Thursday, March 25, 2010

Threats against Members of Congress Mount over Health Care Vote

America is taking its frustrations to heart, attacking at least four Democratic offices in New York, Arizona and Kansas while at least 10 members of Congress have reported some sort of threats, including obscenity-laced phone messages.

Both sides of the American landscape are involved in this Republican generated, exaggerated and overblown debate, which has been exacerbated by FOX news semi conscience semi anchor Glenn Beck, and the Tea Party whose leaders have a track record of deception, including the infamous Edwin Meese III, the former Attorney General under Ronald Reagan who was forced to resign over several inappropriate acts.

Amazingly the people haven’t taken to the streets over the corruption emanating from congress and the white house over the Lobbying efforts of the Banks and the insurance companies, which created an atmosphere of crisis, a situation from which America has now become another financially devastated nation.

But for some reason the health care bill has evoked extreme emotions and deep rooted feelings all across America. As reports from both Democrats and Republicans are increasing, partly to blame is Sarah Palin.

Gun imagery was used in a posting on the Facebook page of Sarah Palin urging people to organize against 20 House Democrats who voted for the health care bill and whose districts went for the John McCain-Palin ticket two years ago. Palin's post featured a U.S. map with circles and cross hairs over the 20 districts.

Of course McCain defended Palin, saying it was commonplace practice and "part of the lexicon" to refer to "targeted" congressional districts.

If America is going to riot, it should be over a real not a perceived issue. Health Care is without doubt a payback for Big Insurance companies, but America needs a real solution to our insurance dilemma, unfortunately this administration is committed to big business.

In today's financial world borrowing and lending billions of dollars is standard practice. When the lenders become fearful that a lot of that debt can't be repaid, they stop lending. Commercial paper, the main instruments through which businesses finance their daily operations, becomes suspect. This explains why the Federal Reserve Bank, the European Central Bank, and other national banks stepped in to pump money into the financial markets.

Those actions have at least temporarily averted a much more defined crisis, but, there could be a good deal more trouble in store for the insurance industry, who insured loans against default, so how do we avert such a looming and pending environment, we structure a scheme where the insurance industry has a hidden bailout.

Americas may not stand idly by and accept another massive bailout, financially we can’t! So government created an illusion and called it health care!

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

The Health Care Bill, Why Are So Many Against It?

Look around and you see and hear so many voices that are outraged over “passage” of this House bill.

Why?

Because the nature of human society now at its lowest level is rearing its ugly head in opposition, but in a demeaning manner, with sneers, and snickers, and prejudices.

What have we done?

In the manner of our dissent, America has shown the world our true nature. We are not the intellectual society we had believed we were. In fact we aren’t even adults.

The Bill has Obvious Problems

I would be the first to agree that this bill isn’t the greatest, it is lopsidedly in favor or the insurance companies, and parts are definitely unconstitutional, but as of now 38 Attorneys General appear ready to challenge the Bill and their likelihood of prevailing in litigation seems all but given.

I am still at a loss as to why America appears to oppose health care!

Health Care, like the right to earn a livelihood, to marry, and to have and raise children, these are basic Human Rights! Yet we accept most but not all!

And what is really interesting, those who need health care are the very ones who have seemingly been brainwashed by the Republican propaganda machine to oppose it.

Yes that part of the bill requiring all Americans to carry insurance or face a fine is unconstitutional, as the AG’s lawsuit properly addresses.

Congress’s authority stems from the interstate commerce clause, and unless somewhere else in the constitution or its Amendments there is authority given or granted Congress, it is powerless to act.

A prime example is Congress ability to tax, before the passage of the 16Th Amendment, Congress was required to tax the states not to directly tax the people

The Sixteenth Amendment to the US Constitution allows Congress now to levy an income tax without apportioning it among the states.

The Supreme Court to Rule on this Legislation

No doubt if we have a legitimate Supreme Court, (which question haunts us), that part will be struck from the bill.

Unfortunately, however our Supreme Court is made up of Lawyers, who as a group, their honesty and integrity have been called into question on more than one occasion. And their sphere of knowledge is just as inventive as their imagination. However assuming even a marginal intelligence pervades this august body, logic may well prevail.

Every civilized nation provides this basic human right to its citizens, why is it that we have sought this right for ourselves for over 100 years, and even today with a bill partially passed, and though not the best it could be, we are antagonists of ourselves.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Health Care is a Right, Not a Privilege!

