How can we take it back?
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Skarekrow
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The Crippling Fear of Medical Poverty
This isn’t my bill, but it’s close.
I wrote this as a personal blog entry in 2012.
I’m republishing it today because it’s obviously still relevant.
This isn’t my bill, but it’s close.
I wrote this as a personal blog entry in 2012.
I’m republishing it today because it’s obviously still relevant.
Here are some facts:
- Appendicitis can happen at any time to anyone and is incredibly deadly if untreated.
- It’s the most common cause for emergency abdominal surgery in America.
- The median cost for an appendectomy in the state of California is $33,611.
- The minimum wage in California in 2011 was $8.00 an hour. Working full-time at minimum wage, you’d earn $16,640 a year.
- If you were uninsured and struck by appendicitis, chances are you would not be able to afford your surgery even working two full-time minimum wage jobs in a year.
If you grew up moderately well off and have sunk into a relatively stable career post-college, it’s hard to understand what it’s actually like to be poor.
The media obfuscate the experience for most Americans by racializing it (most poor Americans are white, not black), isolating it (most poor Americans live in rural or suburban areas, not cities), and minimizing it (1 in 5 American children are poor).
Much of my own research grapples with urban poverty, which I often have to stress is only a small slice of the American landscape.
But I know this image of poverty resonates most strongly with what most people think of when they think about the American poor.
This is one of the reasons why so many poor Americans will never say they are poor.
They look at these portrayals of urban black poverty and say, “Well, that’s not me, so I guess I’m not poor after all.”
Growing up, my mom was like that.
My mom spent most of her working life as a waitress.
A single mother, she took great pride in being able to say, “I work. I put food on the table. We don’t need help.”
So she never sought out welfare. But we were incredibly fortunate to be poor enough to qualify for Pennsylvania Medical Assistance (Medicaid).
It saved us from medical poverty.
When I was 14, I was diagnosed with Anorexia Nervosa.
I spent a month in a residential hospital in Philadelphia (one of the only facilities in the state that could treat me at the time), which cost over $2,000 a night or a whopping total of $60,000 for the month of mandatory treatment.
When I was 15, I required an emergency gallbladder removal which I remember would have cost us $17,000.
The week of my high school graduation, my appendix ruptured, costing another $20,000.
All told, within five years, my teenage medical expenses would have cost my family over $100,000 — or the entirety of what my mother earned for 10 years.
Working in food service, my mother never earned more than $15,000 a year.
There’s no way on earth we could have paid for those bills.
No way.
But man, in college, I was fucking terrified.
All the time. I became a member of uninsured America living off a student stipend of $3,000 a year.
Knowing how much a trip to the emergency room “just to make sure” costs, how much a basic procedure costs, I could never explain to my ex-boyfriend at the time how lucky he was to get to see a doctor whenever he wanted or needed — and likely the best doctors his parents could find in the state of New York.
He never quite understood the panic I felt at every malady.
Why I didn’t participate in the sports I had loved in high school for fear of blowing out my knee or my elbow.
Why my ongoing fits with abdominal and neck pain weighed over my head like a black cloud.
How I could go so long without seeing a dentist.
Even why I couldn’t afford birth control pills.
And yes, I would later learn I suffered from conditions I had to let go completely untreated for four years.
Almost no one at Wesleyan understood what it was like to be uninsured.
A lot of freshmen get taken to the hospital to get their stomach pumped after their first bout of alcoholic excess.
Not me.
I knew what the $500 ambulance ride down the street would have meant.
Now as a graduate student at Harvard, I have amazing health insurance.
Amazing.
I am so incredibly fortunate to have access to world-class doctors at very little cost.
I love going to my yearly physicals and eye exams and dental checkups because I know how much of a privilege they are.
I make sure my bloodtests, cholesterol and weight are perfectly in line with every medical standard.
I floss.
And every month, when I pick up my prescriptions, I am relieved to know I pay a $62 co-pay for drugs that would cost me without insurance over $500 a month.
Now, I still live in fear of medical poverty.
Since Borders went bankrupt, my mother has struggled to find a new job, despite applying for over 100 of them.
She is right now among the 50 million uninsured Americans, just an appendectomy away from medical poverty.
Every murmur of chest pain fills me with dread.
She’s 6 years away from Medicare eligibility.
The costs of insuring a woman her age, with her conditions would guarantee medical poverty.
The incredibly high costs of health insurance versus the incredibly high costs of medicine.
There is no choice but to risk.
Medical poverty is a uniquely American problem.
There are a host of reasons why healthcare costs are so high, but that’s besides the point.
The point is that for 50 million Americans, there is no choice but risk your health and often your life.
You can’t do otherwise.
There is no other choice.
___________________________________________________________________________________________
Skarekrow - For all the BS we are hearing about how no one has “Choice”...and if we just had “choice” everything would be hunky dory.
I’m sorry, but you still have NO CHOICE if the healthcare is still unaffordable.
The CBO estimates that it will make our healthcare incredibly more expensive than it already is currently.
How does that expand choice when you can’t afford the basics?
How does someone have CHOICE if they can’t afford the choices?
This bill hurts the elderly, the disabled, the poor, including children...all while giving huge tax breaks to the richest.
Such garbage and lies.
“We’re going to have insurance for everybody” - D. Trump
“I firmly believe that nobody will be worse off financially in the process that we’re going through.” - HHS Tom Price.
“I’m not going to cut social security like every other Republican and I’m not going to cut Medicare or Medicaid.” - D. Trump
LIES.
Skarekrow
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What Trump’s Medicaid Plan Would Mean for People with Disabilities
By Aki Suzuki, Michael Richardson, and Jeremy Slevin Posted on March 8, 2017, 9:01 am
By Aki Suzuki, Michael Richardson, and Jeremy Slevin Posted on March 8, 2017, 9:01 am
During his campaign for president, Donald Trump openly mocked people with disabilities.
