Bob Morris @ Jul 6th 2007 12:30 - Category: Unfiled ;
The Defense Minister of Australia screwed up seriously recently by saying oil was a major reason for Australia to keep troops in Iraq.
The Prime Minister immediately went into damage control mode after this unwarranted and scurrilous truth-telling.
Bob Morris @ Jul 6th 2007 08:31 - Category: Unfiled ;
Every Western nation but the US has free health care, this includes England, Canada, and France.
Sicko is brilliant, and I found it unsettling. Moore documents the inaccessible, expensive US health system where people lose their homes because of medical bills as contrasted with other countries where you just walk in and get quality health care for free.
He shows a US citizen who lost two fingertips in a circular saw accident. The hospital said $12,000 to reattach one, and $60,000 for the other. He could only afford to have one reattached. Yet a Canadian who lost all four fingers in a similar accident had them reattached and the cost to him was zero.
As for higher taxes, hey, I’d rather pay higher taxes and have free medical and college education like France does, and not the profits-above-all system we have in the US. Because that’s the problem. The profit motive. That needs to be eliminated so all the money goes for health care. Other countries have done so, and virtually every European country has better health care than the US.
From the World Health Organization
The U.S. health system spends a higher portion of its gross domestic product than any other country but ranks 37 out of 191 countries according to its performance.
“But the same report assessed Americans’ overall health at 72nd among 191 member nations included in the study,” says Wikipedia.
Los Angeles hospitals currently dump patients who can’t pay on skid row. That’s right, a cab just leaves them on a street corner, sometimes they’re still in hospital clothes with an IV tube attached. Moore rightly asks, what is wrong with us? Why do we not provide the same health care that other countries do? His answer - because other countries have a social contract where it is assumed everyone is in it together. This is quite unlike the vicious predatory selfishness and greed masquerading as capitalism that is practiced in the US.
Cuba comes off well in the movie. US citizens who were denied health care in the US received quality no-cost care there. One American found an inhaler that costs her $120 in the US, a price she can barely afford, was a mere 5 cents in Cuba.
You’ll have to see the movie to discover the one place on American soil where there is universal, free, quality health care. Trust me, you’ll not ever guess where…
In the movie, a US expat in France said the reason France has free health care and college is because the government fears the people versus the US where the people fear the government.
And that, perhaps, is the real message of Sicko.
Bob Morris @ Jul 6th 2007 00:15 - Category: Credit crisis ;
From the Wall Street Journal, no less. (Their investigative reporting remains excellent even as neanderthals lumber across their editorial page. Lest we forget, it was WSJ that broke the Enron story. Two of their reporters went digging and said, whoa, these numbers do not add up.)
Twelve years ago, Lehman Brothers Holdings sent a VP to look into making loans to First Alliance Mortgage Co. The VP reported back that First Alliance was a” financial ’sweat shop’ specializing in ‘high pressure sales for people who are in a weak state.’ At First Alliance, he said, employees leave their ‘ethics at the door.’ ”
Lehman apparently left their ethics out the door too, as they loaned First Alliance $500 million, then sold $700 million in bonds backed by the loans. The company cratered and a federal jury found that Lehman “helped First Alliance defraud customers.”
So why would investment banks knowingly back such risky loans? “Because most of the risks that loans would go bad were passed to investors.” Once the loans were packaged as bonds and sold, the investment bank had little or no exposure left. Should the loans go bad, well that would be someone else’s problem, because they were making millions.
Bob Morris @ Jul 6th 2007 00:12 - Category: Unfiled ;
Hartford CT Convention Center,
This Saturday. 10 am.
Free, with lunch. Register online
The Islamic Circle of North America, a non-ethnic, non-sectarian grassroots organization is pleased to announce this exclusive program dedicated to understanding, and the dissemination of accurate information on Islam and Muslims!
The “Window To Islam” symposium is a diverse interactive gathering providing a forum for people of all faiths and backgrounds to discuss a range of socio-religious issues pertaining to Islam and America. This entire day program features informative sessions, extensive q&a rounds, cultural bazaar, art exhibitions, cross culture interaction and much more!
Sue and I are going. While I count Arabs, Muslims, and Palestinians as friends, I know little about Islam itself. It’s great to see this kind of diversity in Hartford.
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