Ha, MarthaA!
Well, you have a yellow sock on my avatar along with the teal argyle (would that pass for green on St. Patty’s Day?)
Even though we don’t often agree, you’re a funny lady, MarthaA, with many interesting insights. 
Hope we both live to see a viable 3rd party one day in the US.

oddsox, March 1 at 9:05 pm,

oddsox said: “Political twister: place left foot red,
right foot blue.”

MarthaA answer:  Or a mixture of red and blue,
which is purple—this seems to be the average
stance proposed and followed, never is there a
majority stand for a green or yellow foot or a
green or yellow sock—for political democracy
there must be green and yellow represented,
there is none of the color spectrum represented
below blue, which is the problem in the fascist
United States.

Lafayette, (sarcastically) “Everybody can be a
millionaire!”

No, not EVERYbody, but how about ANYbody?
If ANYbody can, that’s a worthwhile chance. 
Let’s nurture a middle class that has a CHANCE. 
Starting poor and young, but then moving up that pay
ladder from your post.  Working hard and smart,
making a few good honest investments, getting a
little luck.
 
Yes, education is vital & we are lagging in the US. 
We know it’s not just about money.  Class size or
dollars-per-student don’t correlate with performance. 
And post-secondary opportunities are worthless if
college freshmen cant read to 5th grade levels.

Equal opportunity is a worthy and obtainable goal. 
Equal outcome won’t, can’t & shouldn’t be the quest.

—-

OzarkMichael: Funny, Walker’s pondering over what
Obama knows re: existing public workers’ rights and
benes. 
A blogger on another site asked a similar question a
week ago when Sirota’s piece first appeared:
“I wonder if Sirota knows that Fed employees have no
collective bargaining rights.”

Of course they both know.
In Sirota’s case, these facts and others don’t fit
his argument, so they’re ignored.  Common with him.
As for Obama, IMO, he’s trying to appease his base
while tacking to the center. 
Political twister: place left foot red, right foot
blue.

ACOLYTES

Fish: ... as Sirota says, a sizable part of America still aligns itself inexplicably with the execs.

Yes, but this is part of the “American Dream”, isn’t it?

Everybody can be a millionaire!

Pap for the masses. Just like Marx once criticized established religion as “pap for the masses”, today we’ve changed the recipe for “pap”.

Nowadays the establishment’s acolytes consist of “Millionaire Wanabees”

JUST THE FACTS, MA’AM

MA: This 3rd Party needs to represent the common people, not the Middle Class, or the Aristocracy.

Your notion of the “middle-class” is erroneous.

MY WAY (Of exercising the data)

Looking at statistics is highly interpretive, admittedly, and depends upon their source.

Nonetheless, if the distribution here is taken as factual, then the three classes of household annual income (Lower, Middle and Upper), break down in the following manner of thirds:
.Lower Class _ >$10 => 20/30K; 34.3%*
.Middle Class _ 20/30K => 50/60kK; 63%* 
.Upper Class _ 50/60K => 150/200K; 97.13%*
..Upper Upper-Class => >200K; 2.87% (for 100%) 
* of annual household incomes

(NB: I have added the Upper Upper-Class category because Incomes in the US do not stop at $200K and the 2.87% is needed to reach 100% of total household incomes.)

The median household income is $49.8K; which finds itself squarely in the Middle Class category.

POST SCRIPTUM

One need not be poor or lower Middle Class to believe in Income Fairness. So a third-way (aka Centrist, or Social Democrat Party) can consist of those Americans who find themselves supporting the Progressive Agenda of which a key element is Income Equitability. (Not equality but equitability - there is a difference.)

Which, I suggest, is probably more than half of the present Democrat Party.

Governor Walker spoke about President Obama:

“I’m sure the President knows that most federal employees do not have collective bargaining for wages and benefits while our plan allows it for base pay.

And I’m sure the President knows that the average federal worker pays twice as much for health insurance as what we are asking for in Wisconsin. At least I would hope he knows these facts.

http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/news/117101638.html

But of course Obama doesnt know, so Governor Walker had foolish hopes.

oddsox, March 1 at 12:43 am,

The one I would want would be Governor Howard
Dean, M.D.  This 3rd Party needs to represent the
common people, not the Middle Class, or the
Aristocracy.  The common people are 70% of the
population and it should be called in my opinion the
American Populace Party to be legislated equal with
the American Middle Class’ Democratic Party and the
Elite Capitalist Class’ Republican Party.

