The Industrial Medical Complex

We have all heard about the Industrial Military Complex where wars are fought simply to make some people rich. I came to the conclusion that there is also the Industrial Medical Complex. I wrote in The Costs Of Government Controlled Health Care about a doctor who bought an MRI machine so he could do scans far cheaper than medical centers. He was quickly shut down by state regulators.

I just read an article where a woman went to her family doctor for a sore throat. She was going on a trip and wanted to make sure she didn't have Strep Throat. A few swabs later she was on her way home with no antibiotics. A few days later, her throat was better and she was away on her trip. On her return home, she had a medical bill in the mail for $28,395.50. Her insurance company was going to pay $25,865.24.

The reason for this is, the doctor sent the swab to an out of network laboratory. If he had sent the samples to an in-network lab, the cost would have been only $653. Why he sent the sample to an out of network lab isn't important. The big question is, if one lab can do the test for $653, why can't all labs? We're told an in-network lab is cheaper because they negotiate prices with the insurance company. I'll bet that in-network lab is still turning a profit.

Democratic Party Coup

Democrats have been talking seriously about abolishing the Electoral College. They are upset that Hillary Clinton lost the presidential election, despite winning the popular vote. Her lead in the popular vote could have been attributed to the people of Los Angeles, alone. If the US was a democracy instead of a constitutional republic, a handful of cities could decide the presidency.

In America, the founders intended for each state to be a self governing country. The federal government was created to form a common defense, and so that states could trade freely across borders. States joining together under a republic had many benefits, yet still allowed each state to govern independently. A person living in New York City can't begin to understand what life is like in rural South Carolina. Each Eastern state or region has an economy that's different from one on the West coast. The Electoral College insures the people of Iowa have equal power to those in New York City.

Democratic Socialism Failures

What's the difference between regular socialism and Democratic Socialism? There is none, because socialism usually ends in a tyranny, American socialists believe they can bring in more people if they say their form will be better because people will be allowed to vote for their leaders. Simply put, it's just an illusion because Democratic Socialists want to have total control.

Socialism seems to be the topic of interest for democrats. I doubt most of the people bashing capitalism and praising socialism even know what it is. What most socialists talk about is free college and medical care. Those are social programs, but not socialism. Socialism is a political and economic theory of social organization, which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

The important part of this is their use of “community.” Leftists make it sound as if community is you and your neighbors making decisions. Technically, that is correct, but in truth, you would elect people to make those decisions. We call those people government. If you listen to Democratic Socialists, they are always talking about expanding federal power. Many might find socialism acceptable if it was done on a local level, but people in Washington, DC know absolutely nothing about your community.

Disastrous Green New Deal

Democrats, led by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have presented the Green New Deal that is a combination of climate and social justice legislation. We are being told this new legislation (H.Res.109 - Recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal), which gives no specifics, is necessary if we are to save the world from global warming. Democrats are telling us that if we don't take drastic measures, the world as we know it will come to an end in 12 years.

No matter your stand on climate change, you have to see this as a fear tactic. I've written about Climate Hypocrisy, but his is more about the social justice aspect and how this plan is economically impossible. I've seen estimates that the Green New Deal could cost anywhere between $84-$100 trillion dollars. There is only an estimated $77 trillion in the entire world. This means, if you confiscated all the money in the world, you would come up short. You might ask what their alternative payment method might be—printing money has been proposed. Any economist will tell you that printing this much money would destroy the US economy,

Climate Hypocrisy

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez framed her chosen climate policy—the Green New Deal. Since she first mentioned the phrase, leftists have been cheering her plan, even though no one has a clue what the Green New Deal entails. One of the main things the deal proclaims to do is to create new green jobs. As of this writing, nationwide unemployment is 3.7 Percent. These democrats say they will create new jobs installing solar panels made in the world's largest polluting country, China. Where will they find all this new labor?

The Paris Accord that democrats are upset the USA pulled out of, gave China a pass on carbon emissions. These democrats want to use solar panels made in China, which is buying all the coal the USA can produce for their dirty power plants. I have not heard one thing the Green New Deal will do to reduce carbon emissions in countries such as China. It seems to only expand China's pollution.

This is more than about energy, it's a power grab. Ocasio-Cortez suggested the federal government should nationalize Tesla’s technology because of the company’s receipt of tax subsidies. Ocasio-Cortez said:

The Beginning of The End of America

There has been a movement since the 1930's to change America. Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Democratic Party used the Great Depression to begin a progressive takeover of the country. This takeover came in the form of higher taxes and price controls.

