A more perfect union

Nobel Prize - continued

2009-10-09T19:51:00.000-04:00

I also wanted to comment about the allegations by the conservatives that the Nobel Prize has become a politicized award. Teddy Roosevelt was a Republican that won the award while he was in office, was it a liberal award then? He negotiated the end of the Russo-Japanese war, which at the time was a great feat of international leadership and was the beginning of the US exerting its growing global influence. We'll give the Republicans a break that the treaty eventually led to the Bolshevik Revolution, but that is besides the point. The overall point that needs to be realized is that conservatives do not stand for peaceful achievements. It seems fairly obvious that at least a part of the award being given to the President was due to the committee wanting it to serve as a repudiation of the Bush administration. Let that sink in for a minute, the Bush Administration was such a threat to world peace that the election of Obama by the American people signified such a change that it was the most important movement towards peace of 2008. Conservatives can complain about the award being politicized, but until they actually embrace the tenets of peace they will always be on the sidelines complaining that only Democrats win the Nobel Prize.

This might be a little too simplistic but the whole debate by the conservative side seems to be akin to a bunch of basketball players complaining that only football players win the Heisman Trophy...

The Nobel Prize

2009-10-09T17:00:00.000-04:00

First, I want to congratulate President Obama on being only the third sitting President in history to win the Nobel Peace Prize. When the votes were calculated, during the first month of the Presidency, I remember the feelings of hope that inspired me and the enthusiasm that I felt for the future of the country. This is the framework in which our President won this award, not for any of his actions (or perceived inactions) since.

While I probably should not be, I am shocked at the reaction of the conservations to this award. Should we not be proud that not only a fellow American won this prestigious award, but that OUR sitting President won it? This lends cred to the idea that the conservatives wish to demean everything Obama does, and I for one feel it is time to start to echo their cries of "unpatriotism" that were levied on the Left during Bush's presidency. Could you imagine the response from the Right if Democrats said they wished the Olympics went to Rio De Janeiro instead of Chicago?? We would all be told to move down to Venezuela while we are at it and live under Chavez. Imagine the calls of unpatriotism if the chairman of the DNC said it was "unfortunate that the president's star power has outshined tireless advocates who have made real achievements working towards peace and human rights." All of the Liberals that said this would be told to move to Europe, since we obviously are too un-American to want our President to win the award. It is the height of hypocrisy in my opinion and we need to start calling them out on it! This is my very small part of doing so and I hope others help out as well...

In a final note, there needs to be a call to influence anyone that supports RedState.com monetary. Erick Erickson's comment that "I did not realize the Nobel Peace Prize had an affirmative action quota for it, but that is the only thing I can think of for this news," Erickson wrote. "There is no way Barack Obama earned it in the nominations period." is extremely racist and offensive - which I fear is the root of all the blind hatred towards our President.

Conservative comments

2009-10-09T13:44:00.000-04:00

I promised several days ago to post some actual debates I have with conservatives on message boards and whatnot, but this has proven extremely hard to do. It seems that if you actually put an argument together against them they never respond, or the response is a short diatribe of profanity laced insults. I even got banned from FreeRepublic just by asking a question of a poster, what kind of website censors debate!?! I was actually quite civil in my questioning of a poster that put forth the language of a declaration for a state to secede from the union... I'm going to keep trying, but actual debate seems hard to document!

Bible Too Liberal? Conservatives Say Yes

2009-10-07T09:44:00.003-04:00

Bible Too Liberal? Conservatives Say Yes

Shared via AddThis

Maybe this is just too easy of a target to pick on, it almost hurts my head to think about!!

A lot of what I probably would have said or at least eluded to is stated pretty well in the Czech, check out the post here:

http://theczech.wordpress.com/2009/10/07/thank-god-liberal-bias-to-be-removed-from-bible/

Actual Conservative comments

2009-10-06T15:39:00.000-04:00

Reading web stories, looking at message boards, and just generally hearing people talk about the Health Care debate has made me painfully aware of the amount of misinformation that is out there. In the coming days I will be posting some of these interactions with conservatives who think that Health Care reform is the worst thing since Nazi Germany...If you have any snippets of a debate that you've had online that you want to share post it in the comments section and I might add it to the main page.