Lafayette, if my French were better we’d be packing
up!
Just kidding, but thanks for the info on the French
health care system. 
I’ll be referring to it in the future, I know.
———————-
MarthaA, I share your disappointment over the Perot
campaign.  Lee Iacocca is said to have been willing
to run as his running mate if he’d been asked.
I cannot find anything to confirm that, though, did
you ever hear that? 
They did talk about a cabinet position, according to
Iacocca.
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1992-08-
13/topic/9208120521_1_iacocca-perot-ross

It’s a no-brainer that a 3rd presidential candidate
can act as a spoiler.  Ralph Nader (2000), John
Anderson (1980) and George Wallace (‘68, the last
3rd-partier to win electoral votes) proved that much
without a doubt.
Can a 3rd political party in America work as
something more?  That’s the question.
I believe it’s possible.  Both Perot and T.Roosevelt
came close. 
IMO, the party will have to build initially around
one dynamic individual.  Someone who can attract both
money and broad-based influence from the instant
she/he decides to run.
That’s why Sarah Palin and the Tea Party won’t make
it—Palin can generate money, but polarizes.
Ron Paul is 71, too old now.  Donald Trump can also
be a polarizing figure, Mike Bloomberg says he
doesn’t want it.

History shows it’ll be an uphill climb. 
TR got 27% of the vote in 1912, and you don’t get any
more dynamic than he. 
TR carried 6 states for 88 electoral votes, finishing
2nd over William H. Taft, the incumbent. 
Combined, Roosevelt and Taft got 50.6% of the popular
vote to Wilson’s 41.8%.  Had they mended fences and
run as Taft-Roosevelt, or vice versa, they surely
would have won.

“Fighting Bob” LaFollette carried Wisconsin and got
17% of the popular vote in 1924.  And Perot got 19%
popular, 0 electoral in 1992.

MarthaA, is there someone you had in mind to lead
this 3rd party?

“Writer On The Storm” very kindly gives this Old Savage way too much credit.  That overwhelming din-of-inequity is itself a principal by-product of the “civilized” den-of-iniquity in which our domesticated Human relations languish and complain.  From here in Indian Country, that Natural Fact is so obvious as to be hardly worth mentioning.

That he finds it “brilliant” perhaps says more about his own diminished capacity, for seeing the obvious, than it does about any talents of this Old Man….who, among our People, by-the-way, is the leading candidate for “village idiot.”

HokaHey!

oddsox, February 28 at 4:57 pm,

I supported Ross Perot, even went door to door
putting signs up in yards all over the place, then
after Admiral Stockdale’s speech “Who am I and why am I here?”  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKpX-5jQjQ0 and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6n5OQVzVVQ then after Perot said
that he did not see any reason the government
should do anything to help wounded Veterans, I
was so disappointed that I quit, and that was
the first and last time to date for me to work that
hard trying to help a politician get elected.

Perot, with all his money, was unable to get his
Reform Party EQUAL with the Democratic Party
and the Republican Party, so if there is ever
going to be a 3rd Political Party to represent the
Common Population of the United States, it will
have to be through a movement of the people for
a 3rd Political Party EQUAL in every way with the
Democratic Party and the Republican Party with their own
politicians representative of the 70%
Majority American Common Populace as a class
and culture separate and equal with the 20%
minority Corporate Middle “Nearly Noble” New
Class and Culture and the
10% Corporate-Elite Capitalist Class and Culture.

Since the Middle Class divided out of the
American Common Populace to represent
themselves as a separate class and culture, the
New Class, there is no longer any Middle Class
within the American Common Populace, as none
are of the Nearly Noble rank, but are all of the
working class and culture of the American
Common Populace in the United States and
desperately need political representation in their
best interest in the making and enforcing of
legislated law in the Congresses of the United
States.

oddsox, February 28 at 4:57 pm,

I supported Ross Perot, even went door to door
putting signs up in yards all over the place, then
after Admiral Stockdale’s speech “Who am I and why am I here?”  http://www.youtube.com
/watch?v=uKpX-5jQjQ0 and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6n5OQVzVVQ then after Perot said
that he did not see any reason the government
should do anything to help wounded Veterans, I
was so disappointed that I quit, and that was
the first and last time to date for me to work that
hard trying to help a politician get elected.