Today, we see the Democratic Party, the ideological left, using the same tactics. Progressives, despite the name, believes capitalism is the root of all evil. They believe government should either own or place tight controls on all businesses, no matter if it's large or small. Some might liken their goals and tactics closer to those of Karl Marx. In either case, the result is always failure.

Reply to a Salon Progressive

It's been a long time since I read something that demanded answering in detail. I just read, Piketty shrugged: How the French economist dashed libertarians’ Ayn Randian fantasies. The first thing that stood out was that despite referring frequently to Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, it's obvious he never read the book. It's also clear he doesn't understand libertarians.

Parramore wrote:

To understand the libertarian view of inequality, let’s turn to Milton Friedman, one of America’s most famous and influential makers of free market mythology. Friedman decreed that economic policy should focus on freedom, and not equality.

Right off I have to address the fact he called the free market a mythology. Friedman and libertarians believe the focus is on liberty as well as freedom. Also freedom doesn't mean you get to harm your neighbor. The progressive's focus on equality is a waste of time because it's unachievable. No matter how hard government tries it can never make us equal. The best government can do is give us equal opportunity to be the best we can and treat us equally under the law.

Economic Truths

Today we hear a lot about economic and social justice. There seems to always be talk of raising the minimum wage in order to have it keep up with inflation. We hear about the great wealth divide where the gap between wealthy and poor widens. This is spoken as if there is a limited numbers of dollars and if one person gets wealthy they must be taking it from someone at the bottom. This is a fallacy.

Today, we have a global market. There is massive trade between countries. Goods and services are exchanged between countries. I could give you the total global accumulated wealth, but that changes daily. The amount of a country's currency changes daily. The USA is creating $84 billion a month. This doesn't include dollars created out of thin air that is loaned to banks. Even if that currency is temporary, it becomes temporally a part of total currency. Gold and other commodities are converted to cash through Rehypothification in the form of bonds.

Each day wealth is taken and returned to the government. Currently the death tax (estate tax) is 40% of assets above $5.5 million. When the government takes that money it's often returned to the economy in various ways. Eventually that money becomes available to be earned once more. To be sure, this isn't in support of the death tax, but just an explanation of how currency moves. This does show, especially under the current taxing system, the rich cannot accumulate wealth to the point that the poor can have no chance of moving to the middle class.

Death isn't the only way that wealth trickles down to the poor. Much of the wealth lies with business – be it small or large. Most businesses are always looking to expand. They will spend money on building facilities in which to produce more products or services. When expansion happens, more workers are hired. Careful thought is given to the number of employees needed. In order to make that decision they must look to see how much of their budget can be set aside for labor. They, then, look at the labor market and decide what is the lowest wage that can be offered to attract the necessary labor. Skilled labor always comes at a premium, while manual labor is usually easier to find at a lower cost.

Knowing History—The Pledge of Allegiance

The Pledge of Allegiance is something I thought little about as I stood in my grammar school class each day repeating the phrase. My only thoughts were that my nation was something about which to take great pride. I feel no differently today. The only difference today is that I often have to seek out corrections to history as taught by our schools and perpetuated by the different political ideologies. The simple Pledge of Allegiance is one of those things.

Where did the pledge originate?

The Pledge of Allegiance was written in August 1892 by the socialist, Baptist minister, Francis Bellamy (1855-1931). It was originally published in The Youth's Companion on September 8, 1892. Bellamy had hoped the pledge would be used by citizens in any country. Years after the Civil War had ended the nation was still divided. This was an attempt to bring the nation together under one flag.

The pledge in its original form:

I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

31st Amendment

This is in continuation of my article Eliminate the Tax Scam. The only way to solve the problem of runaway central power is take the one thing needed to support power, the right to collect taxes from the masses. The central government can force individuals at gun point to pay any amount of taxes they decide appropriate. I believe that gun would have less effect on state government.

I believe this is something people of all political persuasions might like. This doesn't eliminate many things the progressives like. A progressive state would be free to operate as they always have. This also goes for libertarian and conservative leaning states. If this country is to survive as a whole, power must be taken away from the central government.

Some are talking about opening an Article V Constitutional convention. If states are to take that route, the 16^th and 17^th Amendments are at the top of the list to be repealed. I'm not sure that enough states would agree with the repeal of those amendments. I do believe that if the 16^th is repealed with my 31^st Amendment, then more states might be agreeable.