Cigna's treatment of Dawn Smith

2009-10-01T13:49:00.000-04:00

I find it extremely heartbreaking to hear the struggles of Dawn Smith to have Cigna cover needed tests for her brain tumor. This, I'm sure, echos the sentiments of many like my parents who have had to go through this for seemingly decades now. If you haven't heard the story, here is an excerpt:

"I have a brain tumor. Doctors are ready to help me. But CIGNA has been blocking me from getting testing and treatment for two years, while almost doubling my premiums.

Then, this week was the kicker. CIGNA's pharmacy called to say that the co-pay on the medicine that helps control my debilitating head pain is skyrocketing from $10 to $1,115. That's not a typo. They're making me pay one hundred times what I'm paying now, in addition to my $753/month premium.

I can't afford that. So when the pain comes, I won't have any defense. I'll spend hours in the fetal position, out of my mind with pain.

When my story went public a couple of weeks ago—with the help of over 100,000 MoveOn members—CIGNA said they would pay for a test I'd been asking for at Cleveland Clinic. It was a step in the right direction. But after two years of denials, and with a long course of treatment ahead of me, I knew better than to just take them at their word.

So I asked questions. But they wouldn't offer any explanation for why they denied my coverage for so long, or any assurance that they had changed their procedures so I wouldn't face the same unjust denials again. And I began to wonder if they were more interested in just sweeping my story under the rug than actually helping me."

Sign on to MoveOn's website to sign on to a letter that is going to Cigna's CEO, it might also be a good thing to forward to congress to ensure that whatever bill they pass would help solve Dawn's issues. It is unacceptable that we allow these companies to put our health in jeopardy in exchange for shareholder profits.

I'm back!!

2009-09-24T17:12:00.000-04:00

I'm back from a short hiatus due to vacation and work picking up, sorry to everyone who has been looking for updated posts. I am still fairly pessimistic about the tone of the healthcare debate and the misconceptions of the program, and have resigned myself (for now) to just letting the debate run it's course before getting myself too worked up about it. What I am really thinking about now is the nature of work, which is the subject of a in depth posting I plan on making in the coming months. I am approaching the post as if it's a research project, something I hope will change some minds.

As for this post, I was sitting in a meeting and of all topics the EFCA (employee free choice act) came up. Being a corporate employee who is fairly well taken care of, we don't hear much about unions and the company's "anti-union" policy - but this was indeed not the case yesterday during this meeting. I'm not going to get into the debate about EFCA here, because I think there are definitely some positives and negatives to the legislation that are worked out before it's passed. What I want to talk about is the nature of companies and how we would be potentially better off without Wall Street.

An example was brought up about pharmaceutical manufacturers and their practice of increasing the prices of their branded drugs on a fairly regular cycle. This has to be done largely because companies like Pfizer have products that go generic and with too few new drugs in the pipeline they have to sell their existing products for more just to maintain previous levels of profit. So bottom line here, the people who buy pharmaceuticals end up paying more so that stockholders of Pfizer can make money. They may not even make money, they may just maintain the status quo - but nonetheless consumers pay more. Companies also pay dividends to investors to give investors value, all out of money that could go to hiring employees, offering wages, and more. It seems frustrating to me on the surface, and it looks like something I am going to do some digging in on...just wanted to keep everyone posted on what I was thinking ;)

More (regular) posts to come!

Rest in peace Senator Ted Kennedy

2009-08-26T14:57:00.000-04:00

Just wanted to send my condolences out to the family, and express the great admiration I have for him. The country will be worse off not having him in the Senate fighting for us all. I hope that our Congress members work towards a health care reform in Teddy's memory, for it was his life's work that he never was able to see to fruition.

State of Politics

2009-08-20T09:12:00.004-04:00

I have found myself as of late being fairly distraught with the entire debate encircling health care reform. While being intimately involved in politics for the past 12 years (I'm only 28), this is the first time I feel like I am truly loosing faith in the system. While there have been instances in the past where certain members of congress or even the President (i.e. Bush) have given the impression that they are operating for corporate interests over the interests of the people, I have never felt that the majority of the government cared more for corporate interests and/or profit over the well being of the people. Call me naive, maybe I saw the world through rose-colored glasses, but these glasses have been beginning to cloud over as of late.