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations in 1948, proclaimed that “everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of oneself and one’s family, including food, clothing, housing, and medical care.”

Although this statement of high principle was adopted at the urging of the “ United States ”, and although it reflects the truths of our nation’s founding documents, our government has achieved neither formal recognition nor practical realization of these rights!

Mass homelessness and the escalating health care crisis in the US are compelling evidence of our disregard for human rights. Sadly, our country is but one of many nations where grave offenses against the dignity of human beings are commonplace, and global enforcement of human rights remains a distant goal

Human rights are "basic rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled." Certainly health care falls into this category.

Proponents of the concept usually assert that all human being are endowed with certain entitlements merely by reason of being part of human society.

Even our Declaration of Independence proclaims this truth. “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their CREATOR, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty , and the Pursuit of Happiness”

219 years ago, Dec. 15, 1791, the Bill of Rights was ratified. Unalienable rights are not privileges. Depending on your ideology, rights are either granted to us by our Creator, or by nature, which to most people is one and the same. Privileges are granted by a society, or government entity, and are not the same as rights.

By the unalienable or "absolute rights" of individuals is meant those which are so in their primary and strictest sense, such as would belong to their persons merely in a state of nature, and which every man is entitled to enjoy, whether out of society or in it. The rights of personal security, of personal liberty, and private property do not depend upon the Constitution for their existence. They existed before the Constitution was made, or the government was organized. These are what are termed the "absolute rights" of individuals, which belong to them independently of all government, and which all governments which derive their power from the consent of the governed were instituted to protect. People v. Berberrich (N. Y.) 20 Barb. 224, 229; McCartee v. Orphan Asylum Soc. (N. Y.) 9 Cow. 437, 511, 513, 18 Am. Dec. 516; People v. Toynbee (N. Y.) 2 Parker, Cr. R. 329, 369, 370 (quoting 1 Bl. Comm. 123).

Such entitlements are shared norms of actual human moralities, justified moral norms that all people everywhere share.

We are at the early stage of what may yet become Universal Health Care for all Americans. Health Care falls within the purview of natural or Human rights!

The House passed legislation extending health care to tens of millions of our uninsured, however, the Senate must still approve the plan!

Health care for “all” people is a “human right” and an entitlement that has taken too long to achieve.

While we have struggled to achieve this right for over a century other developed countries have had some form of social insurance (that later evolved into national insurance) for nearly as long as the US has been trying to obtain it.

Some European countries started with compulsory sickness insurance, one of the first systems, for workers beginning in Germany in 1883; other countries including Austria , Hungary , Norway , Britain , Russia , and the Netherlands followed all the way through 1912. Other European countries, including Sweden in 1891, Denmark in 1892, France in 1910, and Switzerland in 1912, subsidized the mutual benefit societies that workers formed among themselves.

So for a very long time, other countries have had some form of universal health care or at least the beginnings of it. The primary reason for the emergence of these programs in Europe was income stabilization and protection against the wage loss of sickness rather than payment for medical expenses, which came later. Programs were not universal to start with and were originally conceived as a means of maintaining incomes and buying the political allegiance of the workers.

Today after nearly a century of attempts and as many failures, we are at the closest point in our history of achieving a basic Human Right for our people, Health Care. And had it not been for the party of big business, the banks, insurance companies, and the pharmaceutical corporations this goal would have been realized some 60 years ago.

Health care as well as adequate food and shelter is a basic Human right.

10 States join forces to sue Federal Government over Health Care bill

In a twist of fate several states have joined in a lawsuit challenging the Health Care Bill passed Sunday evening by the House of Representatives.

The Utah Attorney General's Office announced that it will join several states in a lawsuit challenging the health care reform legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives.

“This health care reform bill includes an unprecedented mandate that requires every U.S. citizen to buy health insurance or face a penalty. This mandate and other provisions violate the U.S. Constitution and infringe on individual and state rights,” said Attorney General Mark Shurtleff. Who believes “This lawsuit will help make sure the rights and the interests of American citizens are protected." Will it really?

The attorneys general of Utah, Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, Nebraska, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas and Washington have agreed to file the lawsuit if the president signs this bill into law. Other states are expected to join in the litigation.

This appears to be a dichotomy; the various states involved require every occupant of a motor vehicle to use a seat belt, or to be penalized if they don’t, in addition most require motor cycle riders to wear a helmet while operating their motorcycle, or they also face a penalty! We ask, “What is the difference?”