Now, he and his allies in Congress are threatening to slash Medicaid—a program on which 15 million people with disabilities rely for basic living standards.
It’s time to tell President Trump and Congress: hands off Medicaid.
Elizabeth Warren shared Center for American Progress's video.
33 mins ·
About 1 in 5 Americans have a disability.
Because of Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, people like Shane, Caroline, and Andréa are able to get access to care and services so they can be active in their communities.
But the American Health Care Act – the reckless plan from President Trump and Speaker Ryan – would slash Medicaid by $880 billion and take coverage away from 24 million people, putting their lives and health at risk.
We cannot let that happen, and I will keep fighting my heart out to make sure it doesn’t.
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RELEASE:
House GOP Tax Plan Will Primarily
Benefit Corporations and the Wealthy, New CAP Report Says
House GOP Tax Plan Will Primarily
Benefit Corporations and the Wealthy, New CAP Report Says
- Date: March 14, 2017
- Contact: Allison Preiss
- Email: apreiss@americanprogress.org
The CAP report also casts significant doubt on proponents’ claims that the tax plan, known as the House blueprint, would create significant incentives for increased real investment in the United States; deliver an improved trade balance or eliminate corporate tax avoidance schemes; and could have adverse effects on the real incomes of many American households.
The House plan would effectively repeal the corporate income tax, change the income tax treatment of pass-through businesses, and eliminate taxes on foreign business earnings—all of which would cut business tax rates substantially—while substituting a cash flow tax with a much lower tax rate than the current corporate income tax.
Such a plan would cost more than $1.3 trillion over 10 years, according to analysis by the Tax Policy Center.
“The House destination-based cash flow tax is far more complicated than claimed and could result in new types of tax avoidance. More importantly, it’s a distraction from the fact that the blueprint would provide enormous tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy that are likely to be paid for by working Americans,” said Alexandra Thornton, Senior Director of Tax Policy at CAP and co-author of the report.
“The claims of increased real investment should be viewed with great skepticism,” said Marc Jarsulic, Vice President of Economic Policy at CAP and co-author of the report. “The evidence shows that corporations are unlikely to respond to this massive giveaway with significant new investment in the United States.”
CAP’s report notes that corporate profits currently make up a large share of national income, the corporate share of total tax receipts has declined to one-third of what it was decades ago, and income inequality is very high.
However, the significant cost of these tax cuts would either increase the debt, be shifted to low- and middle-income taxpayers, or lead to deep cuts in programs that are important both to maintaining a robust economy for businesses and communities and for ensuring fundamental human living standards.
Any large tax cut for corporations and big pass-through businesses, such as private equity funds—whether accomplished through the existing income tax or through replacing the income tax with a cash flow tax—would have negative implications for the overall progressivity of the tax code.
While further analysis of the House tax plan—and specifically the corporate tax proposal—is warranted, CAP’s report calls for Congress to focus on ensuring that corporations and large businesses of all kinds pay their fair share of taxes.
This would help to fund infrastructure, the legal system, the education system, and many other critical services that the government provides to support a vibrant economy, good jobs, and basic human living standards for all.
Click here to read “The House Republicans’ Corporate Tax Cut” by Alexandra Thornton and Marc Jarsulic.
For more information or to speak with an expert, contact Allison Preiss at apreiss@americanprogress.org or 202.478.6331.
ImaginaryBloke
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This might be a good thing. It shows that they are not in control of the situation and are feeling desperate. Just a thought.
ImaginaryBloke
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Monsanto Colluded With EPA, Was Unable To Prove Roundup Does Not Cause Cancer, Unsealed Court Docs Reveal
by Tyler Durden
Mar 14, 2017 8:35 PM
If we had a dime for every kooky, left-wing theory we've heard alleging some vast corporate conspiracy to exploit the treasures of the earth, destroy the environment and poison people with unknown carcinogens all while buying off politicians to cover their tracks, we would be rich. The problem, of course, is that sometimes the kooky conspiracy theories prove to be completely accurate.
Lets take the case of the $60 billion ag-chemicals powerhouse, Monsanto, and their controversial herbicide, Roundup as an example. For those who aren't familiar, Roundup Ready is Monsanto’s blockbuster weedkiller, credited with transforming U.S. agriculture, with a majority of farm production now using genetically modified seeds resistant to the chemical.
For years the company has assured farmers that their weed killing product was absolutely safe to use. As proof, Monsanto touted the approval of the chemical by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
That said, newly unsealed court documents released earlier today seemingly reveal a startling effort on the part of both Monsanto and the EPA to work in concert to kill and/or discredit independent, albeit inconvenient, cancer research conducted by the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC)....more on this later.
[...]
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-...-kill-cancer-study-admits-cant-say-roundup-do
So, Monsanto and EPA are colluding. That is not a surprise. There is the phenomenon called the "revolving doors" which says that employees go from working in politics to working in companies and other places. It is the same people, just different roles.
by Tyler Durden
Mar 14, 2017 8:35 PM
If we had a dime for every kooky, left-wing theory we've heard alleging some vast corporate conspiracy to exploit the treasures of the earth, destroy the environment and poison people with unknown carcinogens all while buying off politicians to cover their tracks, we would be rich. The problem, of course, is that sometimes the kooky conspiracy theories prove to be completely accurate.
Lets take the case of the $60 billion ag-chemicals powerhouse, Monsanto, and their controversial herbicide, Roundup as an example. For those who aren't familiar, Roundup Ready is Monsanto’s blockbuster weedkiller, credited with transforming U.S. agriculture, with a majority of farm production now using genetically modified seeds resistant to the chemical.
