, the time is ripe for a “controlled technology”, the principal criterion of which would be the elimination of unhealty industrial processes – that is to say, those prejudicial to the physical and mental well being of the work force – in favour of methods at the same time economic in their consumption of raw materials and showing respect towards the person. Possibly, this is too much to ask at the one time, but it is the price Europe must pay if it wishes to give the world a model of a humanistic economy stated briefly, technological innovation is neither an imperative of progress to be passively accepted, nro a neutral product of science.
The person who most effectively opened up this groudn was Schumacher, first in his best-known work SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL, then, perhaps even more succesfully, in GOOD WORK. According to him, no one wishes to work more than is necessary, given the present state of technological development. However, nor does anyone want to submit to the drudgery of a type of industrial work devoid of all personal satisfaction, because of deafening noise, permanent noxious smells, monotony which – for certain types of people anyway – leads to a gradual deadening of the finest human faculties. Yet only occasionally have technologists taken account of the living conditions of those for whom they design their machines. A code of conduct needs to be outlined in this respect.
Lastly, if the reduction of working hours is perhps less important than the humanisation of working conditions, it may nevertheless have a certain importance in the fight against unemployment. On condition, however, that wages are sufficiently fair that so-called “moonlighting”is no longer an economic necessity and becomes, in consequence, a social evil to fight against. there again, European legislation is a high priority. But, of course, it will not be sufficient. What we also need to ensure is that the control of the new technology, spoken of above, involves equally opting for labour rather than capital intensive activities. That is already an imperative for Third World countries, where labour is plentiful and cheap. It is also so for the traditional industrial nations. In the present situaiton, in which profit is the main and often only criterion, it is too tempting to keep on replacing human labour with that of machines, to such an extent that, finally, society finds itself burdened with a “reserve army” of labour, that is both numerous and permanent. Hence we are obiged to draw up a list of three imperatives: the needs to be met, the labour forces available, and the machines able to offer on the market at the one time an economically attractive product, an acceptable type of work, and reasonable levels of capital investment. A directed technology must find a balance between these three factors.
Right now, in the USA, a patchwork of private insurance companies pays for health care of a major proportion of American population.
To put it baldly, the health insurance companies make money by denying you coverage that you, as the policy holder, have paid for. This becomes especially true if you become really ill and desperately need that coverage, although you’re probably okay if you just get a cold.
That’s just crazy making.
Under modern capitalist management theory, corporations try to minimize the impact of what they call, in polite corporate circles, “cost centers” and maximize the impact of what they call “revenue centers.”
For an operation like an auto maker, a megastore like Wal-Mart, or a meatpacking operation, a “cost center” might be wages and benefits paid to workers. Alternatively, “revenue centers” may consist of sales of SUVs, sales of hormone-laden, additive-spiked dead cow burgers, or sales of cheap nasty plastic garden gnomes.
And in the case of health insurance companies, payouts to health care providers would constitute a “cost center,” while the collection of premiums constitutes a “revenue center.”
In other words, if you become really ill and really need medical care to save your life, your health insurance company would benefit from spending as little as possible on you, even to the point of denying you the very coverage that you paid for. That’s about when the insurance company starts looking for some “undisclosed preexisting condition” or some other dubious reason to drop your coverage, as I explain below. The insurance companies make money by saying “no” when you need coverage, and they lose money by saying “yes” when it comes time to pay your medical bills.
That unappetizing economic fact is the most salient point to keep in mind when looking at the present political spitball fight going on in Washington.
Now you may think the insurance companies feel a fiduciary responsibility to the policy holder, but actually, it’s the investors and corporate CEOs to whom they feel a fiduciary responsibility.
As a matter of fact, the policy holder on the one hand and the insurance company owners on the other hand find themselves in a zero-sum game.
That is an example of what some economists call “adverse selection.”
You can read about adverse selection in this Wikipedia article.
Paul Krugman, in this article, explains how adverse selection affects our present system.
Krugman asks us to imagine that the USA has only one health insurance company that sells one standard policy that covers all medical care for all Americans. That insurance company could determine the cost of each policy by dividing the total aggregate cost of health care by the total number of policy holders (which would include everyone) and then adding on a small administrative cost above that.
That’s actually not too different than what exists in most economically advanced countries. In most advanced countries, with the stunning exception of the USA, not one citizen, let alone millions, goes bankrupt each and every year because of medical costs. Moreover, the cost of providing health care is far less in those countries than in the USA
Yes, citizens of such countries as Taiwan, South Korea, the UK, Germany, France, Switzerland, Israel, Japan, the Scandinavian countries, Australia, and many other others (even third-world Cuba), do not lose their life savings or get tossed out of their homes because of medical bills they can’t pay.
As one who has worked in the American health care industry for decades and who understands exactly just how first-rate our medical doctors and medical technologies really are, the appalling state of US medical care delivery just drives me to despair.
According to the August 2009 issue of The American Journal Of Medicine:
Using a conservative definition, 62.1% of all bankruptcies in 2007 were medical; 92% of these medical debtors had medical debts over $5000, or 10% of pretax family income. The rest met criteria for medical bankruptcy because they had lost significant income due to illness or mortgaged a home to pay medical bills. Most medical debtors were well educated, owned homes, and had middle-class occupations. Three quarters had health insurance. Using identical definitions in 2001 and 2007, the share of bankruptcies attributable to medical problems rose by 49.6%. In logistic regression analysis controlling for demographic factors, the odds that a bankruptcy had a medical cause was 2.38-fold higher in 2007 than in 2001.
That comes to around one medical bankruptcy every 30 seconds, most of those being people who had jobs and who thought they were covered! If you want to read a PDF of this entire journal article, click here.
In his August 7, 2009 Washington Post op-ed piece called Harry and Louise, Closet Socialists, Michael Kinsley makes the following point:
If your business is gambling against your customers — charging each one a set amount and then paying out an amount that varies depending on how much medical care they need — you’d be crazy to greet with equal enthusiasm the robust physical fitness freak who jogs into your office and the invalid carried in on a stretcher.
Now, after decades of tolerating and even benefitting from this moral and social travesty, the politicians tell us they’re going to fix this social and political ulcer.
So the politicians meet with the “stakeholders,” that is, those affected by the outcome of their legislation, to craft some sort of unwieldy compromise.
But you, if you’re an ordinary American citizen, do not number among those “stakeholders” sitting down at the bargaining table to bang out a compromise. Ordinary insurance policy holders have zero input because only their health and personal financial future are at stake, not massive corporate coffers.
The politicians and “stakeholders” alternate between having one heck of a genial chin wag and having an un-gentile, nasty squabble.
