By Michael Payne
opednews.com
June 21, 2011 at 12:41:13
Many millions of Americans are currently experiencing intense, unrelenting stress and feelings of despair and futility as they try to cope with a myriad of personal problems largely brought on by this nation's economic crisis. They are not unlike the millions of people in the Middle East that find themselves caught up in protests and violent civil disobedience; in fact they have one thing very much in common with them.
And that is that humans, no matter the nation or the culture, living under these kinds of extremely stressful conditions of despair and hopelessness, will eventually reach a breaking point when they have had all that they can take and they just can't take anymore; and then they react. Americans haven't reached that point, at least not yet. But conditions are continuing to deteriorate and many signs now indicate that a societal implosion is looming on America's horizon.
What we're talking about is an inward collapse of this society and its institutions. What exact form this collapse would take, how severe and far reaching it might be, and what it might do to this nation and its people is difficult to predict. But it's not the least bit farfetched to think that, at some point in the not too distant future, the American people will reach that breaking point and there will be a violent societal reaction.
Let's consider when that might happen and what would trigger such a reaction:
When millions of Americans completely give up on any possibility of finding a decent job in an atmosphere where there is no job creation by either the government or the business sector; when corporations continue to eliminate jobs in the U.S. and outsource them to China, India, and other nations and our government does nothing to reverse it.
When millions more Americans lose their homes to foreclosure and then, to their dismay, find that they cannot afford to rent. When personal bankruptcies due to home foreclosures and monumental health care costs overwhelm millions of Americans, leaving many of them destitute.
When America's financial institutions continue to hoard money and refuse to make loans to small businesses and individuals and, at the same time, devise new ways to increase service charges, ATM fees, and assess an array of penalties involving overdrawn accounts or minimum checking balances.
When the number of homeless people in America and those on food stamps double or even triple. When church charities and food pantries are overwhelmed by those trying but failing to make ends meet.
When the U.S. dollar continues to rapidly decline in value and rampant inflation makes it extremely difficult to feed and clothe a family.
When our states that cannot solve their massive deficit problems lay off even larger numbers of police and firefighters; when these states decimate our education systems by laying off more and more teachers; when they eliminate many social services to the poor, the elderly, the disabled and the mentally ill.
When the cost of gasoline skyrockets and most people can no longer afford long commutes to their jobs or when trying to find a job. When the costs of home heating and electricity become unbearable.
When those many millions of Americans under great stress, who are just trying to survive, see corporate profits rise while their incomes go down, CEO's getting massive bonuses and the wealthiest of Americans finding ways to get more tax breaks and stashing their savings in tax exempt shelters.
When people see the taxes they pay being foolishly and recklessly wasted on needless wars that accomplish nothing except to strengthen the vice grip of the military-security complex over this country.
When the millions of Americans who live in extreme poverty in this nation's cities can find no work of any kind, when their neighborhoods are overrun with violent crime by roaming gangs of young kids that include their own.
When those millions of Americans throw up their hands and say that "enough is enough" and "I can't take it any more," and decide that they will do whatever is necessary to survive, no matter what the consequences..
It is not difficult to understand how such an implosion could take place in America. All one has to do is to take our most critical domestic problems, such as I have outlined above, and project them into the future. You will then find a point at which our combination of problems will reach a boiling point that can no longer be relieved and there will follow an eruption in this society, the likes of which we have never seen.
Such an implosion might also be described as "blowback." Blowback is defined as " an unforeseen and unwanted effect, result, or set of repercussions." That is what happens when people react with violence of many different forms when they feel that they have been harmed or taken advantage of by those in positions of power and they want to strike out at the perceived perpetrators of such actions.
So under such circumstances America could experience great turmoil, great violence, massive protests, rioting in the streets and other happenings that would be very detrimental to this nation's stability. We currently live in very tenuous times and, yet, what we are experiencing is nothing compared to what may be rapidly heading our way.
When a societal implosion rocks America, what is going to happen to those greedy giant corporations who made obscene profits when they outsourced millions of American jobs to overseas slave labor? Who is going to buy their products? These corporations will see their profits plummet when those without jobs cannot buy their products and those with jobs cannot afford them due to rampant, out of control inflation. Many will go bankrupt.
What's going to happen to those financial manipulators on Wall Street that have used every conceivable way to suck the lifeblood out of the American people when there is no more blood left? What people will be left in America that can be taken advantage of by these financial predators? Maybe they will have to turn on each other and start to drain each other's wealth through devious tactics.
What about those wealthiest of Americans who live in opulence in their penthouses or in gated, heavily guarded communities? Will they become isolated, unable to go out in public among people who are in a dangerous mood? What good will their great wealth do them if they cannot feel free to live their lives as they have; when they feel threatened by the chaos and danger all around them?
Actually it doesn't have to come to this; such a scenario could be avoided but it will not be easy. The riots and extreme violence that have happened in other parts of the world must be avoided at all costs. This government and the business community must recognize the immense dangers that lie ahead if positive, constructive steps are not taken to alleviate many of the problems that the American people face. We can no longer follow the disastrous course we are taking.
