There use to be honorable conservatives — people who believed in conservative principals but also valued fellow mankind.  These people have disappeared.  Most of the right does not even believe in conservative principles — look at what they allowed and protected in the Bush W years — gigantic deficits with windfall tax cuts to the rich — hardly a conservative principal.  They have been replaced with hateful people like Palin, Limbaugh, Hannity, etc.  Even people of religious faith are equally hateful: Huckabee, Dobson, etc. — protect the fetus, hate the child; oppose to gay marriage, etc.

When conservatives stand up and say the America cannot afford universal health insurance — what are they really saying?  They are saying LET PEOPLE WITHOUT MONEY DIE.  Really, if a person believes that money is more important than humanity, they are lost in a sea of greed.  Do they really think there is some benevolent god who would agree with this position?  If so, they are delusional.

America defines its economics.  It is not written on some stone tablet.  If we want to make sure everybody has minimums, we can do that.  This would include minimums in housing, food, jobs, transportation, and health care.  We could define basic minimums in anything — even television, video games or cell phones.  But conservatives do not agree in basic minimums, unless the minimum is zero and you die.  In fact, conservatives will fight for lower wages, less benefits, and no health care to assure that people will die. There are no more honorable conservatives.

Conservatives hate maximums — there is never enough greed for the conservative of today.  If people have to die so that a conservative can have more, lots more, then so be it.  Many of them will also proclaim that it is god’s will or some equally inane bullshit.  Yet, when it comes right down to it — America is just about people.  It should be able people helping other people and not about how a few people can collect all the marbles.  Unfortunately, this idea of greed, no maximums, and zero being acceptable is destroying America.

America is doomed.

The latest idea for what will happen to the health care reform bill — split it into two.  Since the Republicans are the party of NO … NO … HELL NO … the Democrats are looking at new strategies to bring back majority rule.  The perverse Senate apparently thinks that majority rule is 60 votes out of 100. That would certainly surprise the founders.  So, the extreme rule of reconciliation will likely be used to pass the costliest part of the health care reform — hopefully, including the public option.  The Republicans used reconciliation to pass the Bush Tax cuts – - that was when it was American — rewarding the rich is always great for Republicans. This is an interesting strategy that just might put the Republicans in a interesting dilemma.

According to reconciliation only legislation that has fiscal impact can be included.  So, any rule to simply get the private health insurance companies to do the right thing cannot be part of reconciliation — because it has no fiscal impact of the government budget.  So, let’s assume that there are 50 Democratic Senators who will vote for reconciliation (Vice President Biden would be the 51st vote if necessary), then what are the Republicans going to do to “help” their greedy, for profit private health insurance companies?   If the first part includes a public option then the private insurance companies better decide to compete with the public option or be out of business.  Those greedy private insurance companies have already said they cannot compete.  But, let’s say they leave the no-insurance if you have any pre-existing condition around, then their insurance will hardly be fought after.

What is truly crazy about the health care reform legislation is just how non-democratic it is.  The Republicans are just completely opposed to it.  They don’t want private companies to have to compete.  They just want ordinary Americans to suffer as private insurance companies rake in the money.  Meanwhile, those private health insurance companies do not want to release executive compensation that the Democrats are demanding — since it will show the raping of Americans for the benefit of a few fat cats.

It is sad to see America fail because of greed. I am sure the founders would have loved to understand that it wasn’t a foreign enemy that brought down America.  It was greed by the most religious part of the country.

America is doomed.

Hello Doomers –

I’m not saying AT&T is dying — but the Wall Street Journal is.   Actually, I am saying that American capitalism is dying, including AT&T — but let me try and focus on AT&T.

The AT&T example is interesting.  Here is a company who will laud the benefits of capitalism — free markets, competition, etc.  Yet, they will do whatever they can to suppress competition.  So, Google comes along and offers a new free service and AT&T gets all freaky.  I am a Google Voice subscriber and offer a service to call me up on my web site which many have done — keep those calls coming.  AT&T even has recruited  Apple to their freakdom — all in an effort to maintain their unrealistic profit stream that will die.  Google will win because AT&T is no monopoly any longer and Google is hardly the first to get into the act, e.g. Vonage, Skype, etc.