Then, after the politicians have worked out a deal in a mostly-closed process, characterized by grade-B drama scripts, crocodile tears, hissy fits and snits, statesmanlike posturing, and thunderous platitudes, the winners smile for the press, slap each other on the back, and publicly congratulate each other about the “bipartisan” deal they manage to make and the collegiate atmosphere of the legislature.
Those other politicians and “stakeholders” who lose something in the bargain, that is those who ended up supping from the slops at the bottom of the pork barrel instead of the top, make snide remarks and try to torpedo the whole deal, demagogically appealing to the populist rage and anger of the ordinary folk, who never stood to gain no matter which way the debate ended.
And if you are an average American, you wonder why your interests come out at the bottom?
Single Payer
Realistically, what the USA needs is a single-payer system to address the American health care crisis. A single-payer system is one where all medical fees are paid by a single public entity, which operates openly and is publicly accountable, which bargains for the best rates from the hospital chains, the drug companies, just as Medicare does now.
Single payer would take the obscene profit margins out of the equation and end up being less expensive, even in terms of taxes. Numerous studies show that a single payer system that covers everyone would be far less expensive than the for-profit system we have now, the system that leaves so many in a lurch.
Here is a list of dozens of these studies done by such entities as the GAO, the Congressional Budget Office, many states, foundations, and think tanks that have been conducted over the last several decades.
But don’t look to the Obama administration or the Democrats to bring this type of fresh approach to the American public.
Oh no!
President Obama and his Democrats, as well as the “loyal opposition,” cater to the interests of the “stakeholders.” —all those folks who have earned vast fortunes by causing the problem in the first place.
And whoever else these “stakeholders” include, they don’t include you if you’re the average American, one whose very health and life hang on the outcome of this debate.
You see, you simply don’t count as a member of this august group. That’s because you don’t stand to lose millions if our system actually provides simple, elegant, efficient, and relatively less expensive single-payer health care financing.
It’s a zero-sum game.
Some of the conservative politicians argue that we should let the market work. The problem is that it has been working—working a zero-sum con.
The more liberal politicians, especially President Obama himself, make wonderful, even inspiring statements about the plight of average American, whom they call “the middle class,” but it’s actually the the lobbyists, the bankers, pharmaceutical manufacturers, big hospital corporations, in short, the corporate interests who set the parameters of what is “politically possible.” They’re the “stakeholders,” the real constituents of the politicians, be they liberal or conservative.
To get real health care reform, Americans need to go beyond politics-as-usual, go outside the electoral political system.
We Americans simply must build an independent mass movement, in the streets (meaning outside the control of the Democratic-Republican duopoly), a mass movement like the one that ended America’s home-grown version of Apartheid and the notorious Jim Crow laws with its legacy of lynching and violence. We need a movement like the mass movement that ended the Vietnam war.
It was not really the liberal politicians or the Democratic or Republican party that accomplished these social gains. It was the millions of ordinary Americans who turned out in a mass movement, largely in the streets, that forced the hand of the politicians. After being forced to accede, the politicians were plenty willing to take credit for these accomplishments, saying they were for the reforms all along, when all they really did was buckle at the knees in the face of mass anger.
As a matter of fact, every important social gain the American people have made in the past 200 or so years has come about by independent mass action in the streets and has been opposed by the politicians and the corporations of the day. That includes the abolition of slavery, the abolition of child-labor laws, women’s right to vote, enactment of universal education laws, the right to family planning including access to legalized birth control, the right to form labor unions, the 8-hour work day, the integration of our schools and neighborhoods, the right to marry outside one’s race, the elimination of poll taxes, literacy tests, and other forms of racial discrimination in voting, the elimination of Jim Crow laws and segregation, protection of freedom of conscience, etc, etc, etc.
Power takes a backward step only in the face of power, and the only power ordinary working people have is the power of mass action.
In the future I will be writing more about single payer health insurance, as well as about the major American political parties, the Democrats and Republicans.
I will write about how I think we can get real health care reform, how we can achieve full employment, how we can end America’s penchant for war, how we can dare hope build a decent and humane future for our children and grandchildren. I will show how relying on the Democrat’s cheap political theater and the Republican’s even cheaper political theater amounts to playing in a political sandbox. And I will expose the political fraud of those Republican allies, who both embarrass them and give sustenance to them, the reactionary just-say-no zealots and conspiracy theorists, people like Glenn Beck.
But in the meantime, I hope you will peruse the website of the Physicians For A National Health Plan (PHNP), which has a lot of valuable resources on this vital issue.
You will see why the “free market” can only make this problem worse and why we need the universal coverage under a single payer plan, operating on a nonprofit basis like Medicare, administered by a publicly accountable board.
Regards,
Alan OldStudent
References
Google definition of a zero sum game.
Wikipedia on Adverse Selection
New York Times, Nov 14, 2009 Health Economics 101 by Paul Krugman.
Abstract of article on medical bankruptcies from the August 2009 issue of The American Journal Of Medicine.
Link to a PDF of the entire above journal article.
Michael Kinsley’s Aug 7, 2009 op-ed piece in the Washington Post, titled Harry and Louise, Closet Socialists.
List of dozens of reputable studies on the cost of universal health care via a single-payer system.
Ferris State University’s web page on the history of Jim Crow laws.
Link to a horrifying picture of an African-American female lynching victim, dated 1911.
Excellent website of PHNP (Physicians For A National Health Plan), an outstanding resource for facts, figures, and analyses on single payer.
Citigroup is negotiating with regulators in an attempt to pay back its government bailout funds before the end of the year. The bank’s drive to repay its loans comes a week after Bank of America announced that it had repaid the $45 billion it received under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).
Citi’s push to repay its loans has sewn divisions between regulators, with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and Federal Reserve arguing that the bank is not yet healthy enough to repay its loans, and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner pushing for repayment as soon as possible. The bank posted a $3.2 billion loss in the third quarter, following two consecutive quarterly profits.
Of the $45 billion in bailout funds Citigroup received last year, $25 billion has been converted to common stock, leaving $20 billion in outstanding loans. The US government can sell its $25 billion in shares, which gives it one-third ownership of the bank, whenever it chooses, and the Financial Times reported Wednesday that the government is “likely” to sell the stock over the next “year or so.” The government also guarantees $301 billion of the bank’s assets.
By virtue of the fact that Bank of America and Citigroup received “exceptional assistance” from the government, over and above the funds made available to the other big banks, they were placed under the purview of Kenneth Feinberg, the Treasury’s special master for executive compensation. Feinberg’s remit initially covered seven firms—American International Group, Citigroup, Bank of America, General Motors, Chrysler and the financing arms of the two auto makers.