But what exactly must be done? Well, I have writer's cramps from the many times that I have listed all the things that I think our government must do to turn America into a new direction. So, I will simply boil it down to only two things that I believe must be done to prevent such a domestic disaster:
#1: This president, the Congress and the military establishment must take positive, irreversible steps to withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan and end our involvement in Libya ASAP. Troops should be returned to the U.S. beginning by July 31 of this year and be fully completed by the end of 2012. The American military empire must be largely scaled back and replaced with effective security systems that do not involve massive wars.
#2: This president and this Congress, together with the business sector must, collectively, develop the most aggressive and innovative job creation program in this nation's history, even greater than the series of work programs that were instituted by President Franklin Roosevelt during the New Deal. This massive jobs program would have to be of the magnitude or even greater than the ambitious program that put a man on the moon.
Just these two great initiatives would be enough to begin the process to turn America away from its disastrous, debilitating wars and into a new direction for the future. With those two foundations for recovery in place, it would pave the way for other critical initiatives. Making this happen would demand that the political bickering, the obstructive tactics, the corporate control, and the vacillating would have to be replaced by logical, rational, creative thinking with all parties dedicated to putting all Americans back to work.
That's exactly what must happen. But what if that ambitious objective fails to materialize because the parties mentioned will not change, have no intention of working together to do what is right for America, and they continue to maintain a state of gridlock? What then will happen, what will be the consequences?
That's very easy to predict. Down the road, before very long, the people of America will finally reach that breaking point, when they will have had enough, when they will find that they can take no more; and, then, this nation will experience a societal implosion of unthinkable proportions.
Showing posts with label National Debt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label National Debt. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Monday, March 2, 2009
A Banana Republic By 2012?
Change for the Worse
By Paul Craig Roberts
March 02, 2009 "Information Clearing House" -- -President Obama has presented the most irresponsible budget in US history. His fiscal year 2010 budget projects federal spending of $3.5 trillion and a federal deficit of $1.75 trillion. In other words, 50 percent of the government’s budget consists of red ink.
And Americans are angry that sub-prime borrowers took mortgages they couldn’t afford.
The bald fact is that the US government is going to have to borrow--or print--half of the money it intends to spend in Obama’s first budget. This fact has fallen through the cracks as New York Times headlines proclaim “A Bold Plan Sweeps Away Reagan Ideas.” It certainly does sweep away Reagan ideas. No Reagan budget ever presumed that the federal government could borrow half of its annual expenditures. Indeed, Obama’s budget deficit for 2010 alone exceeds the totality of “Reagan Deficits” for Reagan’s two terms of office.
As presidential budgets are marketing devices rather than financial statements, they are imbued with optimistic assumptions. Obama’s budget is based on optimistic assumptions about the extent of decline in GDP. A more realistic projection of GDP decline would reveal that Obama’s budget is the first since World War II in which more than half of the government’s expenditures must be financed by red ink. I suspect that the red ink component of the FY 2010 budget will surpass World War II budgets.
To whom can the US government turn for $1.75 trillion for FY 2010, on top of $1.2 trillion for FY 2009?
Not to taxpayers. Obama’s net tax increase comes to $170 billion over 10 years, or $17 billion a year, a drop in the bucket. A supply-side economist could have told him that not even these paltry revenues will be realized.
Not to private savers. Americans are over their heads in debts.
Not to foreigners. Thanks to Clinton/Bush financial deregulation and Wall Street and bankster greed, the rest of the world is in financial turmoil and hasn’t $1.75 trillion in savings to lend. Possibly, the stock market will collapse further, and whatever remaining wealth Americans have will flow into “safe” US Treasuries.
The only other alternative is the printing press. Printing press finance would destroy the dollar as reserve currency and ignite high inflation. The US would be unable to pay for its imports, and Americans whose incomes do not rise with the rate of inflation would be plowed under.
This prospect is not a “war on terror” scare tactic like “anthrax,” “weapons of mass destruction,” “al Qaeda connections,” and “Iranian nukes.”
The economic catastrophe that the US faces is very real. But there is no awareness of this reality in Obama’s budget. The crux of Obamanomics is the assumption that the economy can run forever on consumer loans, if we can just get the banks to lend, and the federal government can run forever on loans from China, Japan,and Saudi Arabia.
Obama is requesting $130 billion for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan during 2010 plus a $75 billion supplemental request for the wars during 2009. This $205 billion is on top of $534 billion for the Pentagon in 2010, for total military spending of $739 billion.
The Chinese government’s budget shows China’s military spending at $59 billion in 2008. (The Pentagon claims Chinese military spending is between $97 billion and $139 billion.) Russia’s military spending in 2009 is projected to be about $50 billion.
