Sunday May 20. 1972 was our first day in Rome. I had unintentionally but carelessly affronted my mother-in-law June at the hotel breakfast table and my wife Terry and mother Hannah offered me condescending sympathy for my faux pas. We had been traveling through France, Switzerland and now Italy together and until that morning I had evaded Mother’s suggestion that I take a bus tour with them.
Tag: featured
We’re better off than Egypt – Right?
From the HUFFINGTON POST: A tourist who was interviewed last night from Cairo spoke for millions of his fellow Americans when he said he couldn’t imagine living a country like Egypt. It is hard, isn’t it? Imagine: A government run by and for the rich and powerful. Leaders who lecture others about “sacrifice” and deficits while cutting taxes for corporations and the wealthy…
How to avoid paying corporation income taxes
From President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address on January 25:
“Over the years, a parade of lobbyists has rigged the tax code to benefit particular companies and industries. Those with accountants or lawyers to work the system can end up paying no taxes at all. But all the rest are hit with one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world. It makes no sense, and it has to change…
Addendum to The Healing of America
R. R. Reid has added an explanation of the 2010 health reform bill to his bestseller “The Healing Of America, A Global Quest For Better, Cheaper, And Fairer Health Care” which was originally published in 2009. To wit:
“As we’ve seen throughout this book, though, the principle of ‘guaranteed issue’ can only work if it is coupled with another rule, the ‘individual mandate’ – that is, the requirement that everybody buy insurance. The insurers need the mandated customer base to have a broad enough risk pool to pay for guaranteed issue. All the other rich countries figures out this connection long ago; the 2010 act marks the first time the United States has coupled these two requirements…
US Diabetes Cases Soar; One-Third Adults Prediabetic
From NEWSMAX: The number of diabetics in the United States has grown to nearly 26 million, a 10 percent increase over 2008, and more than a third of adults are now considered prediabetic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday, expressing concern about the trend.
As costs rise, Legislature urged to adopt prison reform
From the PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW: With state prison costs continuing to skyrocket, Auditor General Jack Wagner on Thursday urged the Legislature to approve a Republican senator’s bill that would make it easier to send non-violent offenders to alternative-sentencing programs.
Fighting abject poverty with a sense of humor
Letter from Richard Field from Hungary
Of the 271 regions which make up the European Union, the northern part of Hungary ranks 260th in terms of per capita income. A primarily agricultural region before the Second World War, this region was the site of much of the heavy industry that sprouted up under communism–iron and steel, concrete and cement, petrochemicals, etc.
Senator Casey: 5 proposals to fix the U.S. Senate
From the PATRIOT-NEWS: by Bob Casey Jr. …Partisan gridlock is out of control. Senate rules have been systematically abused to block legislation, obstruct real debate and play politics. The Senate often spends more time debating whether it should debate a bill than debating the actual issue.
EDITORIAL: County library consultant an odd choice
We privately expressed our concern when we first heard that the County Commissioners were considering engaging a local business consultant without any experience in the field to generate a plan for the future of our county libraries. Why would the commissioners not have reached out to firms that specialize in, have a decade or more of hands-on experience with a variety of circumstances, and who are fully cognizant of the nation’s best library systems?
The State of the Union: Not a Time for Saccharin and Gimmicks
Members of the corporate political duopoly switched seats and sat next to each other making it even harder to tell the corporate welfare party from the crony capitalist party. Sadly, the spokespersons for both failed to learn the lessons of history and as a result the American economy will continue to falter with U.S. militarism continuing to expand.
State of the Union: Fact-checking Obama’s speech
From USA TODAY: President Obama focused about 80% of his State of the Union Address on the economy, offering proposals designed to create jobs, make the United States more competitive with other developed nations and reduce future budget deficits. Those goals can conflict, however. Here’s a look behind the rhetoric:
There’s real investment and there’s paper investment.
When the Fed creates money, a credit on its books, it also creates loans to banks, a debit on its books. So money is not a floating IOU. It is matched by assets. Social Security proceeds are being used to offset lower income taxes–that was part of the 1986 tax “reform” designed by Alan Greenspan. It made the whole system more regressive.
EDITORIAL: Purchasing Treasury Notes with FICA funds is not real savings
When Social Security proceeds are invested in treasury notes, the notes have to be repaid by future generations. The only way that Social Security proceeds could be truly invested now for the use of future generations would be through the government purchasing stocks, bonds or real estate, thus taking ownership to property, directly or indirectly.
What an unhappy, depressing, and despicable fraud!
The first mistake with the Social Security Trust Fund was to allow borrowing from it to fund other government operations. These other operations were then never paid for. No taxes were needed to be raised to pay for them nor were any spending cuts needed to pay for them. Just like the Bush prescription drug plan (700 billion) was never paid for nor much of the initial Iraq war spending, etc. etc.