The States have enacted these forms of legislation under their assumed “police Powers”.

Knowing that the Courts generally review statutes in context to the Preamble to the US Constitution, we can consider the potential outcome of this planned litigation:

An example of the way courts utilize the Preamble is Ellis v. City of Grand Rapids 257 F. Supp. 564 (W.D. Mich. 1966) substantively, the case was about eminent domain. The City of Grand Rapids wanted to use eminent domain to force landowners to sell property in the city identified as "blighted", and convey the property to owners that would develop it in ostensibly beneficial ways: in this case, to St. Mary's Hospital, a Catholic organization. This area of substantive constitutional law is governed by the Fifth Amendment, which is understood to require that property acquired via eminent domain must be put to a "public use". (this concept has now been modified under the current supreme court) In interpreting whether the proposed project constituted a "public use", the court pointed to the Preamble's reference to "promot[ing] the general Welfare" as evidence that "[t]he health of the people was in the minds of our forefathers". "[T]he concerted effort for renewal and expansion of hospital and medical care centers, as a part of our nation's system of hospitals, is as a public service and use within the highest meaning of such terms. Surely this is in accord with an objective of the United States Constitution: '* * *to promote the general Welfare

However, the issue before us is more clearly defined, in promoting the General welfare of the people, can Congress require, then impose a penalty for a Citizens failure to obtain medical insurance? If the various Supreme courts have upheld the States right to require occupants of a motor vehicle to wear seat belts or to face a penalty, then certainly the US Government may hold this same right.

Yet, even if this provision should be struck down as being unconstitutional it will not affect the overall intent of the Health Care act.

Sunday, March 21, 2010

War is America’s greatest export

We have been at war almost every year since the founding of the republic. War has become our way of life, viewed in its greatest light from movies, to video games to the ROTC it is never out of our range of vision

But most of these wars have been illegal, like Korea - Vietnam - Cambodia - Granada - Panama - Kosovo - Afghanistan - and twice with Iraq, yet there were many more, the side excursions and support operations in a dozen other places around the globe.

American presidents have declared war in each instance or declared a “Police Action” where America service personnel have been deployed to foreign places without congresses participation, yet to declare war is a function of congress and any attempt to pass that responsibility to the president is an act considered to be ultra vires, yet our people continue to go where they are sent and to die there! We ask for what cause?

Did we protect our freedom by invading Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Granada, Panama, Kosovo, Afghanistan, or Iraq? Or was there some ulterior motive for our wars of choice?

Like resources?

War has always been our way of life. War is our culture. War is our industry and our chief export. And as long as Americans are willing to fight and die for causes they don’t understand it will remain our heritage.

War simply, is about everything and yet about nothing, it is the essence of historical fabrication. War has always lacked honesty and integrity! War requires propaganda to incite the population, and that means that the Media Must be controlled!

War is for the large corporations who profit from our death, the banks that finance this travesty, and unconscionably for oil and drugs, the resource that draws us in.

War is a travesty that we force upon nation. It is a mockery of modern civilizations. War promotes no just end but brings suffering and spreads violence, because for every one America kills dozens will spring forth to revenge them, and so we are perpetually fighting a cause that we as a nation are too ignorant to understand. Violence will always be met with violence. Just as intellect will be met with speech!

Perhaps the way to peace is to have the leaders of the country’s embittered to stand against each other and spare the populations a needless letting of their blood. Perhaps, just perhaps, we as a people will see through this charade and say, we have had enough, NO more!

Health Care is a Human Right!

Dennis Kucinich recently wrote an article where he characterized as a “civil right” Health Care, readers commented overwhelmingly that health care was not a civil right as civil rights are granted by government, how wrong they are!

Perhaps Representative Kucinich should have used a more appropriate term such as “Human Right”

Human rights are "basic rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled." Certainly health care falls into this category.

Proponents of the concept usually assert that all human being are endowed with certain entitlements merely by reason of being part of human society. Such entitlements can exist as shared norms of actual human moralities, as justified moral norms or natural rights supported by strong reasons, as legal rights at a national level, or as a legal right within international law.

However there is no consensus as to precise nature of what should or should not be regarded as a human right in any of the above senses and the abstract concept of human rights has been a subject of intense philosophical debate and criticism.