In the midst of the greatest economic crisis in US history when trillions of dollars are being added to US national debt, Obama’s budget spends more on two pointless wars than the total military spending of China and Russia combined. Obama’s wars serve only the profits of the military/security complex and the promotion rate of military officers. The longer the wars continue, the larger the number of officers who can retire at higher ranks, thus further swelling future annual deficits and the national debt.
Moreover, as is becoming apparent, the Bush/Obama war in Afghanistan cannot be fought without fighting a war in Pakistan.
As if this isn’t enough war, Obama parrots Dick Cheney’s charge, totally unsupported by any evidence, that Iran is making nuclear weapons. The chances are high that the new White House Moron will have us at war in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq. As Obama’s wars expand, the $205 billion for war in Iraq and Afghanistan will become $400 billion annually and then $600 billion annually.
Obama’s “troop withdrawal” from Iraq has proved to be just another con job. Obama has announced that the withdrawal doesn’t include the 50,000 US soldiers who will remain in Iraq indefinitely--like the US troops that have been kept in Japan and Germany for 64 years and in Korea since the early 1950s,
Meanwhile Medicare is on the ropes. The latest Medicare trustees report says that Medicare’s funds for hospital payments will be exhausted in 10 years. To make ends meet, Obama proposes cutting payments to Medicare providers.
Obama’s plan is to make doctors and patients pay for Medicare. One way to get National Health is to make it uneconomic for private health care to service Medicare patients. Already many doctors will not accept Medicare patients because of the low payments, endless paperwork, and risk of prosecution for “over-billing.” Looking at one recent Medicare patient medical bill, Medicare and supplemental insurance paid 29 percent of the billed amount, requiring the doctor to eat 58.5 percent of his charges and the patient to pay 12.5 percent. The doctor was paid $93.16 on a $320.89 bill. And Obama wants to reduce payments to providers?
What is Obama thinking? A country that can’t afford Medicare can’t afford National Health. Medicare provides only for the elderly, and it provides very little. A person pays the Medicare tax as long as he earns and on the totality of earnings. For the rich the Medicare tax can exceed the cost of a gold-plated private insurance policy.
Basic Medicare leaves a person unprotected. To provide better coverage, it is necessary to enroll in Medicare Part B for which the premium is $308.30 per month or $3,699.60 per year. On top of this, a person needs a privately supplied supplemental policy to complete Medicare coverage. AARP’s policy, which, after deductibles are met, covers half of drug costs, cost the “Medicare protected” elderly $ 273.50 per month or $3,282 per year. The drug prescription plan passed by Congress costs the individual yet more.
The two supplements to Medicare cost the Medicare patient $6,981.60 per year. In addition, if the Medicare patient has much retirement income besides Social Security, he pays income tax on 85% of the $3,699.60 Medicare Part B premium as it is part of taxable Social Security, which for someone in the 25% bracket is another $925 dollars.
In the late 1970s, Democratic Senator Russell Long, Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, told me that as Social Security was collected as a tax on wages and salaries, the US government had promised never to tax the benefits. So much for any commitment that the US government makes to the American people.
A top Social Security income, net of Medicare Part B premium, is $23,220 per year. Deduct the AARP policy, and the elderly who have paid in maximum Social Security taxes, get $20,000 per year. Of course, few Social Security retirees receive the maximum payment. AARP’s Public Policy Institute reports that in 2006 the average annual Social Security benefit for a retired worker was $12,372. Such a worker would have little left after paying the Medicare Part B premium and an additional premium for a supplement.
Offshoring and “free trade” have destroyed employer-provided health coverage for millions of employees. Private health care coverage can cost as much as one-third and even one-half of a person’s earned income, and some people are not insurable. National Health seems to be in the cards--only there is no money for it. All the money is being spent in pointless wars and on bailouts of financial fraud. The Obama budget puts bankster bailouts and pointless wars ahead of the health of the American people.
National Health advocates emphasize that a single-payer system is less expensive because it eliminates layers of profits. It is also less expensive for a less promising reason. Unless there is a parallel private health care system, National Health systems limit health spending to what is provided in the government budget. Over time, health care has to compete with everything else in the budget. Every part of the budget has its partisans and special interests. It is fantasy to assume that National Health will always be well funded. Just look at the state of the National Health Service in the UK.
Obama’s plan to tax the rich is another con job. Obama’s budget defines the rich as a person with a $250,000 before tax income. This is a rotten joke. The rich are the banksters, such as Hank Paulson with his $160 million annual bonus, and heads of hedge funds with their $1,000 million annual incomes. To confuse the struggling middle class with the real rich is criminal. A person with a $250,000 income before tax does not come close to being rich. Obama’s “tax the rich” scheme will devastate the upper middle class and leave the super rich undamaged.
The only change we have from Obama and the Democrats is for the worse. Bush’s FY 2008 budget deficit was $450 billion. The FY 2009 deficit is projected at $1.2 trillion. The budget deficit in Obama’s first budget is $1.75 trillion, a fourfold increase in two years.