Earlier this year, after intensive negotiations with the seven firms, Feinberg announced modest restraints on their pay awards to top executives. However, Wall Street considers any form of government oversight an impermissible infringement on the right of the banks to pay seven-and-eight-digit compensation packages to top executives and traders.
The timing of the repayment scramble is significant. The banks are seeking to get out from under government pay restrictions in preparation for paying year-end bonuses, and to attract new executives with multi-million-dollar signing perks. Bank of America, in particular, has had difficulty finding a replacement for outgoing CEO Kenneth Lewis. The need to offer a “competitive” bonus package is one of the reasons cited by commentators for the bank’s rush to repay its TARP loans.
Andrew Ross Sorkin of the New York Times made this point Monday in an article entitled “Bailout Refund Is All About Pay, Pay, Pay.” Sorkin wrote that people within the Treasury Department told him “the No. 1 reason offered by the firm during weeks of back-and-forth—even when it was discussed indirectly—was compensation.” He summed up the policy of the Obama administration toward Wall Street by citing a research note from Standard and Poor’s which, he said, “suggested the $45 billion repayment didn’t really matter, because if the bank got in trouble again, taxpayers would be there with another bailout.”
This was underscored Wednesday, when Treasury Secretary Geithner, citing the threat of further financial problems, announced that the White House will extend TARP through October of 2010.
Citigroup and Bank of America were hit harder by the financial crisis and recession, and have taken longer to recover, than competitors such as JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, which repaid their TARP loans on June 17. The latter have been able to reap bumper profits through speculative trading in stocks, bonds, currencies, commodities, derivatives and other complex and murky investments—the very types of parasitical and debt-driven practices that precipitated the financial crash of 2008.
That any of these banks, which lost billions in 2007 and 2008, are able to even consider repaying their government handouts is a testament to the unprecedented plundering of the Treasury carried out by the Bush and Obama administrations in order to rescue the financial aristocracy and protect its wealth. Aside from the trillions provided to the banks—in the form of TARP cash, cheap loans, subsidies, government guarantees of debt and assets, etc.—the Federal Reserve has carried out a policy of near-zero interest rates and the printing of billions of dollars in order to inflate stock prices and make possible a new surge in speculative profit-making.
Meanwhile, nothing has been done to address the underlying insolvency of the banks. Instead, the government has assumed their bad debts, undermining global confidence in the US dollar and raising the specter of state insolvency. No reforms have been carried out to limit the speculative activities of the banks, and none are in the offing. Nor are any of those chiefly responsible for the financial debacle and resulting social disaster to be held to account.
Instead, the policy of the Obama administration is to use mass unemployment to drive down the wages and living standards of the working class, and carry out a program of austerity to slash spending for social programs. On this basis, the ruling class intends to make the working class pay for the bailout of Wall Street.
All of the major banks continue to hold on their books billions in “toxic” assets, including mortgage-backed securities and loans, commercial real estate assets, credit card loans, and other consumer credit assets that continue to plunge in value as unemployment rises and defaults and bankruptcies increase. The banks refuse to write down these assets or sell them, in order to avoid recording the resulting losses. The government has already obliged by watering down accounting standards so as to allow the banks to value these assets far higher than their market price. The big banks are confident that, in the end, the government will step in either to make them whole or rig the markets so as to allow them to sell off these assets at artificially high prices.
At the same time, the banks continue to reduce their lending to small businesses and consumers, finding it more profitable to speculate on the financial markets. When TARP was passed in October of 2008, it was justified to the public by Bush, and backed by Obama and congressional Democrats, as the only means of getting the banks to start lending again.
In his New York Times article, Sorkin noted data showing that Bank of America’s new loans actually fell from $942 billion in the second quarter to $914 billion in the third. For the banking system as a whole, total commercial and industrial loans fell from $1.36 trillion in June to $1.28 in September, according to a recent report by the FDIC.
Among nearly all of the major banks, the lending arms have been hemorrhaging money, while the securities and commodity trading operations have been responsible for the vast majority of profits. Citigroup is a case in point. In the third quarter, the bank’s credit card and mortgage units lost $9.4 billion, offsetting profits at its trading arm.
Those banks furthest removed from the consumer sector have returned to profitability the fastest.
In his speech on economic policy Tuesday, Obama defended the Troubled Asset Relief Program and hailed the fact that it has cost the government $200 billion less than anticipated. In fact, TARP was the spearhead not only of a transfer of public funds to private banks without historical precedent, it also established and institutionalized the principle of government bailouts of the banks. It is only a matter of time before the current inflation of asset values results in a new crash, and an even bigger government rescue of the financial elite.
Pandora’s box has been opened.Non development of some areas have led to this.Instead of dividing states based on Administrative convenience, dividing on the basis of language has been a folly.Ironically, the whole process of , I would call disintegration of India, was started by Potti SriRamulu of Andhra, the same state which is clamoring for another division.Instead of focusing on developing all regions, the govt.has neglected th areas.Solution is to develop all the areas.What is to prevent the politicians to ignore some areas in the newly formed state , which would call for another state?
Another reason is local politicians, who have become indispensable in the Federal Govt. in Delhi because of Coalition politics,would like smaller states where they can form the Govt. and have a say at the Center;added to this is the Maoists who have been fueling this division, especially in Andhra, where they control large chunks of territory.
Waiting in the pipe line for new states are;
Mithilanchal,Coorg,Saurashtra,Gorkha land,Budelkhand,Bhojpur,Cooch Bihar,Vidarba and Harit Pradesh.
Hindu scriptures list 64 states or principalities were in vogue .
May be we are honoring traditions.
The Indian government is to allow a new state to be carved out of part of the southern state of Andhra Pradesh.
Home Minister P Chidambaram said the process of forming Telangana state would begin soon. Campaigners say the region has long been neglected.
Supporters of the state are celebrating after days of violent protests. One of their leaders ended a hunger strike.
But many in India fear acceding to the protesters’ wishes could fuel demands for other new states across India. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8405146.stm
Japan, the second largest economy in the world, has agreed an $81bn stimulus package.
Japan’s economy grew for a second quarter in Q3 2009, but the return of deflation sparked fears that growth could stall.
A strong yen is also holding back Japanese exporters. Japan’s economy is driven by exports, and these measures, which target domestic consumers, would enjoy limited success, analysts argued.