Certain human rights have been recognized irrespective of law. For example the Supreme Court has legally recognized some fundamental rights not specifically enumerated in the Constitution, including: the right to privacy, the right to marriage, the right to procreation, the right to interstate travel, the right to enter into contracts, freedom of thought, and the Right to direct a child's upbringing, these are rights so fundamental to society that No law is required to recognize them certainly as a member of the human race we are entitled to the right of health care. America is in a decline, because we as a people lack knowledge. Yet those who oppose Representative Kucinich have a right to be wrong!

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Senator Salazar, the current United States Secretary of the Interior, and the travesty facing our wild mustangs

Throughout his career, Senator Salazar, has campaigned on a pledge of support for 'our land, our water, and our people but that pledge doesn’t hold with his actions.

Salazar has been rewarded for going against the interest of America

In 2005, Salazar voted against increasing fuel-efficiency standards (CAFE) for cars and trucks, a vote that the League Of Conservation Voters notes is anti-environment. In the same year, Salazar voted against an amendment to repeal tax breaks for ExxonMobil and other major petroleum companies, against the interests of the land, the wildlife and the people.

In 2006, Salazar voted to end protections that limit off-shore oil drilling in Florida's Gulf Coast.

In 2007, Salazar was one of only a handful of Democrats to vote against a bill that would require the United States Army Corps of Engineers to consider global warming when planning water projects.

The Senate confirmed Salazar's nomination by voice vote on January 20, 2009, as Secretary Of The Interior. This was shortly after Obama was sworn in as President.

Salazar is in charge of the National Park Service, The Bureau Of Land Management, The United States Fish And Wildlife Service, The United States Geological Survey, The Bureau Of Indian Affairs, and other federal agencies overseen by the Interior Department. Each has its problems, and Salazar may be the biggest one of all.

Several prominent environmentalist groups are wary of Salazar, noting his strong ties with the coal and mining industries. Which have destroyed millions of acres of tribal land and BLM leased property. Property where our Wild Mustangs roam free, well, I stand corrected, where they used to roam free!

Kieran Suckling, executive director of The Center For Biological Diversity, which tracks endangered species and habitat issues states "He [Ken Salazar] is a right-of-center Democrat who often favors industry and big agriculture in battles over global warming, fuel efficiency and endangered species

We can see where this would fall into his pledge. Now what was that pledge again, oh yeah: support for our land, our water, and our people.

On March 6, 2009 Salazar agreed to move forward with The Fish And Wildlife Service's decision to remove The Rocky Mountain Gray Wolf from The Endangered Species List in Montana and Idaho

On May 9, 2009, Salazar announced upholding a Bush-era policy that prevents the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions via the Endangered Species Act (ESA), a policy he pledged to reevaluate when he took office in January. The policy which states that, despite the apparent negative impact global warming has on polar bears, an endangered species, greenhouse gasses cannot be regulated with the ESA. Salazar stated in a conference call announcing the decision that "The single greatest threat to the polar bear is the melting of the arctic sea ice due to climate change," but the Endangered Species Act "is not the appropriate tool for us to deal with what is a global issue." The decision was met with criticism from environmental groups and praise from energy groups including The American Petroleum Institute and many Republicans. Salazar contended in the same conference call that the ESA was never intended to be used for the regulation of climate change, while sidestepping questions of how this situation is different from that of The Clean Air Act, which is currently being used by the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate emissions

Well, now here in 2010, we have The BLM's assault on The Wild Horses. Our Wild Mustangs which are under the BLM’s Protection. The agency prohibits public comments and provides no documentation.

With the massive Calico wild horse roundup under way, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is expanding its assault on America's wild horses to Utah. On January 15, the BLM began the roundup of 200 horses in The Confusion Herd Management Area, leaving only 70-100 horses in the 235,000-acres public land area in Utah's Confusion Mountains. One wonders why the BLM is rounding up our Wild Mustangs when there is sufficient land and food to support the entire Herd!

The BLM's website invites the public to view the wild horses living in Confusion, but warns "it is unlawful to chase and/or catch them. Foals, pregnant mares and older horses are easily hurt when pursued, so please allow them to live a free and un- harassed life."

Yet, The BLM itself not only harassed, but terrorized these horses, by stampeding them with helicopters into capture pens. The BLM knows that pregnant mares, young foals, and older horses will be injured and/or killed, just as they have been in Calico. Please see IDA's blog, which documents The BLM's "euthanasia" by rifle of a mare, orphaning her foal, and the death of a foal who collapsed during the BLM's helicopter stampede.