Obama’s projected budget deficits are an understatement. For example, Obama’s budget assumes a less steep economic decline than the economy is experiencing, and it projects that war costs will drop to $50 billion annually beginning in 2011--this despite Obama sending more troops to Afghanistan and recent congressional testimony of Lt. General David Barno, former head of US forces in Afghanistan, who said the war in Afghanistan could last until 2025.
The “war on terror” will never end, because the moronic US government has defined everyone who resists US hegemony as a “terrorist.” The great danger to American civil liberty is that the US government regards as terrorists American citizens who realize that the neoconservative dream of American hegemony is a fantasy. As the Obama regime has not repealed the Bush regime rule-- “you are with us or against us”--Americans who oppose hegemonic war are lumped into the “against us” category.
There seems little chance that civil liberties will be restored. Obama and his “liberal” Justice (sic) Department have sided with Bush/Cheney on every important civil liberties issue. Yet, the ACLU sees “hope” in Obama’s rhetoric!
On February 21 Yahoo News reported: “President Barack Obama's administration has sided with predecessor George W. Bush on the rights of detainees at Bagram air base in Afghanistan, saying they cannot challenge their detention in US courts. In a two-sentence court filing Friday, the US Justice Department said "the government adheres to its previously articulated position" of denying habeas corpus rights to Bagram detainees, backing a similar decision by the Bush administration.”
“Earlier this month,” Yahoo News reports, “the Obama administration backed another Bush anti-terror policy when it urged a federal court to dismiss a lawsuit accusing Boeing Company of helping fly suspects to secret CIA detention centers overseas. The Justice Department said the case should be thrown out to protect state secrets.”
Do you remember the illegal spying? The US telecom industry succumbed to Bush regime pressure and broke the law together with President Bush. The illegal act made the US telecom industry subject to lawsuits, but the Bush regime placed its co-conspirators above the law.
Now Obama has sided with the Bush regime. On February 26, therawstory.com reported: “The Obama Justice Department continues to stand behind a Bush era law meant to prevent lawsuits against telecommunications companies accused of illegally sharing private customer information with intelligence agencies. In a brief filed late Wednesday obtained by Raw Story, the Department of Justice provided its views to Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, after the San Francisco federal judge questioned the constitutionality of the wide-sweeping law and whether it gives the U.S. Attorney General too much power in deciding whether a company is immune from lawsuits after it has shared information with federal agents.”
On February 26 antiwar.com reported that the “new CIA director (Leon Panetta) declares nothing has changed, nothing will change.” Panetta declared that the US policy of conducting war on Pakistan’s sovereign territory “would continue.” The attacks, Panetta claimed, “have been successful.” For the CIA, claims of success equal legality. Did the Bush regime ever express greater arrogance and hubris?
With Rahm Israel Emanuel, an Israeli dual citizen, in charge of the White House and Obama’s schedule, Obama will have an even less independent foreign policy in the Middle East than Bush. Somehow someone among the Obamacons managed to put forward an appointment that could challenge the Israel Lobby’s stranglehold. Charles Freeman, former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, former top Pentagon official, and president of the Middle East Policy Council, was chosen by Admiral Denis Blair, Director of National Intelligence, to head the National Intelligence Council.
The neocons went berserk. Steve Rosen, formerly of AIPAC, currently indicted as an Israeli spy, Gabriel Schoenfeld, who wants the New York Times indicted for allegedly violating the Espionage Act for reporting the Bush regime’s illegal spying, Daniel Pipes, who sees Muslim terrorists under every bed, Michael Rubin of the warmonger American Enterprise Institute, and Frank Gaffney, possibly the goofiest person in America, damned Freeman’s appointment as “deeply troubling,” because Freeman has an open mind on the Middle East situation.
In other words, if you are not on Israel’s side, you are disqualified. (Editor's emphasis throughout)
There is no more certain indication of continuing war in the Middle East on Israel’s behalf than for Freeman’s appointment to be blocked.
Pay close attention to this one. If Obama succumbs to the Israel Lobby and nixes Blair’s appointment of Freeman, the US will have to finance interminable wars on top of trillion dollar bailouts and massive unemployment.
The US might not even make it to 2012 before it is a banana republic.
By Paul Craig Roberts
March 02, 2009 "Information Clearing House" -- -President Obama has presented the most irresponsible budget in US history. His fiscal year 2010 budget projects federal spending of $3.5 trillion and a federal deficit of $1.75 trillion. In other words, 50 percent of the government’s budget consists of red ink.
And Americans are angry that sub-prime borrowers took mortgages they couldn’t afford.
The bald fact is that the US government is going to have to borrow--or print--half of the money it intends to spend in Obama’s first budget. This fact has fallen through the cracks as New York Times headlines proclaim “A Bold Plan Sweeps Away Reagan Ideas.” It certainly does sweep away Reagan ideas. No Reagan budget ever presumed that the federal government could borrow half of its annual expenditures. Indeed, Obama’s budget deficit for 2010 alone exceeds the totality of “Reagan Deficits” for Reagan’s two terms of office.