President Obama proposed a new program Tuesday that would reimburse homeowners for energy-efficient appliances and insulation, part of a broader plan to stimulate the economy. There aren’t details yet, but Congress is working on it. Steve Nadel, director at the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, who’s helping write the bill, said a homeowner could receive up to $12,000 in rebates.
We know energy efficiency “creates jobs, saves money for families, and reduces the pollution that threatens our environment,” Obama said. “With additional resources, in areas like advanced manufacturing of wind turbines and solar panels, for instance, we can help turn good ideas into good private-sector jobs.”
The program contains two parts: money for homeowners for efficiency projects, and money for companies in the renewable energy and efficiency space. The plan will likely create a new program where private contractors conduct home energy audits, buy the necessary gear and install it, according to a staffer on the Senate Energy Committee and Nadel at the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. Nadel continued to say higher cost items like air conditioners, heating systems, washing machines, refrigerators, windows and insulation would likely be covered.
You might be eligible for a 50% rebate on both the price of the equipment and the installation, up to $12,000, said Nadel. So far, there is no income restriction on who is eligible. That would mean a household could spend as much as $24,000 on upgrades and get half back.
If you took full advantage of the program, you might see your energy bills drop as much as 20%, he said. The program is expected to cost in the $10 billion range.
It’s not clear how the home efficiency plan would be administered – the government may issue rebates to consumers directly, homeowners might get a tax credit, or the program could be run via state agencies. If consumers have to spend a lot of money up front to get the credit, it could throw a wrench in the works, David Kreutzer, an energy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, told CNN. “This will not be something that’s attractive to people who are having trouble already making their budget payments month to month or week to week,” he said. To keep consumers from having to spend thousands of dollars before getting reimbursed, Nadel said, one idea is to have contractors or big box retailers pay part of the cost up front. Fraud issues could also come up, Kreutzer said. “Any program that is going to run through a third party and is going to distribute billions of dollars needs to have lots of checks and balances to make sure there’s not abuse,” he said. Nadel noted that as a way to guard against fraud, contractors would have to be certified to participate.
We will keep up with the news for this program. Every little bit helps.
I just caught a bit on Cable News from a Professor at Columbia University that stated, “We now know what controls the climate, and it’s human activity”. Say what the F@#$? Humans control the climate? What are they smoking at Columbia?
How about maybe our proximity to the Sun, the amount of energy being emitted by the Sun, and the Earths “tilt”. He’s trying to tell me that has nothing to do with it and it’s all caused by human activity. Bullshit! There were no humans during the ancient warming periods, or the ancient Ice Ages. So how did human activity control the climate back then? Huh? No Answer?
Yeah, I thought so……. Liar!
Ok, I’ve been giving this a lot of thought, and I think I have a pretty good plan to significantly help the economy as well as help solve the healthcare problem. It’s a two for one kind of thing. Here it is, and I want to know what you all think of this.
Step 1: Significantly lower corporate taxes. At 39%, the United States has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world. That’s absurd. It’s no wonder big companies outsource so many jobs to other countries. I might get really irritated when I call tech support and get someone in India that I can barely understand, but I also understand why it’s done.
Step 2: Get the unions out. Let’s face it, the unions are in control of way too much in this country! Why do you think it was automakers that had to deal with the UAW were the ones getting that bailout money. Companies like Toyota and Honda, who have manufacturing plants here, but are not unionized, did not need the government to bail them out. Those companies don’t have the union restrictions placed on them. And, let’s not beat around the bush here, the unions bring nothing but restrictions and hardships to companies. They might claim to be helpful to workers, they really seek for power for themselves. By placing all those regulations and restrictions on companies, it causes the companies to hire fewer people and do less for the employes they have.
Step 3: Stop having employers provide health coverage fro employees. Yes, this might initially sound harsh, but hear me out. If a company doesn’t have to provide health coverage for employees, it will free up a lot of money for the company to do other things, such as hire more people or pay the employees they have more. This will create more jobs for the currently jobless or underemployed. Also, if employers didn’t have to provide coverage, the deals with the group coverage wouldn’t be in place. If all the insurance purchasing is put back in private hands, prices will drop. If prices are lower, people will buy coverage. Ok, I can hear your argument: “What about all those people with pre-existing conditions?” Great question. I maintain that insurance companies will be able to provide coverage for those they wish to cover (provided the government gets out of the picture – see step 4). If allowed to, insurance companies will be allowed to cover people with exceptional health at super low rates and people with conditions at a higher rate. It’s like car insurance. There are some companies that just have better rates, and it’s up to them to set those. If people don’t want to pay those rates, they can shop around. I think, though, that it should be completely up to the insurance companies.
Step 4: De-regulate the health insurance industry. I’m a firm believer that in the free market, the best products/services will prevail, and that consumers are capable of making decisions for themselves. One of the huge problems with the health insurance industry is that there is too much government interference, directing their operations. If, for example, the insurance companies were allowed to cross state line and be national, that would open up competition more. When there is more competition, the prices are necessarily driven down. I maintain that they would drop substantially.
Ok, there you have it. That’s my plan. It’s all about returning things to the private market and getting the government out of the private sector. What do you all think?
I have been putting off this piece for a while because I have wanted to hold off criticism until President Obama reached either a key decision or his one year mark, whichever came first. Unlike many of my opposing party opponents I have fought hard to reserve judgment, giving Obama a chance to begin to get his head around the true scope of all of the issues that faced his administration from day one. Sadly we have come to the ‘key decision’ moment as of Tuesday with the troop surge in Afghanistan, and now I feel we can rightfully look back at his track record and begin to cast a vote, as a supporter, on what direction I feel that we are moving in; at this point we can now piece together the puzzle of what Obama may intend with his administration, and the manner in which he is coming to, and executing, the courses of action his administration is enacting. From the controversial ‘public option’ and flawed ‘cash for clunkers’ program, to his ‘Bush Doctrine’ surge approach in Afghanistan, and doomed-from-the-start decision to bail out car makers and to a lesser extent the lending and banking market, Obama seems to be garnering little favor within his own party, across the aisles, or in the public sector, with every decision he makes.
Barack Obama basically campaigned on the same platform that every party opposing the presiding party does, more change and less of the same. There was nothing very different in his campaign than any other candidate may have spoken of. What set Obama apart was his rhetoric about transparency, ending the war, and better living conditions in America for the middle class. He spoke of lowering taxes, saving the economy, putting people back in to jobs and ending the kind of things we had become accustomed to under Bush. One of the biggest things, to me, was his willingness for open debate before massive bills were set in motion; periods of time where the public could weigh in and really get a sense of what was going on. Many of these things, and of the myriad of others, have either failed to come to fruition or are stalled in action.