This blog (also features a photo essay of the bittersweet story of the captured stallion Freedom, who scaled a six- foot fence and crashed through barbed wire to make his escape, forced to leave his family of eight mares and two colts behind.

Adding insult to injury, The BLM is not accepting public comments on the Confusion roundup and has provided no information to justify this wild horse capture.

This latest proposed BLM atrocity against wild horses is unnecessary and The BLM's closed-door conduct is counter to The Obama Administration's promise of transparency in government operations.

We the people have had enough. Although there has been a torrent of objections, it has fallen on deaf ears’ .People are sick and tired of politicians pretending that they are concerned about what the people think and want, just to have them turn around and do what they were going to do in the first place.

Why are these magnificent animals being rounded up and killed, Information has surfaced regarding an agreement between the BLM and a Canadian company that is slaughtering these animals and selling them off to third world countries for food, this is yet another disgrace, and Obama who sponsored Salazar may be implicated.

Stand by this isn’t over by a long shot!

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Obama says it’s time to say Good-by and Move on

The foreclosure crisis has been a challenge for this president, who has invested more than $787bn in Wall Street in hopes they would help keep Americans in their homes, now this administration has thrown in the towel, the new direction, help the banks to liquidate American homeowners. Obama’s new approach paying homeowners to leave quietly.

Taking effect on April 5, the new program hopes to encourage hundreds of thousands of delinquent borrowers who have not been rescued by the loan modification program, (which simply hasn’t worked), to shed their houses through a process known as a short sale, in which property is sold for less than the balance of the mortgage. Lenders will be compelled to accept that arrangement, forgiving the difference between the market price of the property and what they are owed.

However, this program like all the others is dependent on co-operation from the Banks and servicers of the loans, who so far have refused to participate in these types of government programs unless there is money in it for them. Short sales have been unsuccessfully tried for the past two years and very few have actually been accepted by the banks without the borrower agreeing to repay the short part of the mortgage, this plan is not expected to fare any better.

Under the new program, the servicing bank, as with all modifications, will get $1,000. Another $1,000 can go toward a second loan, if there is one. And for the first time the government would give money to the distressed homeowners themselves. They will get $1,500 in "relocation assistance."

However the servicer earns much more than $1000, by maintaining the borrower in a default status, and through the foreclosure.

This program is more like a slap in the face of the defaulting borrower! $1,500.00 won’t pay even a portion of the moving costs.

We are a disposable people and a disposable workforce!

We built a great nation only to watch it collapse under the weight of corporate greed:

There was a joke that was told many years ago about the Lone Ranger and his sidekick Tonto, Tonto was an Indian, or now more correctly stated “a Native American” the story went like this: Both the Lone Ranger and Tonto were surrounded by hundreds of Indians and as the Lone Ranger ran out of ammunition he turned to Tonto and said, ” looks like we’re done Tonto”, Tonto turned back to the Lone Ranger and replied “what do you mean “we” white man”

And so it goes with Wall Street

Yes there is a recovery going on, but it’s not for middle class America, it’s for the big boys whom the government favors. Like our big global companies, Wall Street, and high-income Americans who hold their savings in financial instruments and in bonds and stocks, they are clearly doing better.

But take a drive down main street or look at any commercial center in any of the 50 states and we see empty stores that once contained mom and pop businesses, even franchises are folding. If there is as the government says a recovery, then why are businesses still closing?

Because Americans are not spending as the government claims, in fact Americans generally don’t have the money to spend. Indeed they don’t have the means to even pay their current debts. In fact since the first business day of January 2010, Americans are filing bankruptcies at the rate of 6,000 per day. That’s an annual filing rate of just over 1.5 million

The reason the Government puts out exaggerated figures is their belief the economy runs on optimism and that if the average consumer believes the economy is getting better, they'll spend more readily and- the economy will get better.

Only a pseudo intellect in today’s sad state of affairs could muster this reasoning

The government fails to understand that regardless of how people feel, they won't spend if they don't have the money, and Main Street doesn’t have the money! The 9 million unemployed along with 30 million underemployed and the growing number of College Graduates entering the workforce has crippled the economy and it is felt most by small business, the neighborhood business. Each unemployed and underemployed individual affects 5 others in the economy. This 39 million people who are earning less are spending less and they are affecting nearly 200,000,000 people. It is axiomatic that the economy will not improve for the average American until we begin to employ our own, and to regenerate and reinvigorate American Small business.