For years the company has assured farmers that their weed killing product was absolutely safe to use. As proof, Monsanto touted the approval of the chemical by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
That said, newly unsealed court documents released earlier today seemingly reveal a startling effort on the part of both Monsanto and the EPA to work in concert to kill and/or discredit independent, albeit inconvenient, cancer research conducted by the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC)....more on this later.
[...]
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-...-kill-cancer-study-admits-cant-say-roundup-do
So, Monsanto and EPA are colluding. That is not a surprise. There is the phenomenon called the "revolving doors" which says that employees go from working in politics to working in companies and other places. It is the same people, just different roles.
Skarekrow
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The thread I started that no one has even responded to “The Lack of Affordable Healthcare in the US” explains it all in much detail.
It’s not a “healthcare” plan so much as it’s a tax break for the rich at the expense of the poor, elderly, and disabled. - https://www.infjs.com/threads/the-lack-of-affordable-healthcare-in-the-us.33357/
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Austerity Kills... And Then Some
by Tyler Durden
Mar 16, 2017 3:30 AM
Authored by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog,
Yes, austerity really kills real people, and it kills the societies they live in. Let’s try and explain this in simple terms. It’s a simple topic after all. Austerity is a mere left-over from faith-based policies derived from shoddy economics, and economics is a shoddy field to begin with. The austerity imposed on and in several countries and their economies after 2008, and the consequences it has had in these economies, cannot fail to make you wonder what level of intelligence the politicians have who did the imposing, as well as the economists who advised them in the process.
We should certainly not forget that the people who make these decisions are never the ones affected by them. Austerity hurts the poor. For those who are living comfortably -which includes politicians and economists that “matter”-, austerity at worst means eating and living somewhat less luxuriously. For the poor, taken far enough, it will mean not eating at all, not being able to afford clothing, medical care, even housing. Doing without 10% of very little hits much harder than missing out on 10% of an abundance.
And even then there are differences, for instance between countries. The damage done to British housing, education and health care by successive headless chicken governments is very real, and it will require a huge effort to restore these systems, if that is possible at all. Still, if the British have any complaints about the austerity unleashed upon them, they should really take a look at Greece. As this graph of households having a hard time making ends meet makes painfully clear:
Britain ‘only’ suffers from economically illiterate politicians and economists. Greece, on top of that, has to cope with a currency it has no control over, and with the foreign -dare we say ‘occupying’?- powers that do. A currency that is geared exclusively to the benefit of the richer Eurozone nations. The biggest mistake in building the EU, and the Eurozone in particular, is that the possibility has been left open for the larger and richer nations to reign over the smaller and poorer almost limitlessly. These things only become clear when things get worse, but then they really do.
This ‘biggest mistake’ predicted the end of the ‘union’ from the very moment it was established; all it will take is time, and comprehension. Eurozone rules say a country’s public debt cannot exceed 60% and its deficit must remain less than 3%. Rules that have been broken left right and center, including by the rich, Germany, France, who were never punished for doing so. The poor are.
These limits are completely arbitrary. They come from the text books of the same clueless cabal of economists that the entire Euro façade is based on. The same cabal also who now demand a 3.5% Greek budget surplus into infinity, the worst thing that can happen to an already impoverished economy, because it means even more money must flow out of an entity that already has none.
But let’s narrow our focus to austerity itself, and what makes it such a disaster. And then after that, we’ll take it a step further. We can blame economists for this mess, and hapless politicians, but that’s not the whole story; in the end they’re just messenger boys and girls. First though, here’s what austerity does. Let’s start with Ed Harrison talking about some revealing data that Matt Klein posted on FT Alphaville about comparing post-2008 Greece to emerging economies:
Europe’s Delusional Economic Policies
Here’s how Matt put it: “Greece had a very different post-crisis experience: it never recovered. By contrast, all the other countries were well past their pre-crisis peak after this much time had elapsed. On average, Argentina, Brazil, Indonesia, Thailand, and Turkey have outperformed Greece by more than 40 percentage points after nine years.”
“.. unlike those countries, Greece lacked the ability to use the exchange rate as a shock absorber. So while Brazil and Greece faced the same type of downturn in dollar terms – about 45% in GDP per person – Brazilian living standards only deteriorated about 2%, compared to 26% in Greece. The net effect is that Greece had a relatively typical crisis in dollars but an unprecedently painful one in the terms that matter most”.
[..] Greece doesn’t have its own currency so the currency can’t depreciate. Greece must use the internal devaluation route, which makes its labor, goods and services cheaper through a deflationary path – and that is very destructive to demand, to growth, and to credit.
[..] it’s not about reforms, people. It’s about growth. And the euro – and the policies tied to membership – is anti-growth, particularly for a country like Greece that is forced to hit an unrealistic 3.5% primary surplus indefinitely.
[...]
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-03-15/austerity-kills-and-then-some
I do not care much for the survival of the Euro. It is a GM dinosaur just waiting to go extinct.
by Tyler Durden
Mar 16, 2017 3:30 AM
Authored by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog,
Yes, austerity really kills real people, and it kills the societies they live in. Let’s try and explain this in simple terms. It’s a simple topic after all. Austerity is a mere left-over from faith-based policies derived from shoddy economics, and economics is a shoddy field to begin with. The austerity imposed on and in several countries and their economies after 2008, and the consequences it has had in these economies, cannot fail to make you wonder what level of intelligence the politicians have who did the imposing, as well as the economists who advised them in the process.