As presidential budgets are marketing devices rather than financial statements, they are imbued with optimistic assumptions. Obama’s budget is based on optimistic assumptions about the extent of decline in GDP. A more realistic projection of GDP decline would reveal that Obama’s budget is the first since World War II in which more than half of the government’s expenditures must be financed by red ink. I suspect that the red ink component of the FY 2010 budget will surpass World War II budgets.
To whom can the US government turn for $1.75 trillion for FY 2010, on top of $1.2 trillion for FY 2009?
Not to taxpayers. Obama’s net tax increase comes to $170 billion over 10 years, or $17 billion a year, a drop in the bucket. A supply-side economist could have told him that not even these paltry revenues will be realized.
Not to private savers. Americans are over their heads in debts.
Not to foreigners. Thanks to Clinton/Bush financial deregulation and Wall Street and bankster greed, the rest of the world is in financial turmoil and hasn’t $1.75 trillion in savings to lend. Possibly, the stock market will collapse further, and whatever remaining wealth Americans have will flow into “safe” US Treasuries.
The only other alternative is the printing press. Printing press finance would destroy the dollar as reserve currency and ignite high inflation. The US would be unable to pay for its imports, and Americans whose incomes do not rise with the rate of inflation would be plowed under.
This prospect is not a “war on terror” scare tactic like “anthrax,” “weapons of mass destruction,” “al Qaeda connections,” and “Iranian nukes.”
The economic catastrophe that the US faces is very real. But there is no awareness of this reality in Obama’s budget. The crux of Obamanomics is the assumption that the economy can run forever on consumer loans, if we can just get the banks to lend, and the federal government can run forever on loans from China, Japan,and Saudi Arabia.
Obama is requesting $130 billion for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan during 2010 plus a $75 billion supplemental request for the wars during 2009. This $205 billion is on top of $534 billion for the Pentagon in 2010, for total military spending of $739 billion.
The Chinese government’s budget shows China’s military spending at $59 billion in 2008. (The Pentagon claims Chinese military spending is between $97 billion and $139 billion.) Russia’s military spending in 2009 is projected to be about $50 billion.
In the midst of the greatest economic crisis in US history when trillions of dollars are being added to US national debt, Obama’s budget spends more on two pointless wars than the total military spending of China and Russia combined. Obama’s wars serve only the profits of the military/security complex and the promotion rate of military officers. The longer the wars continue, the larger the number of officers who can retire at higher ranks, thus further swelling future annual deficits and the national debt.
Moreover, as is becoming apparent, the Bush/Obama war in Afghanistan cannot be fought without fighting a war in Pakistan.
As if this isn’t enough war, Obama parrots Dick Cheney’s charge, totally unsupported by any evidence, that Iran is making nuclear weapons. The chances are high that the new White House Moron will have us at war in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq. As Obama’s wars expand, the $205 billion for war in Iraq and Afghanistan will become $400 billion annually and then $600 billion annually.
Obama’s “troop withdrawal” from Iraq has proved to be just another con job. Obama has announced that the withdrawal doesn’t include the 50,000 US soldiers who will remain in Iraq indefinitely--like the US troops that have been kept in Japan and Germany for 64 years and in Korea since the early 1950s,
Meanwhile Medicare is on the ropes. The latest Medicare trustees report says that Medicare’s funds for hospital payments will be exhausted in 10 years. To make ends meet, Obama proposes cutting payments to Medicare providers.
Obama’s plan is to make doctors and patients pay for Medicare. One way to get National Health is to make it uneconomic for private health care to service Medicare patients. Already many doctors will not accept Medicare patients because of the low payments, endless paperwork, and risk of prosecution for “over-billing.” Looking at one recent Medicare patient medical bill, Medicare and supplemental insurance paid 29 percent of the billed amount, requiring the doctor to eat 58.5 percent of his charges and the patient to pay 12.5 percent. The doctor was paid $93.16 on a $320.89 bill. And Obama wants to reduce payments to providers?
What is Obama thinking? A country that can’t afford Medicare can’t afford National Health. Medicare provides only for the elderly, and it provides very little. A person pays the Medicare tax as long as he earns and on the totality of earnings. For the rich the Medicare tax can exceed the cost of a gold-plated private insurance policy.
Basic Medicare leaves a person unprotected. To provide better coverage, it is necessary to enroll in Medicare Part B for which the premium is $308.30 per month or $3,699.60 per year. On top of this, a person needs a privately supplied supplemental policy to complete Medicare coverage. AARP’s policy, which, after deductibles are met, covers half of drug costs, cost the “Medicare protected” elderly $ 273.50 per month or $3,282 per year. The drug prescription plan passed by Congress costs the individual yet more.
The two supplements to Medicare cost the Medicare patient $6,981.60 per year. In addition, if the Medicare patient has much retirement income besides Social Security, he pays income tax on 85% of the $3,699.60 Medicare Part B premium as it is part of taxable Social Security, which for someone in the 25% bracket is another $925 dollars.
