Mattress Answer Man Speaks

Posts Tagged ‘USA poiltics’

Some of the information in this article came from 2000 which is very important to the discussion today. The first thing you will notice is that for the next eight years this problem while still growing was ignored by the government. You will also notice that the very things the Republicans are telling us to do were shown not to work in the report they had compiled. These are the same group of politicians that are considered the party better at national defense. Before I go into the main purpose of this I would like to digress to a short article in the Air Force Times that shows a side of this discussion that has been ignored.

Today the Republicans offered their health plan. Waiting until the Labor Day break was over so there wouldn’t be the same uproar at their town hall meetings.(At least some of the Republicans had town hall meetings like Senator Grassley of Utah who allowed his to be televised while others took cover of with one sided statements and questions for the participants like representative Gerhart from Pa). They have been telling the American public that we shouldn’t rush this that we have to get it right. This study was presented in 2001 and has been going on since. Tonight the Republicans accused the Democrats of play politics while not looking at the future. After reading this whole report and some of its references  I would like to say they are right about not looking forward and playing politics but they have the wrong party.

I would like to also clear up a few things about their accusations. The post office and the railroads are not failures. For that matter neither is Fannie Mae and Freddie Mack. In the private sector many businesses run at a loss while still earning money. Those losses are a result of fluctuations in the economy or even fluctuations by season. When these companies need money they either borrow it or the sell stock. The Government sponsored companies have to go to congress for money not the banks. These companies are not free to raise prices and in some cases they can’t change products or services without approval. Their wages for management are controlled and rarely do they get the best talent. These entities would be ok if the Republicans would try and make them work instead of under funding them while they are in power. Even worse is the fact that the Board of Directors (which is congress) haven’t done their job of overseeing for over eight years. These were also not set up as businesses having to show a profit or even break even. President Obama wanted the Government option to pay for itself therefore being set up very different from the others. The conservatives would have you believe that because these entities need an influx of money from time to time that they run different from other types of business. Let me pose this question. How much do you think Brown would charge to deliver your mail? Here is another If we cut off the subsidies to Amtrak Which helps the East Coast should we do the same for the farmers of the Midwest?

The first thing I believe the conservatives get wrong is the premise of choice when it pertains to insurance. The basic is that the well pay for the sick so that when the well become sick they are covered are covered by the ever changing group. In a sense you are saving for the future buy buying it when you are fit. The first problem is for profit health insurance because the pool of money is lessened buy the removal of profit. If you eliminate the profit motive you automatically can either reduce cost or expand coverage. They try and use auto insurance as an example. Most state require auto insurance as a prerequisite to being able to drive. Your choice then is to buy insurance or use other methods of transportation. Using this logic the choice becomes simple for anyone who is not rich, buy health insurance and live. Don’t buy the insurance and die.
The next misconception is that of choice under the present system. You get to choose your insurance if you own the company or are an officer of a company otherwise your choice is made by your employer. The (terrible) unions negotiated health benefits and forced other employers to offer insurance to compete. At one time in our history labor was the scarce resource in our country and benefits(non taxable income) were the drawing card. The excess of these benefits in the long run made our products less competitive in the world market. Corporations do not care about anything but profit  so they move their production to areas where they don’t have to offer benefits and can keep the money to themselves not sharing it with workers.
So protecting the free market someday will mean protecting no market but that is another topic. The fact is that companies will for the most part purchase what is best for them not necessarily what is best for you.
The next post will break down the republican program showing its strong points and weaknesses.

I was on my way grocery shopping and listening to the ball game. The day was good and my team was ahead. My grocery bill was low and things were just calm and as good as they could be. Then on my return trip the game was over but the talk station that carries the game was still on. Hannity and Gingrich were having a discussion about the Republican landslide in 2010 because by passing this health care plan the Democrats will be putting us on the path to ” Euthanasia”. Now guys please send me a list of people you convince of this because I’ll sell them a piece of a bridge in New York.

I know there are a lot of people against one payer health insurance. Most of them haven’t come to the realization that there is no capitalist competition when it comes to necessities. These companies who should be in competition for your business, and logically the market will keep prices down, have been in a contest to see who could give the least for the highest price. Have we forgotten our not so long ago history?  Have the names Enron, Duke Energy, Merk & Co., Adelphia, Halliburton or the other twenty four other major corporations in scandals between 2001 and 2005 like AIG?  I ask you to think about the facts. There is no capitalism that the conservatives keep talking about. We used to have it but even then we had to pass child labor laws and other workers regulations to keep companies from stealing another way.

Without true competition everything costs more. So the next time you tell me about the debt we are going to leave our children, tell me what they will have if you keep

allowing these companies to keep on stealing.  The game is simple. You make a company grow and be successful then you negotiate a great salary, bonus plan, and golden parachute. You make your stock grow and pay no or little dividends (why give your investors anything but a piece of paper? If they’re smart enough they’ll sell before everyone else sees the latest trick) Next you borrow money so the investors in the financial institution can loose too. You take your money and let the ship fall or better yet bail out before it does. When the latest trick is discovered they’ll throw an accountant, or two that received a few extra thousand, in jail.

If our government steals at least you get something back even if the value isn’t there. If companies steal there is no return. Is it possible that the increased energy prices of the last four years hastened the inevitable housing foreclosures? Could it be that if the cost of health care hadn’t risen at the ridiculous pace of the last eight years our paychecks would be larger and many would have been able to convert their mortgages to a fixed rate? If companies like Walmart weren’t hiring illegals or breaking child labor laws would some small businesses (the backbone of our economy) still exist? If Halliburton didn’t have a no bid contract for the war and then hire non-Americans to do the work would that money still be in our economy?

If we controlled our industries and financial institutions would you have to talk to someone you couldn’t understand, that was thousands of miles away, when you need service? If we controlled our markets would we allow stock market betting that a company’s stock would drop and then allow these same investors to cause it(and they didn’t even have to own one share). Would our food, toys, paint, and other products be as safe as they were just eight years ago? The list goes on yet there is a faction in government that want to tell you how rotten government is and how angelic our companies are.

Newt and Sean continued their conversation by explaining that the Democrats were like Nazi Germany. Isn’t this the first step towards the”superuben”. That of course was to prove their euthanasia argument. After all aren’t Americans becoming scared and disillusioned with these programs that aren’t working? ( not that they have had enough time ) I forgot Ronald Regan’s perfect economy (according to these gentlemen) changed things the next day. I ask anyone who is being swayed by the only tatic left to these pathetic conservative pundits, the one they are most versed in, to sit back and think. They have been practicing their art since before the days of that great President Herbert Hoover, who caused the last depression. Think about the shape of the economy in September. Think about the policies of the last eight years and how much better things were  in 2000. Why don’t we believe in government. Could it be that the very people that these paid talking heads back are the politicians that we shouldn’t trust?

You have the right and ability to vote conservative in 2010 so please don’t panic any of these new laws are actually passed and speculation based on the worst possible scenario is gone. The advantage will still be with the naysayers because there is always things to twist and no law satisfies completely even those that pass them. Just maybe there will be enough that you like about them to make them Ok. If not, change the group and the new ones will fix it, maybe?

As a parting Question to Sean. If you were so against that ignorant car company getting bailed out Why do you still have General Motors as an advertiser?