We should certainly not forget that the people who make these decisions are never the ones affected by them. Austerity hurts the poor. For those who are living comfortably -which includes politicians and economists that “matter”-, austerity at worst means eating and living somewhat less luxuriously. For the poor, taken far enough, it will mean not eating at all, not being able to afford clothing, medical care, even housing. Doing without 10% of very little hits much harder than missing out on 10% of an abundance.
And even then there are differences, for instance between countries. The damage done to British housing, education and health care by successive headless chicken governments is very real, and it will require a huge effort to restore these systems, if that is possible at all. Still, if the British have any complaints about the austerity unleashed upon them, they should really take a look at Greece. As this graph of households having a hard time making ends meet makes painfully clear:
Britain ‘only’ suffers from economically illiterate politicians and economists. Greece, on top of that, has to cope with a currency it has no control over, and with the foreign -dare we say ‘occupying’?- powers that do. A currency that is geared exclusively to the benefit of the richer Eurozone nations. The biggest mistake in building the EU, and the Eurozone in particular, is that the possibility has been left open for the larger and richer nations to reign over the smaller and poorer almost limitlessly. These things only become clear when things get worse, but then they really do.
This ‘biggest mistake’ predicted the end of the ‘union’ from the very moment it was established; all it will take is time, and comprehension. Eurozone rules say a country’s public debt cannot exceed 60% and its deficit must remain less than 3%. Rules that have been broken left right and center, including by the rich, Germany, France, who were never punished for doing so. The poor are.
These limits are completely arbitrary. They come from the text books of the same clueless cabal of economists that the entire Euro façade is based on. The same cabal also who now demand a 3.5% Greek budget surplus into infinity, the worst thing that can happen to an already impoverished economy, because it means even more money must flow out of an entity that already has none.
But let’s narrow our focus to austerity itself, and what makes it such a disaster. And then after that, we’ll take it a step further. We can blame economists for this mess, and hapless politicians, but that’s not the whole story; in the end they’re just messenger boys and girls. First though, here’s what austerity does. Let’s start with Ed Harrison talking about some revealing data that Matt Klein posted on FT Alphaville about comparing post-2008 Greece to emerging economies:
Europe’s Delusional Economic Policies
Here’s how Matt put it: “Greece had a very different post-crisis experience: it never recovered. By contrast, all the other countries were well past their pre-crisis peak after this much time had elapsed. On average, Argentina, Brazil, Indonesia, Thailand, and Turkey have outperformed Greece by more than 40 percentage points after nine years.”
“.. unlike those countries, Greece lacked the ability to use the exchange rate as a shock absorber. So while Brazil and Greece faced the same type of downturn in dollar terms – about 45% in GDP per person – Brazilian living standards only deteriorated about 2%, compared to 26% in Greece. The net effect is that Greece had a relatively typical crisis in dollars but an unprecedently painful one in the terms that matter most”.
[..] Greece doesn’t have its own currency so the currency can’t depreciate. Greece must use the internal devaluation route, which makes its labor, goods and services cheaper through a deflationary path – and that is very destructive to demand, to growth, and to credit.
[..] it’s not about reforms, people. It’s about growth. And the euro – and the policies tied to membership – is anti-growth, particularly for a country like Greece that is forced to hit an unrealistic 3.5% primary surplus indefinitely.
[...]
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-03-15/austerity-kills-and-then-some
I do not care much for the survival of the Euro. It is a GM dinosaur just waiting to go extinct.
Skarekrow
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"After years of falsely claiming Barack Obama was always out golfing or on vacation, Republicans remain silent as Donald Trump is on pace to cost taxpayers more money on 'extracurricular expenses' in 120 days than we spent during Obama’s entire 2,920 days as president."
Skarekrow
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The United States already has the largest defense budget in the world by far.
In fact, it’s larger than the next 12 nations combined.
And yet Trump is asking for more.
We should be investing in our people, working toward eradicating child poverty, providing health care to all Americans and fixing our crumbling infrastructure—not spending even more on the military industrial complex.
In fact, it’s larger than the next 12 nations combined.
And yet Trump is asking for more.
We should be investing in our people, working toward eradicating child poverty, providing health care to all Americans and fixing our crumbling infrastructure—not spending even more on the military industrial complex.
Skarekrow
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U.S. Senator Al Franken — US Senator for Minnesota
March 16 at 12:28pm ·
Even. Worse. Than. Expected.
That’s how I would describe President Trump’s just-released budget proposal, which, if passed by Congress as is, would hack away at or even eliminate dozens of important investments that support struggling Minnesota families—including in Greater Minnesota towns and communities.
This reckless spending plan squeezes the middle class and drastically cuts areas like affordable housing, education, and infrastructure.
It ends a key program that helps low-income families and seniors stay warm in the winter, guts job training opportunities, and drains funding from Meals on Wheels, which helps keep millions of our parents and grandparents from going hungry.
And that is just for starters.
It would make it harder for community banks to lend to homebuyers, abolish a critical water infrastructure program, and put a stop to arts and humanities funding.
Ok, let’s pause for a breath.
The budget would cut food assistance for women and children, roll back funding that’s used to invest in rural businesses, make us more ill-prepared to respond to natural disasters, drastically reduce support for teacher training and afterschool programs, and disinvest in science and health programs including those that perform cancer research.
This budget proposal would profoundly and deeply harm millions upon millions of American families, seniors, and children.
President Trump, this isn’t the way to govern and it’s not the way to write a budget.
Skarekrow
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Trump’s budget makes perfect sense and will fix America, and I will tell you why
Some people are complaining that the budget proffered by the Trump administration, despite its wonderful macho-sounding name, is too vague and makes all sorts of cuts to needed programs in favor of increasing military spending by leaps and bounds.
These people are wimps.
Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney has called it a “hard power budget” which is, I think, the name of an exercise program where you eat only what you can catch, pump up your guns and then punch the impoverished in the face.