In the late 1970s, Democratic Senator Russell Long, Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, told me that as Social Security was collected as a tax on wages and salaries, the US government had promised never to tax the benefits. So much for any commitment that the US government makes to the American people.
A top Social Security income, net of Medicare Part B premium, is $23,220 per year. Deduct the AARP policy, and the elderly who have paid in maximum Social Security taxes, get $20,000 per year. Of course, few Social Security retirees receive the maximum payment. AARP’s Public Policy Institute reports that in 2006 the average annual Social Security benefit for a retired worker was $12,372. Such a worker would have little left after paying the Medicare Part B premium and an additional premium for a supplement.
Offshoring and “free trade” have destroyed employer-provided health coverage for millions of employees. Private health care coverage can cost as much as one-third and even one-half of a person’s earned income, and some people are not insurable. National Health seems to be in the cards--only there is no money for it. All the money is being spent in pointless wars and on bailouts of financial fraud. The Obama budget puts bankster bailouts and pointless wars ahead of the health of the American people.
National Health advocates emphasize that a single-payer system is less expensive because it eliminates layers of profits. It is also less expensive for a less promising reason. Unless there is a parallel private health care system, National Health systems limit health spending to what is provided in the government budget. Over time, health care has to compete with everything else in the budget. Every part of the budget has its partisans and special interests. It is fantasy to assume that National Health will always be well funded. Just look at the state of the National Health Service in the UK.
Obama’s plan to tax the rich is another con job. Obama’s budget defines the rich as a person with a $250,000 before tax income. This is a rotten joke. The rich are the banksters, such as Hank Paulson with his $160 million annual bonus, and heads of hedge funds with their $1,000 million annual incomes. To confuse the struggling middle class with the real rich is criminal. A person with a $250,000 income before tax does not come close to being rich. Obama’s “tax the rich” scheme will devastate the upper middle class and leave the super rich undamaged.
The only change we have from Obama and the Democrats is for the worse. Bush’s FY 2008 budget deficit was $450 billion. The FY 2009 deficit is projected at $1.2 trillion. The budget deficit in Obama’s first budget is $1.75 trillion, a fourfold increase in two years.
Obama’s projected budget deficits are an understatement. For example, Obama’s budget assumes a less steep economic decline than the economy is experiencing, and it projects that war costs will drop to $50 billion annually beginning in 2011--this despite Obama sending more troops to Afghanistan and recent congressional testimony of Lt. General David Barno, former head of US forces in Afghanistan, who said the war in Afghanistan could last until 2025.
The “war on terror” will never end, because the moronic US government has defined everyone who resists US hegemony as a “terrorist.” The great danger to American civil liberty is that the US government regards as terrorists American citizens who realize that the neoconservative dream of American hegemony is a fantasy. As the Obama regime has not repealed the Bush regime rule-- “you are with us or against us”--Americans who oppose hegemonic war are lumped into the “against us” category.
There seems little chance that civil liberties will be restored. Obama and his “liberal” Justice (sic) Department have sided with Bush/Cheney on every important civil liberties issue. Yet, the ACLU sees “hope” in Obama’s rhetoric!
On February 21 Yahoo News reported: “President Barack Obama's administration has sided with predecessor George W. Bush on the rights of detainees at Bagram air base in Afghanistan, saying they cannot challenge their detention in US courts. In a two-sentence court filing Friday, the US Justice Department said "the government adheres to its previously articulated position" of denying habeas corpus rights to Bagram detainees, backing a similar decision by the Bush administration.”
“Earlier this month,” Yahoo News reports, “the Obama administration backed another Bush anti-terror policy when it urged a federal court to dismiss a lawsuit accusing Boeing Company of helping fly suspects to secret CIA detention centers overseas. The Justice Department said the case should be thrown out to protect state secrets.”
Do you remember the illegal spying? The US telecom industry succumbed to Bush regime pressure and broke the law together with President Bush. The illegal act made the US telecom industry subject to lawsuits, but the Bush regime placed its co-conspirators above the law.
Now Obama has sided with the Bush regime. On February 26, therawstory.com reported: “The Obama Justice Department continues to stand behind a Bush era law meant to prevent lawsuits against telecommunications companies accused of illegally sharing private customer information with intelligence agencies. In a brief filed late Wednesday obtained by Raw Story, the Department of Justice provided its views to Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, after the San Francisco federal judge questioned the constitutionality of the wide-sweeping law and whether it gives the U.S. Attorney General too much power in deciding whether a company is immune from lawsuits after it has shared information with federal agents.”
On February 26 antiwar.com reported that the “new CIA director (Leon Panetta) declares nothing has changed, nothing will change.” Panetta declared that the US policy of conducting war on Pakistan’s sovereign territory “would continue.” The attacks, Panetta claimed, “have been successful.” For the CIA, claims of success equal legality. Did the Bush regime ever express greater arrogance and hubris?
