It is baffling that the American public has been so effectively stampeded into near-total dependence on a shoddy, crude and ineffective system of health care, paying an extremely high price for drug and surgical interventions.
Did you know that our health care system is the third leading cause of death in the United States? In a year 2000 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Barbara Starfield, M.D., wrote that physician error, medication error, and adverse events from drugs or surgery cause 225,400 deaths per year, making this the third leading cause of death, after heart disease and cancer. Why would anyone let themselves be put at the mercy of a hospital, when most chronic illnesses are preventable? (Answer: Because they don’t know any better.) Continue reading →
I have been re-reading James Howard Kunstler’s “The Long Emergency” recently and I recommend you read it, if you haven’t already. Kunstler is a big thinker and, unfortunately for his career, is not on board with the happy-face mood of our country. His is not the message America wants to hear at this moment, but if you want to see around the next turn of fate to protect yourself and your assets, you need to get familiar with what he has to say.
For a prophet of doom, Kunstler is a lot of fun to read — a big improvement over the Old Testament prophets. I think you could summarize his attitude to his writing with the phrase, “You’ve got to laugh to keep from crying.” And he will make you laugh!
He writes somewhat like Hunter S. Thompson, but describes the real world with humorous insight rather than his personal hallucinations. Continue reading →
In a Wall Street Journalop-ed last Monday, and in congressional testimony later in the week, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke reassured all that thanks to his accurate foresight and deft use of the Fed’s policy toolkit, he could maintain near zero percent interest rates for an extended period without creating inflation. With supernatural powers such as these, one wonders if Ben would be better employed by the Justice League rather than the Federal Reserve.
Ben’s game plan is apparently simple: once he determines that the economy is on solid ground, he will use the monetary equivalent of Superman’s laser vision to strategically evaporate all the excess liquidity that he has recently created without endangering the recovery. Don’t try this at home, kids. Continue reading →
The reason that European nations have better health is not because they have “free” access to doctors occasionally. It is because–for the most part–they don’t eat the crazy American fast food diet. Europeans eat real food. They often walk rather than drive to places they need to go, because they live in walkable cities–not in a suburb linked to their place of work by an hourlong drive to go ten or twenty miles.
Health care is our American obsession because we refuse to do the things that are conducive to health(eat more vegetables and fruit, less meat and dairy products, more whole grain products, less liquor and beer, fewer sweets and soft drinks, cut out tobacco entirely, and get regular daily exercise), so we need a backup plan to pay for the expensive medical repairs we’re sure to need. Continue reading →
In a free market, demand is always a function of price: the higher the price, the lower the demand. What may surprise most politicians is that these rules apply equally to both prices and wages. When employers evaluate their labor and capital needs, cost is a primary factor. When the cost of hiring low-skilled workers moves higher, jobs are lost. Despite this, minimum wage hikes, like the one set to take effect later this month, are always seen as an act of governmental benevolence. Nothing could be further from the truth.
When confronted with a clogged drain, most of us will call several plumbers and hire the one who quotes us the lowest price. If all the quotes are too high, most of us will grab some Drano and a wrench, and have at it. Labor markets work the same way.
Before bringing on another worker, an employer must be convinced that the added productivity will exceed the added cost (this includes not just wages, but all payroll taxes and other benefits.) So if an unskilled worker is capable of delivering only $6 per hour of increased productivity, such an individual is legally unemployable with a minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. Continue reading →
There is always some reason that they will try to convince you not to believe what you feel in your gut. They will try to bamboozle you
– Barack Obama
I admit I was swept up in the national euphoria of President Obama’s election. I really believed that something would be done about the economic crisis, our unjust “War on Terror”, and the creeping fascism these wars have engendered. But by now it should be clear that President Obama has no plans to change anything. Continue reading →
Harry Browne, the former Libertarian Party candidate for president, used to say: “the government is great at breaking your leg, handing you a crutch, and saying ‘You see, without me you couldn’t walk.’” That maxim is clearly illustrated by the financial industry regulatory reforms proposed this week by the Obama Administration. FULL ARTICLE
“Crony capitalism” is a term often applied to foreign nations where government interference circumvents market forces. The practice is widely associated with tin-pot dictators and second-rate economies. In such a system, support for the ruling regime is the best and only path to economic success. Who you know supersedes what you know, and favoritism trumps the rule of law. Unfortunately, this week’s events demonstrate that the phrase now more aptly describes our own country. FULL ARTICLE
Not only must our leaders convince holders of our debt not to sell what they already own, but to back up the truck and buy a whole lot more. The hope is that a dream team consisting of a charismatic politician, a skilled Wall Street banker with longstanding ties to China, and a respected Fed Chairman, can close the deal. However, no matter how slick the sales pitch, no amount of lipstick can dress up this pig. FULL ARTICLE