This, conveniently, is also what the budget does.
This budget will make America a lean, mean fighting machine with bulging, rippling muscles and not an ounce of fat.
America has been weak and soft for too long.
BUT HOW WILL I SURVIVE ON THIS BUDGET? you may be wondering.
I AM A HUMAN CHILD, NOT A COSTLY FIGHTER JET.
You may not survive, but that is because you are SOFT and WEAK, something this budget is designed to eliminate.
What are we cutting?
The State Department, by 29 percent: Right now, all the State Department’s many qualified employees do is sit around being sad that they are never consulted about anything.
This is, frankly, depressing, and it is best to put them out of their misery.
Besides, they are only trained in Soft Diplomacy, like a woman would do, and NOBODY wants that.
Only HARD POWER now that we have a man in charge who thought the name Rex Tillerson was not manly enough and rechristened himself Wayne Tracker.
With the money we will save on these sad public servants, we will be able to buy lots of GUNS and F-35s and other cool things that go BOOM and POW and PEW PEW PEW.
Environmental Protection Agency: We absolutely do not need this.
Clean rivers and breathable air are making us SOFT and letting the Chinese and the Russians get the jump on us.
We must go back to the America that was great, when the air was full of coal and danger and the way you could tell if the air was breathable was by carrying a canary around with you at all times, perched on your leathery, coal-dust-covered finger.
Furthermore, we will cut funding to Superfund cleanup in the EPA because the only thing manlier than clean water is DIRTY water.
Agriculture Department: NO MORE OF THIS NAMBY-PAMBY “GATHERING” NONSENSE.
We will be HUNTERS again.
This is also why we are cutting the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children:
Let them FIGHT for their meat or have NONE.
Commerce Department: This will lose its funding to prepare people for coastal disasters, because in the future we will all be so strong that we can stare down the sea and make it recede by flexing our bulging muscles.
Labor Department: There will be no LABOR in the future.
Labor is what women do, I think.
All fetuses will burst out of wombs brandishing an Uzi on each arm.
(Also, we will cut the funding to the people who would have explained that this is not how birth or labor works.)
We are decreasing funding to the National Institutes of Health because in the future we will cure disease by punching it, or, if that fails, sending drones after it.
Also, we will buy more planes and guns to shoot airborne viruses out of the sky.
Affordable housing is a luxury and we are going to get rid of it.
Donald Trump does not live in affordable housing and neither should you.
We don’t need to fund historic sites.
Those parks have sassed the administration enough and they must get what is coming to them.
A few other things we are cutting:
- Chemical Safety Board: Give us CHEMICAL DANGER, which sounds way more metal.
- Corporation for Public Broadcasting: Instead, anyone who turns on the radio will be able to hear audio footage of a Trump son shooting a rare land mammal.
- National Endowment for the Arts: The NEA will be destroyed and replaced with an armored helicopter with a shark painted on it.
- National Endowment for the Humanities: The NEH will be replaced with half a fighter jet and a bunch of drones. This is the only art America needs.
- U.S. Institute of Peace: Wimpy.
- U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness: We will all live outdoors in the new Hard Power America and we will pump steel together and shout “GRRR” and there will be no mental illness because it is only in your mind.
- Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars: This is counterintuitive given Wilson’s track record of racism, which is no longer the handicap that it once was, but you must remember that he also tried to start the League of Nations, which was like the United Nations but more so.
I think?
Sounds right.
The education budget is also cut so I can’t tell if this logic makes sense.
All schoolchildren will be taught by an F-35 wearing a Make America Great Again hat.
They will also have new school choice options including the choice not to afford any school at all, because at school you are taught things like grammar and pronouns and spelling and history, and these are all potentially inimical to the future we are trying to build.
We will also be cutting Meals on Wheels, as well as after-school programs to feed children, because they are not improving performance as we would like.
Feed children just to feed them?
What are we, SOFT?
No.
No we are not.
AMERICA WILL BE STRONGER THAN IT HAS EVER BEEN!
Anyone who survives will be a gun covered in the fur of a rare mammal, capable of fighting disease with a single muscular flex.
RAW POWER!
HARD RAW POWER GRRRRRR HISSS POW!
It will be great.
ImaginaryBloke
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Caring for the Common Good Wins: Norway Ranks World's Happiest Country
Published on
Monday, March 20, 2017
Common Dreams
But in U.S., happiness is falling and Republican priorities stand to make it worse
Andrea Germanos, staff writer
A happy face is seen during Oslo, Norway's 2013 pride parade. (Photo: Tjook/flickr/cc)
Norway now holds the title of the world's happiest country, according to a new report that also outlines how Republican proposals to gut safety nets, enact tax windfalls for the rich, and attack public education—as well as bipartisan failures in terms of the global war on terror and campaign finance—are making happiness further out of grasp for those in the United States.
The finding comes via the fifth edition of the World Happiness Report, which ranks 155 countries on the variables of income, healthy life expectancy, having someone to count on, perceived freedom to make life choices, freedom from corruption, and generosity. It was produced by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), a United Nations initiative, and was released Monday, the International Day of Happiness.
Norway now holds the number one spot, booting Denmark from the ranking it held for three of the past four years. Norway came in at number four last year.
Joining Norway in the top ten slots are, in order, Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland, Finland, Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and Sweden. It's the same group that made up the top ten countries last year.
Like the other top four countries, Norway ranked high in caring, freedom, generosity, honesty, health, income, and good governance.
At the other end of the spectrum sit Rwanda, Syria, Tanzania, Burundi, and the Central Africa Republican, which rank lowest on the happiness index.
According to lead author John Helliwell, also an economist at the University of British Columbia in Canada, Norway is "a remarkable case in point."