First I want to address one situation where he seemed to have the best of intentions and caused a firestorm of controversy, the “cash for clunkers program.” It seemed innocent enough, give Americans a credit for a new car if they brought in an old vehicle that was less safe and fuel efficient than what was on the market today. This was seemingly a great concept, an innocuous situation for Americans to upgrade to a new car. The idea was two-fold, get older, fuel inefficient cars off the road, improving emissions, and to give the car market, which was floundering, a much needed boost. I think it was more than two fold though in the down side. What it did was get a lot of cheap cars, that could have been paid for in cash for people or young drivers to have as first or alternative cars. Then it also got a lot of people deeper in to debt taking on a car payment that they might not really be able to afford, and certainly did not have before, further straining the budget of Americans. Lastly it had one last, unforeseen outcome, the most popular car sold as a cause of the program…Toyotas.
The program had good intentions, a program to improve safety and emissions while boosting the economy, which is not a bad idea. The result of putting struggling Americans deeper in to debt for something they truly did not need by dangling an irresistible deal in front of them seems to really further corner us in to difficult debt to income ratios. This coupled with the job market continuing to fail, after the program closed, has probably resulted in a lot of missed payments and repossessions crushing many of the people that thought they were getting a great deal, blinded by 4,500 bucks. The program was wildly popular, almost too popular, and resulted in great criticism of its planning and execution, but it never exceeded the approved funds Obama requested, only the initial investment after it went too well. As we will see, this lack of thought of the repercussions of his ideas in how they affect the middle-class American long term is symptomatic of a slight disconnection in what we really need, not what he thinks we want.
One of the largest decisions, and one of the first, was the all-too-unclear bailout program to keep large industry and banking afloat in a terrible economic crisis. This is a massive, complicated, and unfinished issue with a long time to go before we can really judge the effects. This spending is still going on with more money to go out, industries just starting to see the effect it has had, and so many ways of looking at it my head spins just trying to tackle the lot of the issues. As complicated as it is, I think there are a few clear facts I can sift through. We have, to date, spent about 3 trillion dollars, total, according to CNNMoney.com, 73 billion of which has been paid back. This 3 trillion is only part of the total 11 trillion that was approved, but so far the repayment has only been about 2.4% of what we shelled out.
I did not want to go in to the private sector and buy up GM, did not support it one bit. I think that the government should not really own, with my tax dollars, any assets of a private corporation that has failed to compete with a good business plan. I know this is controversial, but getting bailed out only keeps bad companies afloat where new ideas, business models, and smarter men and women could step up and run things right. You cannot give money to a failing company and expect the same people who ran it in to the ground to make better choices. This is the definition of insanity, to do the same thing repeatedly and expect a different outcome. Even despite our best efforts companies still claimed bankruptcy! So we threw money at them, and wouldn’t you know it, failing companies that were making bad decisions made more bad decisions; gee wilickers.
I can kind of see the need to bailout car makers, they are a huge part of the American economy and employ tens of thousands of Americans on living wage salaries, so to let them fail would put a lot of people on the street quickly. So I see the move to give them operating capital to absorb toxic assets and market share losses. Where the bailouts lost me was capitalizing the likes of AIG and Fannie Mae directly without providing relief to the people that were struggling to pay these people off. I agree completely with an idea Jon Stewart mentioned on more than one occasion, to send those funds to the people who could then give it to the companies. Look, if I got a check for $15,000, you bet your ass I was sending 90% of that to those people I owed money to. I would pay off every credit card and cut huge chunk out of the principle balance on my student loans. As a result I have felt relief on my monthly expenses, cut down on my debt to income ratio, and the lenders got their money anyway. In this scenario everyone wins, not just the industry, but the people who needed it. As it stands I am still crazy in debt, the economy is still struggling, and no one has won.
The other concept I liked with the likes of paying off the banks and helping the American people in the process would be for the government to have taken that money they provided with the condition that the funds be spread out across the board at 10% of the principle balance on every loan or credit card. The money now goes directly to the company and I still feel the relief. My monthly payments go down, the industry now has liquid assets again, and we all win in this scenario as well. Obama didn’t need to send every American a check, but the effects of that money, those billions and trillions that have gone out to support the companies should have had a direct effect on those that fuel the economy, the people. The amount of money I owed, my monthly payments, or my debts completely should have disappeared when, now, not only my payments were going to the lenders, but my taxes I paid the government, were going to the lenders. I was double and triple paying Fannie Mae! This is symptomatic of a much greater issue this country’s people face, industry trumps people. The government is quick to support the industry, to keep the machine going, without any of the effects or cash going directly to us, the Americans who work to make this country move, those of us that are working and are paying taxes.
So here we are coming to the economy as a whole, something I won’t even begin to try and dissect in any manner other than philosophically. To be honest I really don’t get the minutia that comes with being an economist, so I am not one, but I do think that I can speak on some ideals we seem to hold to, despite the failing efforts they produce every day. The stance I take is that there needs to be some form of regulation, especially with the money we poured in to it, and the companies that got are money, we get to decide how it gets spent. I am disgusted at the news of massive bonuses with my tax dollars, you failed you blood sucking bastards, I was taught that bonuses are for successes, and you have had NONE! I also think that a free market can be only so free before corruption and greed cloud the eyes of everyone in it. Investors, quick money guys, and those that ignored the signs of failure and denied that growth would end, should not be allowed to continue to work without severe regulation and oversight to secure that it does not happen again.
As far as I can tell the money these people have gotten has been abused, misspent, and in some cases has disappeared without explanation. To the limit of my understanding the market is getting better, but a lot of industries are still slowing drowning or are gaining little ground on where we once stood as a relatively stable country. The President just started handing out blank checks without many, or any strings. When you give a ‘loan’ like this with money that isn’t yours to people that fucked the real earners of said money, you had better have a ton of strings. You cannot leave these screw ups to their own devices as you have given them a get out of jail free card; there is going to be the same orgy of misuse and BS that got them to the point they needed my, our, help. Regulation in the free market is necessary. When you take your dog out in public you have to put them on a leash because it is for their safety if they get too excited and dart in to traffic, and the safety of others as they may end up incidentally or accidentally hurting someone. This is simple civic responsibility and this kind of basic regulation, even those 20 foot retractable leashes, is necessary for the free market big dog to avoid horrible tragedies as the one we are trying to overcome.
