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Rational Irrationality

Obamacare Supreme Court Case is a Bad Joke

Obama Signs Act Allowing Indefinite Detention of U.S. Citizens

 

In his last official act of business in 2011, President Barack Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act from his vacation rental in Kailua, Hawaii. In a statement, the president said he did so with reservations about key provisions in the law — including a controversial component that would allow the military to indefinitely detain terror suspects, including American citizens arrested in the United States, without charge.

The legislation has drawn severe criticism from civil liberties groups, many Democrats, along with Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, who called it “a slip into tyranny.” Recently two retired four-star Marine generals called on the president to veto the bill in a New York Times op-ed, deeming it “misguided and unnecessary.”

“Due process would be a thing of the past,” wrote Gens Charles C. Krulak and Joseph P. Hoar. “Current law empowers the military to detain people caught on the battlefield, but this provision would expand the battlefield to include the United States – and hand Osama bin Laden an unearned victory long after his well-earned demise.”

Obama is no FDR, We’re no Mass Movement.

It’s open season on Obama whom so many hoped would lead us out of the neo-liberal wilderness. He once was a community organizer and ought to know how working people have suffered through a generation of tax breaks for the rich, Wall Street deregulation, and unfair competition.

When the economy crashed he was in the perfect position to limit the unjustified pay levels on Wall Street and bring a crashing halt to the runaway financialization of our economy. Instead we got a multi-trillion dollar bailout for Wall Street, no health care reform, no serious financial reforms whatsoever, record unemployment, and political gridlock that’s will be with us for years to come.

Is it his fault? Or ours?

Obama has made his share of blunders. However, his statement that we “don’t begrudge” the high salaries on Wall Street because that’s part of the “free-market system” is about the dumbest thing he’s ever said. He was referring to Jamie Dimon’s $17.4 million payday, and Lloyd Blankfein’s $9 million.

But surely the President knows that at this very moment Wall Street is still receiving $10.4 trillion (not billion) in subsidies from the taxpayer — and that’s after the TARP repayments. That’s some free-market.

Dimon’s JP Morgan Chase still has a $34.3 billion subsidy, and Blankfein at Goldman Sachs is sitting on $23.9 billion of government welfare. (Many thanks to Nomi Prins for her first rate sleuthing.. ) Dimon and Blankfein would love to re-write history so that they could be portrayed as swashbuckling entrepreneurial survivors, men who avoided the bad risks that felled so many others.

But without government welfare their institutions would have gone under. They are two very lucky (and well connected) welfare recipients — lucky not to be among the 28 million Americans that go without jobs or are forced into part-time work.

We can moan all we want about Obama’s shortcomings, the mistakes his Administration has made and his inability to take on Wall Street.  But we haven’t exactly applied a lot of heat. A million people on the mall demanding “Jobs Now” along with serious Wall Street reforms might help. A million people showing up repeatedly might actually get the job done.

The free market on Wall Street is dead and has been for a long time. It’s been replaced by a billionaire bailout society that will provide decades of chronic unemployment and on-going bailouts for the super-rich. It’s a damn shame Obama can’t deal with it. It’s a bigger shame that we won’t force him too.

No Health Care is Causing 45,000 Deaths Yearly

Nearly 45,000 people die in the United States each year — one every 12 minutes — in large part because they lack health insurance and can not get good care, Harvard Medical School researchers found in an analysis released on Thursday.

“We’re losing more Americans every day because of inaction … than drunk driving and homicide combined,” Dr. David Himmelstein, a co-author of the study and an associate professor of medicine at Harvard, said in an interview with Reuters.

Overall, researchers said American adults age 64 and younger who lack health insurance have a 40 percent higher risk of death than those who have coverage.

The findings come amid a fierce debate over Democrats’ efforts to reform the nation’s $2.5 trillion U.S. healthcare industry by expanding coverage and reducing healthcare costs

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President Barack Obama’s has made the overhaul a top domestic policy priority, but his plan has been besieged by critics and slowed by intense political battles in Congress, with the insurance and healthcare industries fighting some parts of the plan.

The Harvard study, funded by a federal research grant, was published in the online edition of the American Journal of Public Health. It was released by Physicians for a National Health Program, which favors government-backed or “single-payer” health insurance.

An similar study in 1993 found those without insurance had a 25 percent greater risk of death, according to the Harvard group. The Institute of Medicine later used that data in its 2002 estimate showing about 18,000 people a year died because they lacked coverage.

This Time We Can’t Leave the Middle Class Behind

Yes, we want to see a GDP recovery take hold as soon as possible, and once we start seeing robust, consistent job growth we’ll know we’re solidly on track.

But even then, we won’t be done: not until the prosperity we’re generating reaches everyone who’s contributing to it, not until all the bakers get their fair slice of the pie — not just the owners of the bakery or the investors in the bakery, but the men and women who are actually doing the work.

Modern Day Government Subsisdized Loansharks

Where is the help for the hard working men and women that helped to build and maintain this great country of ours?

US banks stand to collect a record $38.5bn in fees for customer overdrafts this year, with the bulk of the revenue coming from the most financially stretched consumers amid the deepest recession since the 1930s, according to research. The fees are nearly double those reported in 2000.

The finding is likely to increase public hostility towards the financial sector, which has been under political pressure to ease the burden on consumers by increasing credit availability and lending more fairly after being bailed out by taxpayers.

The median bank overdraft fee has this year rose from $25 to $26, according to Moebs, the first time it has gone up in a recession for more than 40 years.

“Banks are returning to a fee-driven model and overdraft fees are the mother lode,” said Mike Moebs, the company’s founder.

Overdraft fees accounted for more than three-quarters of service fees charged on customer deposits, he said.