I (for reasons previously mentioned in this blog) have a personal stake in this debate and I would have greatly preferred a single payer system to be proposed by congress. I accepted the compromise, the went along with the so called "public option", believing the President when he said it would increase competition and keep the insurance companies honest. But now, the public option seems to be in the very least in deep trouble and there is now talk of co-ops - which are widely considered to not be an effective solution.

I recommend reading the "So What’s a Health Insurance Co-op, Anyway?" article by Anne Underwood of the New York Times @ http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/17/so-whats-a-health-insurance-coop-anyway/?hpw
She gives a great overview of what exactly a co-op is, an why in her opinion they won't be effective in lowering costs.

In the end, I am really upset with the special interests and how they are spinning the debate and putting out utter false statements. I am also disappointed in the American people that blindly take these falsehoods and accept them as fact. The protesters in the town halls across the country over the last couple weeks are a prime example of this. I applaud Barney Frank for his handling of the protester who compared the "Obama's Health care plan" to a Nazi policy. I don't even know where to begin with this, and I think Rep. Frank had it right when he asked her, "On what planet do you spend most of your time?"

The Federal Reserve

2009-07-31T14:58:00.004-04:00

I read "The Creature from Jekyll Island" by G. Edward Griffin, and it has me thinking not only about the precarious means by which the Federal Reserve was put together, but also about the relation between the Federal Reserve and the current recession.

The first fact that everyone has to realize (but I would assume 80% of the population doesn't know) is that the Federal Reserve is not a governmental entity, it is a group of banks. While these banks are "American" companies, the controlling interest in these banks however may not be. While the chairman of the Fed is appointed by the president, in many cases the list of available people to take the helm is so narrow and limited that the president has very little choice except to choose one of those who the banking institutions put forward for the job.

My thoughts then naturally gravitated to "Federal Reserve Notes" which are obviously the currency that we use daily, otherwise known as the U.S. Dollar. Our paper money system is run by the Federal Reserve, they even reimburse the Treasury Department for the cost of printing. Most know that banks "leverage" our deposits typically around twelve-fold, which means that if I deposit $1,000 into my local Chase bank account, they can loan out $12,000 on these solid assets. Griffin brings up a scary proposal in his book where we follow a sensationalized typical government transaction. The treasury department needs more money in order to pay for it's expenditures (Payroll, payments to contracting corps (Lockheed, Raytheon, etc)) so it goes to the Federal Reserve to borrow the money. The Federal Reserve lends the money to the government (with interest) and the government uses the money to pay Joe the local Postal worker his $1,000 salary. Joe goes to Chase and deposits his $1,000, and now Chase has $12,000 that it can lend out. The cycle begins again when the government needs more money, and with Chase being part of the Federal Reserve Network part of the new amount that the government is borrowing from the Fed is hypothetically Chase's leveraged $12,000 from Joe's $1,000 deposit, which is lent to the government to pay Joe his next $1,000. Imagine if other businesses operated in this manner, it seems like the biggest of all Ponzi schemes to me.

There is much more I plan on writing about this in the weeks to come - just something to get off my chest before the weekend comes!

Insurance Companies

2009-07-28T08:47:00.004-04:00

We all know that the insurance lobby is a major force behind the resistance of the blue dog democrats and republicans joining the call for true health care reform. I ask myself more and more why do we even have insurance companies, and if we didn't have them what would be the effect on the American people. First here is a list of the top 14 insurance companies as ranked in terms of revenue by Forbes:

Rank	Company	Fortune 1000 rank	Revenue$ millions	% change from 2007	Profit $ millions	% change from 2007
1	UnitedHealth Group	21	81,186.0	7.6	2,977.0	-36.0
2	WellPoint	32	61,251.1	0.2	2,490.7	-25.5
3	Aetna	77	30,950.7	12.1	1,384.1	-24.4
4	Humana	85	28,946.4	14.5	647.2	-22.4
5	Cigna	132	19,101.0	8.4	292.0	-73.8
6	Health Net	165	15,366.6	8.9	95.0	-51.0
7	Coventry Health Care	226	11,913.6	20.6	381.9	-39.0
8	WellCare Health Plans	381	6,521.9	21.0	-36.8	-117.0
9	Universal American	494	4,659.2	53.5	95.1	13.1
10	Amerigroup	509	4,516.0	14.5	-50.7	-143.5
11	Centene	609	3,515.2	20.1	83.5	13.8