Health care reform was a massive platform Obama spoke from. He wanted affordable health insurance for all Americans. This is quite vague but it is basically what he campaigned on. However, the reform he is putting forward is far from what he promised, intended, or will even get, as this thing makes its way to a vote. There are many items that he should have included, he said would be included, but has failed to come through on. One of the major items he campaigned on was passing the Freedom of Choice Act, the lack of reproductive health care at the ‘heart’ of the act, and among many others the importing of prescription drugs and a list of items pertaining to the elderly and those on Medicare, all of which aren’t in there. What he has put forth, as far as I can tell, is such a watered down version of what he promised that it barely resembles what he set out to get, and it still won’t garner enough support to pass. With this bill he has failed to address a lot of key issues, the debate of the insurance companies failing upon passing, the ridiculous ‘death panel’ phrase which is total bunk, and the idea of rationed care and killing your grandmother have made this an outlandish cartoon despite the fact that it is not nearly as partisan as he would like.
So many issues in relation to health care and insurance companies stems from people’s fears. I think they are largely unfounded and apocalyptic at best. Far too many think that the public option is anything but an option, as if setting this forth would force people to take the health care. His optional plan is just that, an option, you do not have to use this health care. Private industry will be just fine, if it were to pass, simply based on the fact competition is good for the marketplace; this is the sole reason the free market works as it does. If there was no competition there would be a monopoly by one company, and a monopoly is bad for consumers since they can do what they want and you have no choice but to take it. Competition drives down prices and improves services and goods because they are fighting for your business. Do you think insurance companies operate in a way different from this model? They fight for your business just as hard as any TV maker fights to sell you the best product at the cheapest price. It is in the interest of survival of a company where the customer wins.
Where does this fear come from? Well it may come from news outlets sensationalizing ideas and rumor as they twist small words and phrases in to the death nell for grandma. The news industry is where the average American is going for their info as there are few, if any, Americans that actually sit down and read the health care bill. This breeds ignorance, a lack of fact finding on our own, and what happens is the news outlets feed us what they think we should know, scaring all of us who don’t know any better. This nation is scared, and it is easy to whip us in to a frenzy right now because we are all so ignorant, coupled with a blind trust of our media outlet of choice, that we can be easily imprinted with suggestion. It is not totally the fault of news media, it is also our general ignorance, or warped misinterpretation, of history and true definitions of things like ‘communism’ and ‘fascism’ that let those around us convince us that the ‘public option’ is the linch pin in Obama’s quest to realize Mussolini’s Italy.
I love the idea of health care reform. I don’t have health care, so you can put as many bureaucrats as you want between me and a doctor, as long as I eventually get to see the doctor. I am one of those who need to see a doctor, a dentist, and an oncologist, because I could you a tune up, but I am also one that thinks that there may be another way to get me there than those that are being presented as the clear cut options. My feeling is that we can work within the system we have with some regulation, incentive, subsidizing, and careful analysis that can insure everyone, strengthen competition, and NOT provide a public option (government health care) at all.
My first idea is kind of three fold in that there are multiple items that need to be enacted, and they can be done so incrementally, while still keeping the system relatively unchanged. The first step in my process, let’s call it ‘Plan B’, is to go to insurance companies and decide which policy fits for you as an individual or family. You decide how much coverage you want and with which insurer you want to do business. The caveat is that you must get quotes from three different insurance companies to find the best deal. The legwork on this front is done by the people wanting health insurance just as if they were going to buy it themselves. The second step is done by the government as they determine what your financial assistance needs will be. This can be determined in the same manner as section 8 housing; taking in to account your income, tax bracket, average monthly expenses, assets, credit score, number of dependents, etc. The government decides how much assistance you qualify for; in some cases this amount you qualify for may be more than the policy you want/need, so you may be able to even get better coverage than you shopped for, and for others the short fall of the difference between assistance determined and cost of the policy is then covered by the individual.
What I think Plan B provides is many positive things. Number one, there is no government interference. They simply determine what coverage amount you qualify for and then, if you want more coverage, you cover the difference. It also allows for the consumer to shop the best deal and get whatever coverage they want, in whatever configuration. Thirdly it works within the current system, actually increasing the customer base of insured Americans and therefore making those in the industry richer without cheap government competition. The competition will continue to be between insurance companies, which will benefit consumers with better, cheaper services as the competition for dwindling amounts of new customers gets fierce. Imagine how hard they will fight for the last uninsured American, they’ll give him the moon!
This plan works within the constraints of the current model. It also hinges on Americans that pay their taxes, so illegal immigrants without SS#’s or tax returns can’t get the service, which will please the group of people that fear insuring non-Americans. No one can argue that it does limit government meddling in this sector of the free market, increases insurance company revenue (imagine the stock increases), and provides the American people with assistance as well as the option to get more coverage than the government determines you can be afforded. In all I think it eliminates the public option, the most feared and heated topic of the current bill, and will probably cost the US government less than the current plan, as well as insuring every American on some level. As far as I can tell this might be the best course of action we could take to please everyone.
I do have another option, similar to the last, but definitely different enough to warrant calling it ‘Plan C’. This is the option where the government gives tax breaks and incentives to companies that reach out and provide a service of their own on state levels to insure all Americans. A bit more ambiguous and open to criticism, the government would placate those insurance companies willing to lower premiums and extend a health care plan of their own designed on a sliding scale based on criteria similar to that the government would use in Plan B. So the insurance company determines that you should be able to afford a specific amount, and will credit a portion, or all of it to you, the consumer. If you want further coverage then you can buy it by spending the difference. So if the insurance companies design their own, low income/uninsured plan on a sliding scale/case-by-case basis, then the government will provide them with tax breaks and maybe subsidies on more expensive procedures, in return for taking the initiative to insure all Americans.
There are pros and cons to this one though, that are not present in Plan B. The incentives mentioned hinge on the fact that insurance companies that want these breaks would not be allowed deny coverage or discontinue coverage for anyone…ANYONE. They can no longer break policies or play the little games to deny coverage or drop policies, without government oversight. This means that once insured, if the companies want the incentives, they need to prove that they are humanitarian in nature and will not leave anyone in the lurch for any reason but non-payment. Also, incentives would stipulate that lapsed plans based on non-payment are still effective until 6-straight months of non-payment based on hardship. If someone loses their job then the insurance company covers them for up to six months, allowing a grace period of coverage for a person to get the means to continue paying, and still being covered in the interim in case of incident. In addition it does allow for some fraudulent companies to create loop-hole filled policies for these new customers, but with regulation of the industry I think we can avoid this.
As I said, Plan C is a bit more complicated and malleable as to exactly how ‘need’ is determined, the amount of government oversight, and as to how these plans can be expedited in to existence, but I think it still is better than a government run health care system as it continues to work within the constraints of the current system while insuring many, and with the proper amount of oversight, can keep them insured. Both plans B&C are not without flaws, but if Obama were to present either one I think he would be pleasantly surprised as to the amount of support he may get.