"By choosing to produce oil deliberately and investing the proceeds for the benefit of future generations, Norway has protected itself from the volatile ups and downs of many other oil-rich economies. This emphasis on the future over the present is made easier by high levels of mutual trust, shared purpose, generosity, and good governance. All of these are found in Norway, as well as in the other top countries," Helliwell said.
As for the United States, it has slid down one spot from last year, coming in at number 14, and the country, the report says, is "a story of reduced happiness."
Study co-author, economist, and SDSN director Jeffrey Sachs writes (pdf) that the U.S. suffers not from an economic crisis but a "multi-faceted social crisis."
It is made clear, he writes, by "worsening public health indicators"; "plummeting" trust in government; and "astronomical" income inequality, with "the rise of mega-dollars in U.S. politics" and the "deterioration of America's educational system" helping to fuel "destruction of social capital."
Further abetting that destruction has been the country's reaction following the September 11 attacks, which, Sachs writes, "was to stoke fear rather than appeal to social solidarity" and begin "an open-ended global war on terror, appealing to the darkest side of human nature."
Though the country's "social crisis is widely noted, [...] it has not translated into public policy." Rather, he continues:
Almost all of the policy discourse in Washington, D.C. centers on naïve attempts to raise the economic growth rate, as if a higher growth rate would somehow heal the deepening divisions and angst in American society. This kind of growth-only agenda is doubly wrong-headed. First, most of the pseudo-elixirs for growth—especially the Republican Party's beloved nostrum of endless tax cuts and voodoo economics—will only exacerbate America's social inequalities and feed the distrust that is already tearing society apart. Second, a forthright attack on the real sources of social crisis would have a much larger and more rapid beneficial effect on U.S. happiness.
Addressing the crisis entails enacting campaign finance reform; reducing inequality by expanding the social safety net and funding of health and education; "improv[ing] the social relations between the native-born and immigrant populations"; moving beyond the post-9/11 fear campaign (which he writes, President Donald Trump's "Muslim bans" have been a manifestation of); and making a commitment to improved quality education for all.
"As demonstrated by many countries, this report gives evidence that happiness is a result of creating strong social foundations," Sachs said to the Associated Press. "It's time to build social trust and healthy lives, not guns or walls. Let's hold our leaders to this fact."
http://commondreams.org/news/2017/03/20/caring-common-good-wins-norway-ranks-worlds-happiest-country
Really nice of Jeffrey Sachs to say that. He is a double-headed snake. Naomi Klein in the Shock Doctrine tells the following:
Sachs was correct in predicting that price increases would end hyperinfla
tion. Within two years, inflation was down to 10 percent, impressive by any
standard. [21]
The broader legacy of Bolivia's neoliberal revolution is far more
contentious. All economists agree that rapid inflation is enormously damag
ing, unsustainable and must be controlled—a process that imposes significant
pain during the adjustment. The debate is over how a credible program can be
achieved, as well as who, in any given society, is forced to bear the brunt of that
pain. Ricardo Grinspun, a professor of economics specializing in Latin Amer
ica at York University, explains that an approach in the Keynesian or develop
mentalist tradition seeks to mobilize support and share the burden through "a
negotiated process involving key stakeholders—government, employers, farm
ers, unions and so on. In this way, the parties come to agreements over income
policies, like wages and prices, at the same time that stabilization measures are
implemented." In sharp contrast, says Grinspun, "the orthodox approach is to
shift all the social cost onto the poor through shock therapy." That, he told me,
is precisely what happened in Bolivia.
Just as Friedman had promised in Chile, freer trade was supposed to cre
ate jobs for the newly jobless. It didn't, and the unemployment rate increased
from 20 percent at the time of the elections to between 25 and 30 percent
two years later. [22] The state mining corporation alone—the same one that Paz
had nationalized in the 1950s—was downsized from twenty-eight thousand
employees to just six thousand. [23]
The minimum wage never recovered its value, and two years into the pro
gram, real wages were down 40 percent; at one point they would drop 70 per
cent. [24] In 1985, the year of shock therapy, the per capita average income in
Bolivia was $845; two years later it had fallen to $789. This is the measure
used by Sachs and the government, and despite the lack of progress it con
veys, it does not begin to capture the degradation of daily life for many Boli
vians. Average income is derived by adding up the country's total income
and dividing by the number of people in the country; it glosses over the fact
that shock therapy in Bolivia had the same effects that it had in the rest of the
region: a small elite grew far wealthier while large portions of what had been
the working class were discarded from the economy altogether and turned
into surplus people. In 1987, Bolivian peasants, known as campesinos, were
earning, on average, just $140 a year, less than one-fifth of the "average in
come." [25] That is the problem with measuring only the "average": it effec
tively erases these sharp divisions.
Published on
Monday, March 20, 2017
Common Dreams
But in U.S., happiness is falling and Republican priorities stand to make it worse
Andrea Germanos, staff writer
A happy face is seen during Oslo, Norway's 2013 pride parade. (Photo: Tjook/flickr/cc)
Norway now holds the title of the world's happiest country, according to a new report that also outlines how Republican proposals to gut safety nets, enact tax windfalls for the rich, and attack public education—as well as bipartisan failures in terms of the global war on terror and campaign finance—are making happiness further out of grasp for those in the United States.
The finding comes via the fifth edition of the World Happiness Report, which ranks 155 countries on the variables of income, healthy life expectancy, having someone to count on, perceived freedom to make life choices, freedom from corruption, and generosity. It was produced by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), a United Nations initiative, and was released Monday, the International Day of Happiness.
Norway now holds the number one spot, booting Denmark from the ranking it held for three of the past four years. Norway came in at number four last year.