The only people who are still paying for “long distance” are just not paying attention.  By the way, many younger people don’t even understand the concept of long distance and think area codes are just plain silly — both relics from a past when AT&T made lots more money.

As regular doomers know, American free enterprise wants to suppress competition.  This is why the greedy, for profit health insurance companies have 5 lobbyists for every member of Congress to prevent the only real solution to health care — single payer.  Single payer is not socialized medicine, it is socialized health insurance.  Doctors and medical providers — the people who actually provide health care — will continue to be private companies.  They would just be paid by the government.  Granted, I am actually for socialized medicine where there is no insurance and all of the providers work for the government.

Lots of American companies are paid by the government.  Even grossly profitable ones — like Exxon — have their lobbyists in Washington getting their not so small kickbacks.  It is corporate welfare spelled with $billions.   So, even though welfare for the poor is going away, corporate welfare is alive and continues to put the American financial system is jeopardy.   This is what is so amazing about the current economic crisis.  It is the greedy Republicans who claim they want fiscal discipline that will actually issue the death blow to American capitalism.   Eventually, all of these American corporations will become non profits — owned by the collective — either the government or the employees who work at the companies.  It makes no difference which.  The main thing is that the companies will provide a service for the American people and the only benefit will be jobs — not profits to rich modern slave owners.

Yet, just as the health care reform is getting descimated by large corporations, those same greedy relics of a by-gone generation will continue to rape the American fiscal system while providing below-average services to the American people.  Meanwhile, those corporations will suppress capitalism while telling America they are for it.

America is doomed.

There are few bigger assholes in the Senate than the Republican Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell, from Kentucky.  That big fucking smile represents the Republican party and the evil of a life dedicated to special interests and greed.  It doesn’t matter if he is smiling about stopping health care or promoting war, he is one fucking idiot.  It makes the people in Kentucky who elected this moron also idiots.

Recently, McConnell was happy that the Health Insurance industry was sending paid lobbyists to town hall meetings to disrupt them.  Meanwhile, McConnell with all the greed Health insurance executives are smiling all the way to the bank as people suffer.

At times like these, I wish I was more religious and knew that this fucking moron would end up in hell.  Instead, the policies that this idiot believes cause hell on earth for millions of Americans.  Would it be bad if I wished that his entire family would get some terminal illness and die?  Maybe then this idiot would get the obnoxious smile off of his face.

America is doomed.

Yesterday, the government released the latest monthly unemployment figures and the ‘headline’ number drop a little — big deal!   These statistics are misleading, at best — more accurately, they are based on rules and assumptions that will cause the unemployment rate to drop regardless of whether employment gets better.  So, how could unemployment go down without employment getting better.  This article from Forbes explain some of the problems –

Why You Can’t Trust Those Jobs Figures – Forbes.com.

However, there are many other problems with the unemployment statistics.  For example, as people’s unemployment benefits lapse they will be statistically be considered employed — or, at least, not unemployed — even though they are still out of work.  There are similar problems with people who take part time jobs.  They are no longer unemployed.  Perhaps, this makes sense to some but, again, it is a distortion of the unemployment picture.

Really, what is the point of an unemployment statistics that artificially gives false impressions?  Well, it is all political.  The idea is that unemployment will drop regardless of whether overall employment increases.

The better way to understand employment in the country is to look at total revenue, total employment, tax receipts, etc.  Basically, look at ‘positive’ statistics.  Positive means something that cannot be manipulated.  When employment is counted, only count full time workers — I would say, full time workers who make a living wage.  If you don’t make a living wage, you are at least partially unemployed.  Report part time workers if you want, but full time workers, making living wages, are the most important.

If you look at statistics for employed people, one will conclude that it will take years, if not decades, for employment to reach the level prior to this so-call recession.  More accurately, it is a depression and employment statistics (not unemployment bullshit) will prove this.

America is doomed.