Don’t you just hate being HAD?
Their focus was on short term gains, kind of like a Craps table at Vegas…
They say they deserved their pay because they took great risks. Yet they destroyed the world economy and are still billionaires…
Where is the Gitmo for Wall Street Terrorists?
According to Robert Reich, 70% of Americans want a Public Option for Health Care Reform. In Canada, 10% of their GDP goes to their health care system and they cover ALL Canadians. In the U.S., we spend 16% of our GDP and leave out 45 million Americans.
the compromise that ended up in the House bill is to have a mere public option, open only to the 6 million Americans not otherwise covered. The Congressional Budget Office warns this shrunken public option will have no real bargaining leverage and would attract mainly people who need lots of medical care to begin with. So it will actually cost more than it saves…
Our private, for-profit health insurance system, designed to fatten the profits of private health insurers and Big Pharma, is about to be turned over to … our private, for-profit health care system. Except that now private health insurers and Big Pharma will be getting some 30 million additional customers, paid for by the rest of us.
Upbeat policy wonks and political spinners who tend to see only portions of cups that are full will point out some good things: no pre-existing conditions, insurance exchanges, 30 million more Americans covered. But in reality, the cup is 90 percent empty. Most of us will remain stuck with little or no choice — dependent on private insurers who care only about the bottom line, who deny our claims, who charge us more and more for co-payments and deductibles, who bury us in forms, who don’t take our calls.
This is NOT reform, people. This is victory for the millionaire lobbyists and the billionaire Pharma and Insurance companies.
We need Medicare FOR ALL.
Imagine how stable the U.S. economy would be, if only 10% of our GDP went to cover all 300 MILLION Americans…
In a stark and surprising finding, about half the children in the United States will be on food stamps at some point during their childhood, a new study of 29 years of data shows.
One in three white children and 90 percent of all black children – ages 1 through 20 – will use the food stamps program, according to research, published this month in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine…
The finding that 50 percent of children will be on food stamps in their lifetime is conservative, Thomas A. Hirschl, a sociology professor at Cornell University and a coauthor of the study with Mark R. Rank, a sociologist at Washington University in St. Louis, said.
That’s because only about 60 percent of households eligible for food stamps actually get them, a finding backed up by the newly released Department of Agriculture study. Stigma and ignorance of the program hold people back, he said.
How can we, as a country, let this happen when billion dollar bonuses are being paid on Wall Street?
Benjamin Lowy / VII Network for NewsweekAnti-gang advocate David Kennedy in Hempstead, N.Y.
According to Prison Blogger Michael Santos,
David Kennedy, a professor at New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice, uses common sense to reduce crime and keep communities safer. In the February 9, 2009 issue of Newsweek, Suzanne Smalley reported on Kennedy’s techniques and the significant drop in crime (in 2008, one Nashville community saw a 91% decrease in drug crimes and prostitution) directly linked to his approach–he uses intelligence rather than force.
Rather than relying on law enforcement’s use of weapons, handcuffs, and prisons alone, Kennedy suggests that persuasion can also prove effective in stopping drug crimes. He instructs law enforcement officers to gather evidence against drug offenders and prepare criminal indictments. Before arresting them and locking the drug offenders into a system that perpetuates failure, he urges the officers to call the suspects in for a candid look at the evidence against them. The officers then give the criminal suspects a choice. Either they can enroll in a program with mentors who will help them develop community values and live as productive citizens, or the officers will go forward with the criminal cases against them and put them through the prison system. That liberal approach, to the chagrin of lock-em-up-and-throw-away-the-key conservatives has proven far more effective in reducing crime.
Prison administrators and legislators ought to consider the valuable lessons Professor Kennedy teaches. The use of intelligence is far more effective than the use of force in fostering safer communities.
By extinguishing hope for those who serve time in prison, administrators create us-versus-them environments. The more oppressive and controlling the prison regime, the more recalcitrant prisoners become. It is precisely the lack of hope that leads to the proliferation of gangs and violence inside America’s prison system. Such policies contribute to the cycles of failure and unsafe communities, as prisoners revert to crime upon release.
Some prisoners present a danger to law-abiding society and show no interest in living in accordance with the principles of good citizenship. Many more prisoners, however, would welcome opportunities to work toward reconciling with society and earning their freedom. The heavy-handed policies of get-tough politicians, however, keep society locked into a so-called “corrections” policy that is fundamentally flawed. It is the reason that taxpayers must spend $60 billion per year to fund a system that perpetuates failure.
According to Newsweek Magazine, using Professor Kennedy’s tactics for four years, police in High Point had wiped the drug dealers off the corner. They compared the numbers to the prior four years and found a 57 percent drop in violent crime in the targeted area.
In his new movie, Capitalism: A Love Story, Michael Moore talks about the uber-rich becoming a new species, because of the safety nets they have that others do not.
So its no surprise, (truth is, its STILL A HORRID SURPRISE) that Goldman Sachs got flu vaccines that would be better given to those with health vulnerabilities. Most H1N1 deaths are people who had underlying health issues, but Goldman Sachs, who orchestrated the destruction of the world’s economies, took billions in federal bailout money (provided by hard working regular American taxpayers) and AGAIN got back to the business of gaming the US system, THAT Goldman Sachs, apparently is so SPECIAL that H1N1 vaccines are allotted in order to protect Goldman from the risk the rest of us live with, Swine Flu.
Capitalist?
I don’t think so. He’s sucking off the public trough. Profiteering off of the hard work of regular Americans.
According to Rolf Winkler of Reuters:
Chart created by Rolfe Winkler, found at Barry Ritholz’s blog, The Big Picture
You know, GETTING ALONG for the greater good…
How can we have such obstreperous representation in Congress, where one side can’t even speak without the other playing mind games?
He’s like a baby, unable to listen or even wait his turn. How did he get in Congress?
No wonder NOTHING gets done by our Legislative Branch, these people are idiots playing a game, instead of Representatives representing Americans.
from Blame it on the Voices taken from The Onion:
Here’s something that needed to be done:
Responding to recent events on Earth, God, the omniscient creator-deity worshipped by billions of followers of various faiths for more than 6,000 years, angrily clarified His longtime stance against humans killing each other Monday.
“Look, I don’t know, maybe I haven’t made myself completely clear, so for the record, here it is again,” said the Lord, His divine face betraying visible emotion during a press conference near the site of the fallen Twin Towers. “Somehow, people keep coming up with the idea that I want them to kill their neighbor. Well, I don’t. And to be honest, I’m really getting sick and tired of it. Get it straight. Not only do I not want anybody to kill anyone, but I specifically commanded you not to, in really simple terms that anybody ought to be able to understand.”
“I don’t care how holy somebody claims to be,” God said. “If a person tells you it’s My will that they kill someone, they’re wrong. Got it? I don’t care what religion you are, or who you think your enemy is, here it is one more time: No killing, in My name or anyone else’s, ever again.”
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