I'm called the extremist

Each day I'm told over and over by the media how people who think like me are extremists. I was recently de-friended by someone on a social site because of my extreme views. Extremism is often relative to the other person's beliefs. I want to go over a few things that led this person to view me as an extremist.

The United States is approaching the so-called fiscal cliff and my belief is, in the end, the country might be better off if we take the dive. For a decade we have listened to government talk about cutting spending and then pat themselves on the back when they propose a spending bill that cuts projected spending by a few billion dollars. What they don't tell us is that once again, spending increases dramatically. We are running a trillion dollar deficit and neither party seems to care. The Democrats want to raise tax rates on the top 2% earners, which would raise only about $80 billion. Neither party is willing to rein in the IRS and look at all the deductions. They love deductions because that's how they repay those that contribute to their campaigns. Because I point out that taxing the top 2% is simply misdirection, and say we get only double speak from both parties, I'm called an extremist.

Atlas Shrugged Pt. 1 The Movie.

It's not often that I take the time to write a movie review. When Atlas Shrugged part 1 came out It didn't show any place close. Last night I finally had the chance to see the movie. I have to admit I had trepidations. I knew they had set the movie in the modern area. I also knew it would be an impossible task to make to reproduce the book on the silver screen.

For decades the people holding the movie rights had waited for the right production company. I, like many, had begun to think we would never see the movie come to light. There were high expectations, and I must admit they were met as far as I'm concerned.

The characters were well developed, as was the plot. I do wonder if a movie viewer who hasn't read the book will understand all the plots. If they didn't, I believe in coming segments they will begin to see why the world was crumbling.

The Power of Individualism

I find it a waste of time to debate the differences between socialism and communism. For me they are all just varying levels of the same thing. I am with those that believe you have the right to run your country as you see fit. The United States was founded on individualism, so no part of our constitution allows for socialism. I want the right to be as rich as I can, or to be as poor as I want. No part of me understands anyone’s willingness to give up freedom.

Once you hand over all power to government, you have no hopes of ever getting it back, short of revolution. Government will not stop with a little power, they will chip away until they have it all and you have no rights left. If you think you can have only a little socialism, you are fooling yourself. Some might think that letting government have all the power is fine, but you never know when you will get a government that is malevolent. I think people too easily forget what happened in Germany.

Is The Political Left Evil?

Those of us that follow the political world tend to find any position other than our own evil. So I ask, is the left evil? The clear answer is no. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t evil within all ideologies. I find most of the people have a good heart. They care about others. They worry about those without housing, food, and health-care. Those are not bad things.

What the left often gets wrong about the right; is that we worry about the same things. It’s only how we wish to solve these problems that differs. We on the right believe that the poor are best severed when the rest prosper. Through the free-market system we have made the American poor some of the richest people in the world.

Those on the left run around shouting that the rich need to pay more. If we confiscated the wealth of anyone possessing more than a million dollars, we couldn’t even pay off the current national debt.

I wonder how many people on the left would be willing to give up the simplest things so that the poor around the world could eat properly. If people were told that giving up cell phones would end world hunger and poverty, would they? I dare say they wouldn’t.

On the other hand, are the people on the right greedy? Sure, maybe some, but most humans are. What makes people on the political right different is they are realist. We know that confiscating wealth will do little to solve all the problems the left holds dear. Since the 50’s we have each year put more and more money into education, yet test scores continue to drop.

What is evil, are the power mongers that will use the good hearts of the people on the left to further political ambitions. For decades those in power on the left have been promising black Americans prosperity, yet it has never come. The best those of us on the right can promise anyone is equality.

Who Are The Progressives?

For the past 100 years the progressive movement has pushed and clawed its way into control of the Unites States. Franklin D. Roosevelt brought the progressive movement into prominence. His progressive polices catapulted the United States into the worst economic period in history. While the rest of the world experienced a recession, or even a depression, only in the USA is it known as the Great Depression.

During the period known as the Great Depression, the USA witnessed the largest expansion of government in history. FDR perpetuated the depression so that he could push a progressive agenda. People looked upon FDR as if he was a savior when he began the jobs programs. Those people built parks, bridges and roads. While those things aren’t bad, they did little to provide permanent work.

It was only after World War II that the depression ended. For the next twenty years the USA saw prosperity never before experienced. That prosperity was kick-started by a drastic cut in taxes. Taxes needed to fund the war had been pushed even higher than the progressive tax of FDR. The war taxes were just, but the reduction of those taxes are what propelled us into the roaring 50’s, just as the reduction of taxes propelled the nation into the roaring 20’s.