The government tells us that the US economy grew at a 5.9 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter of 2009. That sounds good at first blush, until you realize GDP figures are badly distorted by structural changes in the economy. For example, part of the increase is due to rising health care costs, when WellPoint ratchets up premiums it enlarges the GDP. A separate part of the perceived growth in GDP is due to rising government expenditures, and the costs or gas at the pump.

Who is really doing better in America?

The people and private-sector institutions at the top!

Many of America's biggest companies are sitting on huge amounts of cash, but that says nothing about the health of the U.S. economy. Companies in the Standard & Poor 500 stock index had sales of $2.18 trillion in the fourth quarter, up from $2.02 trillion last year, and their earnings tripled. Why? Because they're global and selling into fast-growing markets in places like India, China, and Brazil!

America's biggest companies are also showing fat profits and productivity gains because they continue to slash payrolls and cut expenditures. Alcoa, for example, had $1.5 billion in cash at the end of last year, double what it had on hand at the end of 2008. Sounds terrific until you realize how it did it. By cutting 28,000 jobs - 32 percent of its workforce - and slashed capital expenditures 43 percent. Who suffered, middle class America, while those who owned Alcoa Stock benefited and so did Alcoa’s executives.

We have become a use then throw away work force!

Yes firms in S&P 500 are holding $932 billion in cash and short-term investments. And they can borrow money cheaply, corporate bond sales, that is buying into Corporate debt, so far in 2010, has topped $195.2 billion, excluding government-guaranteed bonds.

Does this spell a recovery? No, why? Because they're doing two things that don't help at all!

First, they're buying other companies. Walgreen last month spent $618 million for New York drugstore chain Duane Reade; Bank of New York Mellon, $2.3 billion for PNC Financial Services; Monster, $225 million for jobs.com; Diamond Foods, $615 million for Kettle Foods.

This buying doesn't create new jobs. In fact it creates a net loss of duplicate ones. One of the first things companies do when they buy other companies is fire people who are considered "redundant."

The second thing large companies are doing with all their cash is buying back their own stock, in order to boost their share prices. There were 62 such share buy-backs in February, valued at $40.1 billion. We're witnessing the biggest share buyback spree since Sept 2008. The major beneficiaries are current shareholders, including top executives, whose pay is linked to share prices. The buy-backs do absolutely nothing for most Americans.

The picture on Main Street is quite different. Small businesses aren't selling much because they have to rely on American consumers - rather than foreign consumers. And Americans still aren't buying much because they don’t have the financial resources.

Small businesses are also finding it difficult to get credit. Most of the 8000 American banks don’t have money to loan because of the large number of bad debts on their books. And some 700 banks are set to fail this year. Since small businesses are where the jobs are created in any recovery and we are losing small businesses, this recession will continue for a decade or longer. We won’t see a recovery until we have an administration with the foresight to care about us rather than Wall Street.

The traditional mom and pop business is closing at the rate of 40% (2 out of 5) during this recession if this continues we may lose most of our 28,000,000 small businesses that we had in 2007 during its peak.

Don’t believe the Government reports

The Federal Reserve recently reported that American consumers are shedding their debts. Total US household debt, the FED claims, “including mortgages and credit card balances, fell 1.7 percent last year”. Supposedly this was the first drop since the government began recording consumer debt in 1945.

What is the truth?

Much of the debt-shedding has been through default - consumers are simply not repaying their debts and walking away from homes and big-ticket purchases, cars and credit card balances.

End of story!

Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal has its own take on the defaults: "the defaults are leaving many people with more cash to spend and save, jump-starting the financial rehabilitation of the economy”

Let’s get real: American consumers account for 70 percent of the total demand for goods and services if they don’t have the financial resources or the jobs, or are concerned about their retirement, who if not them will sustain the economy?

Let’s face the facts: This American economy was in trouble since the end of 2000, it took the real estate balloon (developing Bubble) to stimulate the economy, but there were NO real job growth even then, consumers were borrowing the equity from their homes merely to make the payments. The Banks knew it, the FED knew it, and they knew the bubble had to burst! That was one of the reasons the Credit Default Swaps were created, guaranteeing Mortgage loans that the Banks knew were worthless!