12	Molina Healthcare	673	3,112.4	24.9	62.4	7.0
13	Medical Mutual of Ohio	806	2,387.1	2.2	73.5	-18.1
14	HealthSpring	849	2,188.3	39.0	119.0	37.6

Just these top 14 insurance companies bought in $275.6 billion in revenue and about $8.6 billion in profit. This means that with the current US population of 307,025,874 we paid these insurance companies $900 each and they made $28 from every person in the country. If you factor in the uninsured into the equation, each family of four was responsible for $4,240 that went directly to the insurance companies not including that which might have been paid by American families in the form of co-payments and general out of pocket expenses. United Health just reported increased profits of $859 million for last quarter which puts them on pace for making $3.44 billion in profit this year....

While insurance may offer a beneficial role in the health care system (still unproven in my opinion), would it not be better to have these companies operate as non-profits?? Do what you need to in order to employee people and run the company efficiently, but do not raise premiums on families just to suit your investors on Wall St. The public option is drastically needed, but with money like this fighting against it we can see who our congressmen/women really work for....

A thought on home sales..

2009-07-27T14:42:00.002-04:00

Disclosure: I currently own a condo that I am trying to sell, therefore I am biased when it comes to this topic.

I am reading the news this morning and come across the top financial news story of the day, "New Home Sales Surge 11 percent in June." (link below) While this is great news for the country and speaks towards the beginning of a recovery, it begs the question - why are new homes being focused on? Granted, there are a gluttony of jobs that are created via home building (sales, architecture, construction, customer service, etc) but wasn't the shear amount of homes on the market and the techniques used by sellers/lenders what got us into the housing crisis to begin with? These builders were raking in profits throughout the middle part of the decade, and now they are cutting their prices which will put Americans who paid to much for their homes to have to wait even longer for prices to recover.

The first time home-buyer tax credit of $8,000 was a good start, but obviously could have been extended to current homeowners looking to upsize. But extending these credits in this manner, people who bought more home than they could afford would have a larger base of potential buyers to help them out. As well, those of us that are likely to loose money on the sale of our existing home would have the confidence that the tax credit would end up making up for most of our losses. Better yet, losses on existing home sales could be tax deductible.

The overall point I am trying to make here is the continued focus to help businesses and hurt the people. A lot of these home builders are responsible for the number of houses on the market and the subsequent crash, they should be almost encouraged into bankruptcy for their part in this mess. The true recovery will come when existing home sales start to truly increase, but I fear our legislators aren't doing all they could be to expedite this process.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/27/AR2009072700967.html?hpid=topnews

Heathcare - Continued

2009-07-21T19:39:00.003-04:00

While I never intended for my first two posts to be directed towards the healthcare debate, it is such a hot topic everywhere I go that the need for further discussion persists. At issue today are the so-called "Blue-Dog Democrats". First I think we need to take a look at the Democratic party platform as published in mid 2008, during the final months of the presidental campaign. Have a look if you'd like, the link is: http://www.democrats.org/a/party/platform.html

"Families and individuals should have the option of keeping the coverage they have or choosing from a wide array of health insurance plans, including many private health insurance options and a public plan. Coverage should be made afforadable for all Americans with subsidies provided through tax credits and other means."

The "public-option" that is of such debate as of late is right there in the Democratic party platform, the same platform that these Blue Dog Democrats won election/reelection on. Just who are these Congress members who we are talking about? Here is the list:

Blue Dog Leadership Team

Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (SD), Blue Dog Co-Chair for Administration
Rep. Baron Hill (IN-09), Blue Dog Co-Chair for Policy
Rep. Charlie Melancon (LA-03), Blue Dog Co-Chair for Communications
Rep. Heath Shuler (NC-11), Blue Dog Whip