The insurance and prescription drug lobbyists are all too powerful and influential in Washington. I would go as far as to say that they are scary for politicians to cross, even for the good of the people. But if we can convince them to play ball and be the shysters they are while helping the people, then they may not even realize that they are doing a good thing, going along with it given that either plan is more money for them and minimal government interference. Can you even imagine a world where every citizen of the US is insured through a private insurance company? It is total market saturation for the insurance companies, what’s not to love about that Obama? Whatever does come out of the health care reform, it will not be Obama’s vision, or anyone’s for that matter, but I think we can get a lot closer to the idea of ‘every man, woman, and child’ being insured if we work to reform, not overhaul from scratch.
Unlike these past topics that have been addressed in some manner, for good or ill, there is one section of the population that has been largely, if not entirely, ignored, the gay community. Obama during his campaign was a champion of the people and a lot of those people were gay and lesbian. He got massive support and endorsements form the national and local organizations working for gay rights on different issues. To date though, Obama has done nothing for them, except reassure them that change is coming at a dinner they held in Washington, coupled with a rally, some months ago. Obama had, really, three major platforms for the gay community, basically giving them everything they wanted from a ‘rights’ perspective.
Obama said he would repeal the ever fiery policy of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”. This policy has seen hundreds of gay men and women booted out of the military; some from positions as invaluable as translators in the middle east to men and women on the ground doing the fighting and dying. This policy has undermined the very status of the soldier, fighting for the country and freedoms that they don’t even have, while trying desperately to hide their identity in utter danger for the likes of you and me. Obama also spoke of ‘bullying’ states in to treating same-sex couples with full equality to all of the same rights in family and adoption laws. Basically, every right a heterosexual couple has, which would be a huge step forward for this community and this country. Third major platform was a big one, to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act which opens up all of the same federal rights that heterosexual couples have, to every civil union and legally recognized union in the gay community.
These three things alone would be a great milestones for this country, but taken as a whole, if he accomplished all three of these campaign promises would place the gay community at nearly eye-level and give them an openness and security to truly pursue happiness in this country for the first time in their history. Imagine not being able to marry the person you love, or being able to visit them in the hospital, or being able to adopt a child, or even just be open about who you are at your core. Can you even fathom having to hide a big part of you while you die for the rights of this country, some of which don’t even extend to you? No, you can’t, unless you are gay, and then I am preaching to the fabulous choir. Any one of these items would be great, Obama, just pick one. DADT could end tomorrow, DOMA could be done quickly, and pressure on the states would take time, but repealing DOMA would definitely open up the flood gates at some state levels.
Not one of these has been addressed in any real manner. All of them are ‘stalled’ or ‘not yet rated’ according to Politifact.com; not yet rated means he hasn’t done anything at all to rate on the subject. The White House is not using strong language on the subject, deciding instead to push those decisions ‘down the road’ as the President has ‘a full plate’. Well no shit, he is the president, his plate will forever be full. There will never be a time in any president’s tenure where they will be bored, there is always multiple things to do, multi-tasking is the life’s blood of a presidency. A full plate is no excuse, it would not take much time to draft legislation to repeal these laws and them file them with congress for a vote. The amount of effort is less than the health care legislation and requests of fund for bailouts. In comparison these little things are weekend projects, there is little to do. Hell, we’re not even writing new laws, we’re just erasing old ones, it could not be simpler, and yet nothing is done. Good luck getting re-elected if nothing is done on the front of gay rights before your next campaign.
One area where I think Obama has shined is reaching out to the world and repairing bridges to create at least the illusion that we again want to work to create a better world over all. Obama has visited more foreign leaders and countries than any other president in history in his first nine months in office. His missions of good will and garnering friendship throughout the world are a testament to his willingness to create a stronger America through diplomacy and shared interests. Now I don’t care how low he bows or what you may criticize are his follies in these visits, he has yet to throw up on anyone, and he has spoken of creating lasting relationships and even human rights in places like China. Obama has done a great deal to show his appreciation for international foreign policy, and he has to, we owe a lot of people a lot of money, especially the aforementioned China. Our debt to other countries as they have financed much of the work we have done to repair this nation and fund our wars has garnered a need for him to travel and sit face to face with the people we owe billions to. So as much as his visits are of good will, they are really for selfish reasons of working with nations to whom we owe a favor and a deepening debt.
Though these trips have an ulterior motive in them more often than not, his work with the UN and other international agencies is not without merit. His trip to Copenhagen was much for the pledge to limit emissions, and he has spoken on more than one occasion against nuclear programs in hostile countries as well as measured criticisms of bunk elections and human rights violations. Obama has done more to be vocal on an international level than many before him, which is both a blessing and a curse. One could argue that he is simply trying to garner favor in lieu of actually doing anything specific. He is out there, jet setting the globe, to position himself to be Andy Taylor in Mayberry as he works to squash terrorism. Really, in essence it may be a simple rebranding of the same agenda, he seems to be trying to get support on being such a ‘good’ guy. But I feel it is more a genuine hope that as we meet and understand one another, a face to face promise or meeting gets him a support on subjects that may earn him a sneer and hesitation if he were less accessible, and this seems to be part of the legacy he wants to leave; a President of the US in service to not only his country, but those that agree to conditional help in times of crisis.
This brings us right to the reason for this piece, the heart of the matter as it were when I began writing this thing three hours ago, Afghanistan. Now I have refrained, to date, from writing even a single piece on the war in Iraq and Afghanistan because I feel it is for far greater minds than mine to contend with. I feel that in my short life of 25 years I have neither the experience to draw on, or the scope of first hands accounts of watching a war unfold, to truly speak as even a moderate authority on the subject of our current predicament. Though I research, read, and watch documentaries, on many conflicts and scandals of the past, I feel that my opinion is that of a true idiot savant and is taken with nary a grain of sand. I do, however, feel that this damn incursion in the middle east has gone on long enough, and the situation we are in is our fault in the first place, so we do have some responsibility for cleaning it up; but it simply is not that simple.