The daunting question must be considered? The US Economy has been imperiled through incompetent administrations, who have favored outsourcing American jobs, and it started with Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush. Now how will Main Street come back? How will we create jobs? Certainly not from big businesses that are outsourcing! Certainly not from Wall Street who considers itself above main street and has no concerned for what they consider a disposable work force. And certainly not from government who is so tied to the apron strings of Wall Street they appear to be tied at the hip!

Until there's an answer, an economic "recovery" for anyone other than big corporations, Wall Street, and the wealthy is an illusion, and more Americans will yet find themselves falling into dismay

Thursday, March 4, 2010

The Allopathic Wars

Allopathy, the treatment of a disease by using remedies whose effects differ from those produced by that disease. This is the principle of mainstream medical practice, as opposed to that of homeopathy.

Homeopathy is a complementary disease-treatment system in which a patient is given minute doses of natural substances that in larger doses would produce symptoms of the disease itself

Homeopathic medicine was first used for a wide-scale epidemic in 1801 when Samuel Hahnemann MD, observed that a child who was being treated with a homeopathic preparation of belladonna resisted scarlet fever even though all three siblings were affected. Wondering whether the belladonna had acted prophylactically, Hahnemann began giving it to children in other families when the first ones fell ill, and he found it to be protective despite a 90% attack rate among the untreated. The method was accepted by the regular doctors and the Prussian government

Homeopathy has been practiced in the United States for over 170 years.

Homeopathy is the preferred medicine by members of the Royal Family in England and homeopathy is widely prescribed by physicians in Europe and Asia .

Homeopathy has had an opportunity to prove its effectiveness in times of epidemics and contagious diseases. For example, during the cholera epidemics in Europe during the 1830's, homeopathic doctors had a recovery of 80% of their patients. This compared to conventional doctors' 50% recovery rate.

In 1850, a homeopathic college was founded in Ohio this was due to homeopathic success rates during the cholera epidemics in the United States .

Educated doctors abandoned bloodletting and administering large doses of poisons to purge the body. Doctors now began to use homeopathic remedies as a safe and more effective treatment against yellow fever, typhoid, and scarlet fever.

By 1900, 100 homeopathic hospitals existed. Popularity of homeopathy in all classes of society encouraged the development of 22 homeopathic medical schools, and the opening of over 1000 homeopathic pharmacies. Over 20% of doctors during this period considered themselves homeopaths.

The American Medical Association (AMA) was beginning to acquire its strong hold in medicine. Conventional medicine never ceased its attack on homeopathy. Dr. McCormack in the early 1900's said,
"We must admit that we have never fought the homeopath on community and got the business."
There are a number of alternative healing therapies that work so well and cost so little (compared to conventional treatment), that Organized Medicine, the Food & Drug Administration, and their overlords in the Pharmaceutical Industry (The Big Three) would rather the public not know about them. The reason is obvious: Alternative, non-toxic therapies represent a potential loss of billions of dollars to allopathic (drug) medicine and drug companies.

The Big Three have collectively engaged in a medical conspiracy for the better part of 70 years to influence legislative bodies on both the state and federal level to create regulations that promote the use of drug medicine while simultaneously creating restrictive, controlling mechanisms (licensing, government approval, etc) designed to limit and stifle the availability of non-drug, alternative modalities.

The conspiracy to limit and eliminate competition from non-drug therapies began with the Flexner Report of 1910. Abraham Flexner was engaged by John D. Rockefeller to scour the country and "evaluate" the effectiveness of therapies being taught in medical schools and other institutions of the healing arts. Rockefeller wanted to dominate control over petroleum, petrochemicals, and pharmaceuticals (which are derived from 'coal tars' or crude oil). He arranged for his company, Standard Oil of New Jersey to obtain a controlling interest in a huge German drug cartel called I. G Farben. (later During WWII I. G Farben manufactured the “Zyklon B” Gas use at Auschwitz and the other concentration camps) He pulled in his stronger competitors like Andrew Carnegie and JP Morgan as partners, while making other, less powerful players, stockholders in Standard Oil. Those who would not come into the fold "were crushed" according to a Rockefeller biographer (W. Hoffman, David: Report on a Rockefeller ( New York : Lyle Stuart, Inc., 1971} page 24.)

The report Flexner submitted to The Carnegie Foundation was titled "Medical Education in the United States and Canada ". Page 22 of the report said: "the privileges of the medical school can no longer be open to casual strollers from the highway.