Joining Norway in the top ten slots are, in order, Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland, Finland, Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and Sweden. It's the same group that made up the top ten countries last year.
Like the other top four countries, Norway ranked high in caring, freedom, generosity, honesty, health, income, and good governance.
At the other end of the spectrum sit Rwanda, Syria, Tanzania, Burundi, and the Central Africa Republican, which rank lowest on the happiness index.
According to lead author John Helliwell, also an economist at the University of British Columbia in Canada, Norway is "a remarkable case in point."
"By choosing to produce oil deliberately and investing the proceeds for the benefit of future generations, Norway has protected itself from the volatile ups and downs of many other oil-rich economies. This emphasis on the future over the present is made easier by high levels of mutual trust, shared purpose, generosity, and good governance. All of these are found in Norway, as well as in the other top countries," Helliwell said.
As for the United States, it has slid down one spot from last year, coming in at number 14, and the country, the report says, is "a story of reduced happiness."
Study co-author, economist, and SDSN director Jeffrey Sachs writes (pdf) that the U.S. suffers not from an economic crisis but a "multi-faceted social crisis."
It is made clear, he writes, by "worsening public health indicators"; "plummeting" trust in government; and "astronomical" income inequality, with "the rise of mega-dollars in U.S. politics" and the "deterioration of America's educational system" helping to fuel "destruction of social capital."
Further abetting that destruction has been the country's reaction following the September 11 attacks, which, Sachs writes, "was to stoke fear rather than appeal to social solidarity" and begin "an open-ended global war on terror, appealing to the darkest side of human nature."
Though the country's "social crisis is widely noted, [...] it has not translated into public policy." Rather, he continues:
Almost all of the policy discourse in Washington, D.C. centers on naïve attempts to raise the economic growth rate, as if a higher growth rate would somehow heal the deepening divisions and angst in American society. This kind of growth-only agenda is doubly wrong-headed. First, most of the pseudo-elixirs for growth—especially the Republican Party's beloved nostrum of endless tax cuts and voodoo economics—will only exacerbate America's social inequalities and feed the distrust that is already tearing society apart. Second, a forthright attack on the real sources of social crisis would have a much larger and more rapid beneficial effect on U.S. happiness.
Addressing the crisis entails enacting campaign finance reform; reducing inequality by expanding the social safety net and funding of health and education; "improv[ing] the social relations between the native-born and immigrant populations"; moving beyond the post-9/11 fear campaign (which he writes, President Donald Trump's "Muslim bans" have been a manifestation of); and making a commitment to improved quality education for all.
"As demonstrated by many countries, this report gives evidence that happiness is a result of creating strong social foundations," Sachs said to the Associated Press. "It's time to build social trust and healthy lives, not guns or walls. Let's hold our leaders to this fact."
http://commondreams.org/news/2017/03/20/caring-common-good-wins-norway-ranks-worlds-happiest-country
Really nice of Jeffrey Sachs to say that. He is a double-headed snake. Naomi Klein in the Shock Doctrine tells the following:
Sachs was correct in predicting that price increases would end hyperinfla
tion. Within two years, inflation was down to 10 percent, impressive by any
standard. [21]
The broader legacy of Bolivia's neoliberal revolution is far more
contentious. All economists agree that rapid inflation is enormously damag
ing, unsustainable and must be controlled—a process that imposes significant
pain during the adjustment. The debate is over how a credible program can be
achieved, as well as who, in any given society, is forced to bear the brunt of that
pain. Ricardo Grinspun, a professor of economics specializing in Latin Amer
ica at York University, explains that an approach in the Keynesian or develop
mentalist tradition seeks to mobilize support and share the burden through "a
negotiated process involving key stakeholders—government, employers, farm
ers, unions and so on. In this way, the parties come to agreements over income
policies, like wages and prices, at the same time that stabilization measures are
implemented." In sharp contrast, says Grinspun, "the orthodox approach is to
shift all the social cost onto the poor through shock therapy." That, he told me,
is precisely what happened in Bolivia.
Just as Friedman had promised in Chile, freer trade was supposed to cre
ate jobs for the newly jobless. It didn't, and the unemployment rate increased
from 20 percent at the time of the elections to between 25 and 30 percent
two years later. [22] The state mining corporation alone—the same one that Paz
had nationalized in the 1950s—was downsized from twenty-eight thousand
employees to just six thousand. [23]
The minimum wage never recovered its value, and two years into the pro
gram, real wages were down 40 percent; at one point they would drop 70 per
cent. [24] In 1985, the year of shock therapy, the per capita average income in
Bolivia was $845; two years later it had fallen to $789. This is the measure
used by Sachs and the government, and despite the lack of progress it con
veys, it does not begin to capture the degradation of daily life for many Boli
vians. Average income is derived by adding up the country's total income
and dividing by the number of people in the country; it glosses over the fact
that shock therapy in Bolivia had the same effects that it had in the rest of the
region: a small elite grew far wealthier while large portions of what had been
the working class were discarded from the economy altogether and turned
into surplus people. In 1987, Bolivian peasants, known as campesinos, were
earning, on average, just $140 a year, less than one-fifth of the "average in
come." [25] That is the problem with measuring only the "average": it effec
tively erases these sharp divisions.
ImaginaryBloke
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Published on
Monday, March 20, 2017
Common Dreams
While Tribes Lose Courtroom Battles, #NoDAPL Divestment Campaign Takes Off
Pipeline battleground moves from courtrooms to banks
Nika Knight, staff writer
Wells Fargo has already seen billions lost as U.S. cities divest from banks funding the Dakota Access Pipeline. (Photo: Joe Piette/flickr/cc)
A U.S. appeals court on Saturday shut down a last-ditch effort to put a stop to the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), allowing oil to flow as early as Monday.