With Rahm Israel Emanuel, an Israeli dual citizen, in charge of the White House and Obama’s schedule, Obama will have an even less independent foreign policy in the Middle East than Bush. Somehow someone among the Obamacons managed to put forward an appointment that could challenge the Israel Lobby’s stranglehold. Charles Freeman, former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, former top Pentagon official, and president of the Middle East Policy Council, was chosen by Admiral Denis Blair, Director of National Intelligence, to head the National Intelligence Council.
The neocons went berserk. Steve Rosen, formerly of AIPAC, currently indicted as an Israeli spy, Gabriel Schoenfeld, who wants the New York Times indicted for allegedly violating the Espionage Act for reporting the Bush regime’s illegal spying, Daniel Pipes, who sees Muslim terrorists under every bed, Michael Rubin of the warmonger American Enterprise Institute, and Frank Gaffney, possibly the goofiest person in America, damned Freeman’s appointment as “deeply troubling,” because Freeman has an open mind on the Middle East situation.
In other words, if you are not on Israel’s side, you are disqualified. (Editor's emphasis throughout)
There is no more certain indication of continuing war in the Middle East on Israel’s behalf than for Freeman’s appointment to be blocked.
Pay close attention to this one. If Obama succumbs to the Israel Lobby and nixes Blair’s appointment of Freeman, the US will have to finance interminable wars on top of trillion dollar bailouts and massive unemployment.
The US might not even make it to 2012 before it is a banana republic.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
US May Lose Its 'AAA' Rating
By CNBC
November 12, 2008 "CNBC" -November 10, 2008 -- The United States may be on course to lose its 'AAA' rating due to the large amount of debt it has accumulated, according to Martin Hennecke, senior manager of private clients at Tyche.
"The U.S. might really have to look at a default on the bankruptcy reorganization of the present financial system" and the bankruptcy of the government is not out of the realm of possibility, Hennecke said.
"In the United States there is already a funding crisis, and they will have to sell a lot more bonds next year to fund the bailout packages that have already been signed off," Hennecke told CNBC.
In order to solve or stem the economic slowdown, Hennecke suggested the US would have to radically reduce spending across all sectors and recall all its troops from around the world.
As for a stimulus package, there is not much of an industry left to stimulate back into life, Hennecke said.
November 12, 2008 "CNBC" -November 10, 2008 -- The United States may be on course to lose its 'AAA' rating due to the large amount of debt it has accumulated, according to Martin Hennecke, senior manager of private clients at Tyche.
"The U.S. might really have to look at a default on the bankruptcy reorganization of the present financial system" and the bankruptcy of the government is not out of the realm of possibility, Hennecke said.
"In the United States there is already a funding crisis, and they will have to sell a lot more bonds next year to fund the bailout packages that have already been signed off," Hennecke told CNBC.
In order to solve or stem the economic slowdown, Hennecke suggested the US would have to radically reduce spending across all sectors and recall all its troops from around the world.
As for a stimulus package, there is not much of an industry left to stimulate back into life, Hennecke said.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
U.S Gap Between Rich and Poor Widening!
By Bob Kendall
October 31, 2008 "Information Clearinghouse" -- "PC" -- Now that the U.S.A. has discovered that only Mexico and Turkey had poverty rates higher than the 30-country study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, what if anything will be done to help the U.S. poor obtain health care?
Politicians, during campaigns, loudly proclaim "The U.S.A. is the greatest nation on earth and the richest."
With the largest, almost incomprehensible national debt in the world, exceeding all prior national debts combined since the U.S. was founded, recent political rants have avoided claiming the U.S.A. to be the richest nation in the world! However, the persistent claim to greatness has been much used in the current election campaigns (rest assured).
Mary Reynolds-Gilmore of Northport, N.Y. in her October 24 Letter to the Editors of the New York Times hit the problem of U.S. health care precisely, stating:
"The problem is cost and access. We will never be first until all Americans have basic health care, health and malpractice executives stop pocketing such a high percentage of our premiums, and we institute a system of medical-specialist juries to control the malpractice frenzy. More money for evidence-based research is not the answer."
Stanley R. Bermann of Santa Fe, New Mexico had this to say in his letter of the same day to the Times:
"What needs to happen is that we have a universal health care program for all Americans. Nothing else will do!
"No American should have to suffer medically and then suffer financially."
Bruce Leff of Baltimore, also writing the same day in the Times, is an Associate Professor of Medicine at John Hopkins University School of Medicine. He explains succinctly:
"The evidence base for most interventions in medicine is lacking, especially so in the area of how to deliver quality care to the most costly patients, the elderly with multiple chronic conditions.
"Improvements in the evidence will be ineffective if they come in the absence of health care payment reform that obliterates the perverse incentives that favor specialty care and glitzy idolatry over diligent primary care and care coordination.
"A vast overhaul of medical education must be aligned with any reforms to achieve success."