The Carnegie Foundation in 1910 ran with the Flexner Report and issued its own version sanctioning allopathic (conventional) medical schools, at the same time condemning homeopathic schools.

This was based on the premise that homeopathic teachers were also practitioners and that courses in pharmacology were taught.

With newer medicines and $350 million being poured into allopathic medicine and hospitals by John D. Rockefeller, homeopathic schools began to close due to lack of support and money.

John D. Rockefeller destroyed the prevailing medical model and created a new one -- allopathic medicine.

The primary result of this activity was that his crude oil, worth perhaps a nickel per gallon, suddenly, turned into medical drugs, was worth millions of dollars per gallon. The initial changes in medicine seemed good, but the sinister and hidden purpose behind his millions of dollars of donations -- they are what we see today in the modern medical model -- based on drugs that don't cure, but increase the disease of mankind, in fact many kill rather than cure!

Homeopathy continues to struggle. This is due in part to state laws and the AMA. The current laws for licensing force physicians to practice according to acceptable and prevailing standards

Allopathic Medicine on the other hand has been burdened with Fraud, false reports, studies, and hidden accounts of lethal drugs being approved by the FDA resulting in patient death.

Now to broaden the picture, enter a pharmaceutical Shill, Dr. Scott Reuben, a former member of Pfizer's speakers' bureau, who has just agreed to plead guilty to faking dozens of research studies favorable to big Pharma that were published in medical journals.

The most haunting question, how did false reports become a credible report in a major Medical Journal?

Some of Ruben’s faked study data were about Bextra and Vioxx drugs.

As a result of Dr. Reuben's faked studies, the peer-reviewed medical journal Anesthesia & Analgesia was forced to retract 10 "scientific" papers authored by Reuben. The Day of London reports that 21 articles written by Dr. Reuben that appear in medical journals have apparently been fabricated, too, and must be retracted.

Dr. Reuben's actions really aren't that extraordinary. Drug companies bribe researchers and doctors as a routine matter. Medical journals routinely publish false, fraudulent studies. FDA panel members regularly rely on falsified research in making their drug approval decisions, and the mainstream media regularly quotes falsified research in reporting the news.

Fraudulent research, in other words, is widespread in modern medicine. The pharmaceutical industry couldn't operate without it, actually. It is falsified research that gives the industry its best marketing claims and strongest FDA approvals. Quacks like Dr Scott Reuben are an important part of the pharmaceutical profit machine because without falsified research, bribery and corruption, the industry would have very little research at all.

While Drugs are questionable, it should be noted that Homeopathy works equally well for both viruses and for bacterial infections as well as diseases.

Home Bargains Fraught with Bank Caginess!

Although banks are estimated to have some 7 million (foreclosed) homes in their inventory they are releasing only a few at a time running the cost to purchase these homes upward. To add insult to an already deep injury, investors are coming in with all cash offers which make buying a home for someone who wants to live there next to impossible.

Yet foreclosures are primed to rise as more than 5 million homeowners are currently facing foreclosure and the government programs aimed at keeping borrowers in their homes has failed miserable. Why? Because loan servicers make money while a property owner is in default, and the small amount the government offers these servicers doesn’t sway their interest.

Loan servicers have NO incentive to modify a loan for a borrower, accordingly only approximately 66,000 of the 750,000 homeowners who are allegedly otherwise qualified for a modified loan have actually received one.

The majority of borrowers seeking a loan modification are played with through a trial modified loan for periods of three months at a time, after completing this trial period, the loan modification may be denied and another trial period initiated. Meanwhile the servicer receives the benefit of these payments!

Borrowers acting in good faith often become frustrated and ultimately just give up, which appears to be just what the banks want!

Why do we say this?

The $787bn bank bailout was “allegedly” to stimulate the banks to make loans, now that the banks are rich with cash, Bernanke has instructed the banks NOT to make loans because as he said, ”loaning money into circulation will create inflation” instead Bernanke has devised a plan where the Banks will place blocks of cash totaling billions, with the FED keeping the funds out of the market place yet the FED will pay the banks interest on this money!

Let’s be real!

The reason for the all cash borrower being favored by the banks is that now this money is also taken out of circulation, and guess what- When the Banks place billions of dollars with the Fed and they draw interest, who do you think will pay that interest?

Yup, we’ve been had again!