The appeals court affirmed a lower court's ruling last week that decided against an emergency injunction, sought by the Standing Rock Sioux and Cheyenne River Sioux tribes, which would have temporarily halted the pipeline's operation while the tribes' lawsuit against the pipeline wends its way through the courts.
As the tribes suffer the latest in a string of legal defeats, however, the fight against DAPL has been winning a series of major victories in different territory: the pipeline's financial backing.
Campaigns to divest from the pipeline and thus starve it of funding have been growing across the U.S. and around the world. Large cities such as San Francisco and Seattle have divested billions of dollars, and similar campaigns have emerged in New York, Albuquerque, N.M., and Raleigh, N.C., among other U.S. cities.
In New York, a #DivestmentDay rally in Union Square on Saturday saw campaigners call on the city to divest before closing their own personal accounts with banks financially linked to DAPL. In Washington, D.C., divestment campaigners will see a bill to cut the municipality's financial ties to Wells Fargo, a major investor in the pipeline, introduced Tuesday at a city council meeting.
Other cities have already severed those ties. "Between Davis, [Calif.,] Santa Monica, and Seattle alone—the three cities that have opted to sever their ties with Wells Fargo—the campaign will ultimately deprive Wells Fargo of more than $4 billion in deposits, fees, and more," writes Jimmy Tobias in The Nation.
In Norway, meanwhile, indigenous Sami people last week convinced the country's second-largest pension fund to divest from the pipeline. The Green Party in the UK has also urged British banks to stop funding the pipeline:
.@TheGreenParty is calling on UK banks (inc @HSBC @Barclays) to stop funding climate-wrecking #DakotaAccess Pipeline. #KeepItInTheGround pic.twitter.com/DBa5zyQ5Hf
— Caroline Lucas (@CarolineLucas) February 28, 2017
Ahead of the D.C. city council meeting Tuesday, divestment advocates are rallying at 4pm Monday in support of community members who will close their own personal Wells Fargo accounts. Supporters in D.C. are also asked to come to the council meeting at 10pm Tuesday wearing red, to signal solidarity with the campaign.
"Wells Fargo is a major investor in the Dakota Access Pipeline," the organizers, a coalition of environmental and indigenous rights groups, wrote in a statement. "By cutting ties with Wells Fargo, D.C. would be following the lead of Seattle, San Francisco, and Davis in ensuring our city does not fund this ongoing violation of Indigenous rights, land, and water."
http://commondreams.org/news/2017/0...room-battles-nodapl-divestment-campaign-takes
The DAPL protest movement is not out of steam yet. There is a lot of support worldwide for the North Dakota Indians.
Monday, March 20, 2017
Common Dreams
While Tribes Lose Courtroom Battles, #NoDAPL Divestment Campaign Takes Off
Pipeline battleground moves from courtrooms to banks
Nika Knight, staff writer
Wells Fargo has already seen billions lost as U.S. cities divest from banks funding the Dakota Access Pipeline. (Photo: Joe Piette/flickr/cc)
A U.S. appeals court on Saturday shut down a last-ditch effort to put a stop to the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), allowing oil to flow as early as Monday.
The appeals court affirmed a lower court's ruling last week that decided against an emergency injunction, sought by the Standing Rock Sioux and Cheyenne River Sioux tribes, which would have temporarily halted the pipeline's operation while the tribes' lawsuit against the pipeline wends its way through the courts.
As the tribes suffer the latest in a string of legal defeats, however, the fight against DAPL has been winning a series of major victories in different territory: the pipeline's financial backing.
Campaigns to divest from the pipeline and thus starve it of funding have been growing across the U.S. and around the world. Large cities such as San Francisco and Seattle have divested billions of dollars, and similar campaigns have emerged in New York, Albuquerque, N.M., and Raleigh, N.C., among other U.S. cities.
In New York, a #DivestmentDay rally in Union Square on Saturday saw campaigners call on the city to divest before closing their own personal accounts with banks financially linked to DAPL. In Washington, D.C., divestment campaigners will see a bill to cut the municipality's financial ties to Wells Fargo, a major investor in the pipeline, introduced Tuesday at a city council meeting.
Other cities have already severed those ties. "Between Davis, [Calif.,] Santa Monica, and Seattle alone—the three cities that have opted to sever their ties with Wells Fargo—the campaign will ultimately deprive Wells Fargo of more than $4 billion in deposits, fees, and more," writes Jimmy Tobias in The Nation.
In Norway, meanwhile, indigenous Sami people last week convinced the country's second-largest pension fund to divest from the pipeline. The Green Party in the UK has also urged British banks to stop funding the pipeline:
.@TheGreenParty is calling on UK banks (inc @HSBC @Barclays) to stop funding climate-wrecking #DakotaAccess Pipeline. #KeepItInTheGround pic.twitter.com/DBa5zyQ5Hf
— Caroline Lucas (@CarolineLucas) February 28, 2017
Ahead of the D.C. city council meeting Tuesday, divestment advocates are rallying at 4pm Monday in support of community members who will close their own personal Wells Fargo accounts. Supporters in D.C. are also asked to come to the council meeting at 10pm Tuesday wearing red, to signal solidarity with the campaign.
"Wells Fargo is a major investor in the Dakota Access Pipeline," the organizers, a coalition of environmental and indigenous rights groups, wrote in a statement. "By cutting ties with Wells Fargo, D.C. would be following the lead of Seattle, San Francisco, and Davis in ensuring our city does not fund this ongoing violation of Indigenous rights, land, and water."
http://commondreams.org/news/2017/0...room-battles-nodapl-divestment-campaign-takes
The DAPL protest movement is not out of steam yet. There is a lot of support worldwide for the North Dakota Indians.