This professor's opinion reflects a recent survey of students entering the schools of medicine at U.S. universities, where only 2% wanted to become primary care physicians. The reason? Because the specialty fields of medicine pay much more.
John McCain's much vaunted health care plan is almost amusing if it wasn't so absurd. The Republican health care plan allows a $5,000 tax consideration for health insurance. With almost all health insurance policies $12,000 top $15,000 a year, that doesn't help very much. But even worse is the accompanying nonsense of having to pay taxes on any health insurance coverage supplied by one's place of employment.
After hearing for years the boast about the U.S.A. being the richest nation in the world, possibly the recent survey of 30 nations by the Economic Cooperation and Development study, placing the U.S. above only Mexico and Turkey will bring us down to earth.
Arnold S. Cohen, president of Partnership for the Homeless in New York City in his October 23 letter to the Times touches base with reality:
"During these fragile and uncertain economic times, we'll certainly be seeing thousands upon thousands more people teetering on the precipice, falling into homelessness.
"Just think back to the days of the 2001 economic slump when homelessness in New York City dramatically increased.
"By the fall of 2003, more than 16,000 children were living in homeless shelters.
"The shrinking economy will undoubtedly mean less public financing for critical services and fewer jobs for our neighbors in need. But deep budget cuts -- which may appear on their face prudent -- have historically proved to be fiscally unwise.
"It only manages to push people further into poverty and homelessness, costing taxpayers millions more."
While 45 million Americans lack health care coverage, this Republican-led administration goes on spending $10 billion a month in Iraq. Meanwhile on the business front, U.S. CEO's have the highest salaries in the world!
October 31, 2008 "Information Clearinghouse" -- "PC" -- Now that the U.S.A. has discovered that only Mexico and Turkey had poverty rates higher than the 30-country study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, what if anything will be done to help the U.S. poor obtain health care?
Politicians, during campaigns, loudly proclaim "The U.S.A. is the greatest nation on earth and the richest."
With the largest, almost incomprehensible national debt in the world, exceeding all prior national debts combined since the U.S. was founded, recent political rants have avoided claiming the U.S.A. to be the richest nation in the world! However, the persistent claim to greatness has been much used in the current election campaigns (rest assured).
Mary Reynolds-Gilmore of Northport, N.Y. in her October 24 Letter to the Editors of the New York Times hit the problem of U.S. health care precisely, stating:
"The problem is cost and access. We will never be first until all Americans have basic health care, health and malpractice executives stop pocketing such a high percentage of our premiums, and we institute a system of medical-specialist juries to control the malpractice frenzy. More money for evidence-based research is not the answer."
Stanley R. Bermann of Santa Fe, New Mexico had this to say in his letter of the same day to the Times:
"What needs to happen is that we have a universal health care program for all Americans. Nothing else will do!
"No American should have to suffer medically and then suffer financially."
Bruce Leff of Baltimore, also writing the same day in the Times, is an Associate Professor of Medicine at John Hopkins University School of Medicine. He explains succinctly:
"The evidence base for most interventions in medicine is lacking, especially so in the area of how to deliver quality care to the most costly patients, the elderly with multiple chronic conditions.
"Improvements in the evidence will be ineffective if they come in the absence of health care payment reform that obliterates the perverse incentives that favor specialty care and glitzy idolatry over diligent primary care and care coordination.
"A vast overhaul of medical education must be aligned with any reforms to achieve success."
This professor's opinion reflects a recent survey of students entering the schools of medicine at U.S. universities, where only 2% wanted to become primary care physicians. The reason? Because the specialty fields of medicine pay much more.
John McCain's much vaunted health care plan is almost amusing if it wasn't so absurd. The Republican health care plan allows a $5,000 tax consideration for health insurance. With almost all health insurance policies $12,000 top $15,000 a year, that doesn't help very much. But even worse is the accompanying nonsense of having to pay taxes on any health insurance coverage supplied by one's place of employment.
After hearing for years the boast about the U.S.A. being the richest nation in the world, possibly the recent survey of 30 nations by the Economic Cooperation and Development study, placing the U.S. above only Mexico and Turkey will bring us down to earth.
Arnold S. Cohen, president of Partnership for the Homeless in New York City in his October 23 letter to the Times touches base with reality:
"During these fragile and uncertain economic times, we'll certainly be seeing thousands upon thousands more people teetering on the precipice, falling into homelessness.
"Just think back to the days of the 2001 economic slump when homelessness in New York City dramatically increased.
"By the fall of 2003, more than 16,000 children were living in homeless shelters.
"The shrinking economy will undoubtedly mean less public financing for critical services and fewer jobs for our neighbors in need. But deep budget cuts -- which may appear on their face prudent -- have historically proved to be fiscally unwise.
"It only manages to push people further into poverty and homelessness, costing taxpayers millions more."
While 45 million Americans lack health care coverage, this Republican-led administration goes on spending $10 billion a month in Iraq. Meanwhile on the business front, U.S. CEO's have the highest salaries in the world!
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