The most cash-strapped customers are the hardest hit by such fees, with 90 per cent of overdraft revenues coming from 10 per cent of the 130m checking accounts in the US. Regular use of overdrafts is most common among consumers with low credit scores, Moebs discovered.

How much is Joe American, used to being middle class,  expected to suffer?

We are all getting tired of being raped by the so called suffering financial institutions in this country and the Fed.

Yet they somehow find the funds to pay out billions in exorbitant  bonuses, while denying credit to the businesses that can help get America and the GDP moving more positive.

Maybe it’s time for the average consumer to pay cash or put it away, like the old days on layaway.

I’m thinking that we all have responsibility in this crisis, but many of us are also getting tired of being plugged in the ass dry.  Cash is king for now and if you can’t afford to pay cash maybe it’s more of a want than a need. To be truthful I’m looking forward to a simper, kinder, and more loving America.

Ironically it seems like those who are most affected by the economy,  are also the same families and individuals who are best coping with our current economic crisis.

If this is capitalism, then I suppose I’m guilty of being a socialist.

I believe in the fair and equitable distribution of wealth.  The hypocrisy in this nation never ceases to amaze me.  We claim to be a God Fearing and loving Nation, yet we turn a blind eye to those who can’t take care of themselves.  Unless they are in the womb, then after they are born they are on their own.

The real travesty of justice, is that this country has more than enough resources to take care of everyone.  The elite 1% could still have their 24K gold plated fixtures on their G550′s and mega yachts.  They just need to pay more taxes.

Is anyone else tired of seeing  the rich housewives of  New York, New Jersey, and California  paying more for a purse then it would cost a family of four to pay for health care in the U.S?

Not too mention the state of CA is going broke.  They are issuing IOU’s to pay bills.  Does anyone besides me see a problem with that.  Why should we continue to subsidize the rich when they are more than capable of paying their fair share of taxes?

We are spending hundreds of billions if not trillions fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Mostly for the protection of an antiquated fuel source called oil and the cheap economy it supports.

Don’t kid yourself, we are not spending billions in Iraq and Afghanistan to save humanity and the democratic/capitalistic way of life, or in a futile attempt to eradicate opium.  It’s all about fossil fuels and the upcoming energy wars.

The Afghans have been living in turmoil for 30 years or more.  Most of them are illiterate which makes the dissemination of information difficult if not very improbable.

Afghanistan brought down the U.S.S.R. with our help in the 80′s.  They may very well do the same to to the United States of America,  maybe this time with Russia and China’s help.   Unless cooler and more intelligent heads prevail, I fear we are heading down that very road.

The U.S.S.R didn’t get it, until it was too late.  Hopefully we can and history doesn’t repeat itself again.  It’s about time that we got over ourselves and realized just because we have the most nukes doesn’t give us the right to be the worlds bully and police force.  Maybe someday we can really give peace a try.

The Afghanistan war will cost us much more than the Vietnam War, both in human and monetary cost.  Do we even have proof that they are enemies?  Or are they for the most part poor illiterate uneducated farmers trying to provide for their families.

These are people that have known nothing but war for over 30 years, are we really that arrogant to think we can win this war?  Let’s face the truth, most American have no idea of the true horrors of war.  It’s become something we put on a balance sheet.

If we learn nothing from the past,  I Pray that we can learn quite quickly that we will never win in Afghanistan.  Look what it did to the Russians and the empires before them.  Afghanistan brought down the Soviet Union and it will do the same to us if we don’t learn from past mistakes.   The U.S simply cannot afford to be the world’s policeman at this time.

Bottom line most middle class Americans are living on borrowed time.  Once the credit is exhausted shit will really begin to hit the fan.

How much more are the working men and women of this great country supposed to endure?  All the while the fat cats of Wall St. grow richer at the taxpayers expense.

Why do we think that as Americans we have the right to tell the rest of the world how to live and run their governments, when we can barely run our own country?

Maybe it’s time for us to get our own country into better fiscal shape, before we take on the world.

The Romans thought they had a good plan too,  until they realized it was too late.

Let’s hope that the United States of America doesn’t have to make the same mistakes by spreading our military strength too thin, until we realize it is economically and politically unsustainable.

Health Care Reform, Time to Go All In

It is time to go all in to support comprehensive health care reform. The stakes have gotten prohibitive. Republicans have essentially bet the House on it. Obama, for all intents and purposes, has wagered the White House agenda. The insurance and drug companies are pouring in dough.

This month will be telling. The debate in congressional districts across the country in August will go far in determining what kind of reform we get, or whether we get any reform at all.

The opposition — well financed by the insurance and drug companies and by the rabid right — is mobilizing now to stop reform.

The insurance and drug companies have sought to dilute reform on the inside the process while helping to fund front groups trying to torpedo it on the outside.

Their tactic this August is clear. Run Astroturf campaigns and mobilize the zealots to disrupt congressional town hall meetings, spew anger and invective against the “government takeover” of health care that will “kill your grandmother.” Intimidate legislators, cow decent citizens, sow fear and confusion.

Legislators learn that if they vote to disembowel reform they’ll be amply rewarded with campaign contributions. If they vote to support it, they’ll face the fury of the wingnuts and the Astroturf activists. Cynical but effective politics. (For a fact check on the big lies, go to the Campaign for America’s Future page here)

Every American has a direct stake in this debate. Every citizen faced with soaring health care bills, every one of the 14,000 who lose their health insurance each day, every one of the millions frozen in jobs for fear of losing health insurance, every family that faces bankruptcy because someone got sick, every one denied coverage or cut off of coverage because he or she fell sick, every parent losing sleep over a child entering the workforce without insurance, every senior gouged by unconscionable prescription drug prices, every worker who simply can’t afford adequate coverage for her or his family.

If the insurance industry and the Republican right manage once more to frustrate reform, all of us will pay part of the price.