I tire of writing this piece, it has gone on too long and has covered far too many subjects, but I need to press on as we are now getting to the most important part, the climax, as it were. There are two major, driving forces that have led us to the quagmire we find ourselves in at the moment. I won’t go over how we got here from day one at 9/11, it has been milled through far too much already. The basic cause was a thirst for blood, we were offended by the audacity of the attack and we wanted revenge. Revenge is no way to start a war…wait, I said I wouldn’t do this, so I’m not. The first driving force is that we will never win. There, I said it, so let it sink in. Not only will we never win, but we can’t ever win. We are fighting religious zealotry with diplomatic and military force, one does not connect to the other. You cannot eliminate terrorism that is born of a misuse of a religious doctrine unless you eliminate the religion…and that sends us right back to the Inquisition, or worse, the Crusades. That is not our stance after all, we are all about religious freedom, so let’s face the fact that as long as these different peoples exist, and we, the US, exists, they will hate us and plot. It even goes to deeper issues of the holy land, chosen people, racial suppression, as well as a control of regional resources. We can never hope to end the fighting unless we want to just nuke the place and start over, for as long as there are generations being born, there will be those that take things too far.
This is what this is all about anyway, taking things too far. We have been at this thing called the “War on Terror” for eight bloody, intractable years with no end in sight. While I am here, I think I have said this before, but I’m saying it again, you cannot win a war on a ‘noun’. A war on the feeling and weapon of ‘terror’ is like declaring a ‘war on sadness’ or a ‘war on happy’, a losing battle with no clear enemy or foundational strategy. What now, oh yes, the second driving force, it was fucked up when we got here, and we only fucked it up worse every time we’ve left. Think about it. Corrupt Karzai is a man of our making in Afghanistan, and little known fact, we put Saddam Hussein in power! We appointed him, or at least created the situation where he could take power. Follies of this kind on our part, backing the wrong ponies, goes all the way back to Vietnam at least, maybe further, and span the globe.
The middle east, every time we have touched it, is worse off than before we showed up and our activities in, and occupation of, those countries has only fueled anti-american sentiment among the populous. As far back as the Afghan-Russian war, or Kuwait, et al, we have really just messed it up more than need be. Every time it seems we back the wrong horse as well, creating terrible situation that are only different, not better, than the last one. We really owe this region an apology, if it weren’t for all the oil and money in the region we really would never have shown up, but Allah put you on top of our God’s oil, so we gotta get us some. Our meddling has only made things worse, from providing arms, to removing governments, we have made one misstep after another, like we have so often in the past. I would argue that our last great foreign policy decision was crushing the third reich, and we had to level whole countries in the process to do it.
Our involvement overseas is happening, no matter how much screwing up we’ve done, we’re here now, and motives be damned, we need to figure out how to relatively stabilize the region enough so we can get out. Obama’s speech was just like every other president’s war speech, and far too close to Bush’s for my liking. So I’m not gonna break it down, it’s been done, check a website. But I will comment that 30,000 is the exact amount of troops Bush, I mean Cheney, sent to Iraq during the surge. I guess it worked ok, so Obama is doing the same. One good thing is a time table, we cannot afford financially, or through the cost of life, to fight a protracted war so I appreciate a final date. Obama is following through on his campaign promise he made to redirect troops and resources to Afghanistan after he took office. After careful consideration and what seems to be a very measured approach, he is doing so with naysayers on all sides of him.
This is typical, the republicans are criticizing a democratic president when he is doing the same…exact…thing…Bush did, literally down to the number of exactly 30,000 troops, and he still can’t win with these people. I see the wisdom in Obama’s move, let’s get the initial goal accomplished, quell an Al Qaeda uprising in the Pakistani/Afghani border region, give the Afghani government a trained fighting force and a foot hold in their country, and then bring our boys home after beating the bajeezas out of what may be left of the terrorist networks we let get out of hand. I can see this, and I appreciate him trying to get out of Iraq and trying to finish the job in Afghanistan, and I even more greatly appreciate that in his speech he never said the word ‘win’, because we cannot and in all actuality we never would or will, win. This is a losing battle simply based on the fact that kids will grow up to be extremist and we can’t be wiping out generations of kids, so they will be back and better than ever, eventually. Shit, kids own AK-47’s, this mixed with shi’ite/Suni & Jewish/Muslim hatreds are going to breed some seriously badass, bat shit crazy SOB’s. Period. All we can do is kill who is around now and reload for when those kids hit puberty.
I know this seems like a defeatist attitude, but I am simply a realist and the war and bloodshed in that region will continue long after we have left, and gone back in, and left and gone in again, and then probably still be going on after we go in again and limp out one more time. The cycle of violence and hatred will never be broken because the fight is not just between us and the extremists. They declare war on everyone, so they fight amongst one another, against countries, religious peoples, racial groups, etc. They care not for our involvement, if we leave it just means they have more bombs for the markets they would have used on our humvees, so no, I am not optimistic about building a lasting democracy in the middle east. There is simply too much for us to contend with, and even if we kill every single ‘terrorist’ we cannot shoot racism, we cannot bomb prejudice, and we just can’t eliminate the threat of battling for the holy land. I don’t expect you to win Obama, I expect you only to get us out one day, because no republican or democrat can command a military to turn back the clock on more than 2,000 years of blood soaked sand, and it’s not our place to try.
Indeed. Ten pages later and now we are here, together, both exhausted and a little flustered by this spine-jarring journey from one wretched idea to the next. If you are still reading this then I sincerely hope you got something out of it, if not then I am sorry, you just wasted a portion of your life on me and my screed; there are no refunds! It is not my contention here that I know better than Obama, or that I don’t support him, it is simply that I disagree with the execution of certain acts and policies that have had, what I believe, were foreseeable consequences that seemingly no one saw in the planning. This man was given an impossible task with hopes of a large portion of this country weighing heavily on his shoulders even before he took office. In no way do I think he has failed as a President, he has plenty of time to address many more issues and bring this country in a better direction. What is next for America only Obama knows, I think I see a glint in his eye like a half-mad Willy Wonka. At some point he will grab us, tip his hat, give us a topsy spin, and as our heads clear we can look around, at the path we took, and the now-clear genius of every orchestrated step that seems so logical only now that we are in the magical place he knew was our only plausible destination the entire time.
Epilogue:
Then again, if he ruins this country, it’s better than the alternative, and as such I am stating that I would rather be fucked by a young black man than an old white guy. Here’s to you, Obama.
KOMPAS/FX PUNIMAN
Nasrudin, Bapak Lele Sangkuriang
Fresh and insightful opinion from Tapscott’s Copy Desk, by the Washington Examiner’s Editorial Page Editor Mark Tapscott. Got a tip or an oped to place? Send an e-mail to mark.tapscott.
Right now, in the USA, a patchwork of private insurance companies pays for health care of a major proportion of American population. 
To get real health care reform, Americans need to go beyond politics-as-usual, go outside the electoral political system.