Blue Dog Members

Altmire, Jason (PA-04)
Arcuri, Mike (NY-24)
Baca, Joe (CA-43)
Barrow, John (GA-12)
Berry, Marion (AR-01)
Bishop, Sanford (GA-02)
Boren, Dan (OK-02)
Boswell, Leonard (IA-03)
Boyd, Allen (FL-02)
Bright, Bobby (AL-02)
Cardoza, Dennis (CA-18)
Carney, Christopher (PA-10)
Chandler, Ben (KY-06)
Childers, Travis (MS-01)
Cooper, Jim (TN-05)
Costa, Jim (CA-20)
Cuellar, Henry (TX-28)
Dahlkemper, Kathy (PA-03)
Davis, Lincoln (TN-04)
Donnelly, Joe (IN-02)
Ellsworth, Brad (IN-08)
Giffords, Gabrielle (AZ-08)
Gordon, Bart (TN-06)
Griffith, Parker (AL-05)
Harman, Jane (CA-36)
Herseth Sandlin, Stephanie (SD)
Hill, Baron (IN-09)
Holden, Tim (PA-17)
Kratovil, Jr., Frank (MD-01)
McIntyre, Mike (NC-07)
Marshall, Jim (GA-03)
Matheson, Jim (UT-02)
Melancon, Charlie (LA-03)
Michaud, Mike (ME-02)
Minnick, Walt (ID-01)
Mitchell, Harry (AZ-05)
Moore, Dennis (KS-03)
Murphy, Patrick (PA-08)
Nye, Glenn (VA-02)
Peterson, Collin (MN-07)
Pomeroy, Earl (ND)
Ross, Mike (AR-04)
Salazar, John (CO-03)
Sanchez, Loretta (CA-47)
Schiff, Adam (CA-29)
Scott, David (GA-13)
Shuler, Heath (NC-11)
Space, Zack (OH-18)
Tanner, John (TN-08)
Taylor, Gene (MS-04)
Thompson, Mike (CA-01)
Wilson, Charles (OH-06)

I recommend looking through the list and if your representative is listed let them know how important this issue is to you and how it impacts your family - also maybe mention the fact that you voted for them because of their "supposed" stance on the public option. You can contact the Capital switchboard toll free at 800-965-4701.

Health Care debate

2009-07-19T09:28:00.000-04:00

We are hearing a lot about the health care debate all over the media, and there is a lot of pessimism out there. We need to step outside of the fray and look at what is really important in this debate, the people (us!). My family has had its share of strife due to the health care issue, namely when my father had a heart attack 9 years ago. My mother had "good" insurance through the State of Ohio and it didn't matter - little more than two years later they had to declare bankruptcy. The bankruptcy process cost them the only house they ever bought, the house I grew up in - so much for the so-called American Dream. Now years later, they are living in a rental house and still struggling to make ends meet with more bills due to my father's continuing health difficulties.

What I look for as a solution in Obama's health care proposal is a promise that other families will not have to lose their home and/or life's savings just because even with insurance coverage you are never fully insured. The Republicans are completely missing this with their plan that would offer tax credits for families to purchase insurance. The seems to be against everything they've been talking about as of late when it comes to the bailout, this would merely be a huge government sponsored payout to the insurance companies. As well, what would keep costs low in this plan? It would be nice to see a plan that actually benefits the people instead of big business.

I don't have all the answers for this, but here are just some suggestions for ways to truly fix the system - especially since the fear mongers have gotten single payer removed from the table:

1.) A true public option - What we've been talking about, a Medicare-type system that leverages its size to negotiate the lowest prices possible.

2.) R&D - We spend billions on R&D for defense projects, why can't we do the same when it comes to pharmaceuticals? Even if we had a government agency that made generic pharmaceuticals and removed the profit from the health care system it would be an improvement.

3.) Make hospitals non-profits - The large hospital systems are big business in a lot of communities, which causes unnecessary tests and procedures and ever raising costs.

Those are the basics in my opinion, but only one of the three is ever even discussed. We need to make a decide as a society if health care is a fundamental right, if so we need to act accordingly.

Why a more perfect union?

2009-07-19T09:23:00.000-04:00

The objective that I have with starting this blog is to have a (somewhat) coherent log of my thoughts/ideas/suggestions on current events and ways to make the world a better place. My educational background is both political and philosophical, so you can expect a bit of both in my postings.