Perot, with all his money, was unable to get his
Reform Party EQUAL with the Democratic Party
and the Republican Party, so if there is ever
going to be a 3rd Political Party to represent the
Common Population of the United States, it will
have to be through a movement of the people for
a 3rd Political Party EQUAL in every way with the
Democratic Party and the Republican Party with their own
politicians representative of the 70%
Majority American Common Populace as a class
and culture separate and equal with the 20%
minority Corporate Middle “Nearly Noble” New
Class and Culture and the
10% Corporate-Elite Capitalist Class and Culture.

Since the Middle Class divided out of the
American Common Populace to represent
themselves as a separate class and culture, the
New Class, there is no longer any Middle Class
within the American Common Populace, as none
are of the Nearly Noble rank, but are all of the
working class and culture of the American
Common Populace in the United States and
desperately need political representation in their
best interest in the making and enforcing of
legislated law in the Congresses of the United
States.

Tao,

Spinning the phrase “den of iniquity” into “din of inequity” is one of your finest
efforts. Brilliant.

GOD’S COUNTRY

OS: But h$ere’s how it’s been working out for my family

And here is how my National Health Service (NHS) works out for mine in France:
* We are all covered by National Health Insurance in the family. The kids, when adult and working, will be transfered to their own accounts.
* We pay $30 to see our GP and are reimbursed $7. If anyone needs specialist services, they are reimbursed 70% of the cost. A top-up insurance for the rest costs about $150 a month. (Private room insurance might cost slightly more.)
* Should any of us come down with a serious illness, both the GP (whom I select and can change at will) and the Specialist doctor (to whom I am referred by my GP, but whom I can change at will) will confirm to the NHS that the treatment is necessary. Regardless of its duration, the state will pick up the total cost.
* There is only one insurer that you deal with, the NHS. However, if you like, you can take out private insurance and go to any non-NHS affiliated doctor that you chose.
* I select any GP I want who becomes my designated principle interface to the NHS services. I can chose whatever Specialist or hospital I want. There are both private clinics and state-run hospitals. (There is an annual independent survey that indicates which hospitals are best for which illnesses throughout France.)
* Our insurance covers us within France and within any European nation. (The countries work out the specifics between themselves.)
* It is against the law to deny me insurance coverage if I am either a citizen or legal resident of France.
* French doctors (both GPs and Specialists) earn about two-thirds the salary of their American counterparts. (An American GP earns about $160K a year (net of malpractice insurance fees.)
* The latest estimates of OECD countries indicates that the per capita cost of all health care in the US is twice that of France and seven times more than Poland. (See here.)
* Last year the OECD calculated the amount of savings that can be obtained by better health care efficiency. The average for the OECD was 1.9% of GDP. The amount of savings for the US is 2.6% of GDP. Presuming that the US makes an effort and can save 2% of GDP it can make savings of $260B per annum.

I could bore the hell out of this forum with statistics. The facts are all out there - for what America pays for Health Care, it is getting not such a great service in terms of cost. In fact, you (over there) are paying through the nose.

But neither the Medical Lobby nor Congress nor the general American public seem to care about the facts.

Too embarrassing, one must imagine. Besides, the more effective Euroepan systems, they’re all “socialized medicine” and we cannot have any of that in God’s Country, can we?

POST SCRIPTUM

Not only are you paying through the nose, but even if you’ve got some pretty good insurance and you (personally) never pay anything, it still costs you indirectly. How’s that?

The federal government is obliged by law to subsidize private HC-insurance in part. Thus, the company you work for needs to recuperate the rest from its customers. So it imputes the non-recoverable cost into the price of its goods and services.

Thus as consumers, we pay for Health Insurance for everyone, even if we have none ourselves.

Great system, isn’t it? For those running hospitals and insurance companies, its a marvelous money-spinner.

ThomasG and MarthaA:
Well, I’ve tried, and I’m willing to listen to any 3rd party candidate who comes along. 
Early on in ‘92, I was a Ross Perot supporter—this before he went ‘round the bend and “quit.”

It is indeed a personal choice and I’ve chosen.

Wish you both well, though… and, again, I’m always willing to listen.  (I’m here on this TruthDig site, aren’t I?)

oddsox, February 28 at 2:32 am,

Try harder, understanding takes effort and it is a
personal choice.

MarthaA, I’m not following you.
Both figuratively and literally.

Most of the comments here, quite in-keeping with the article inspiring them, illustrate the lethal combination of CONgenital unwillingness and socio-engineered inability preventing our domesticated Human Relations from coming-to-grips with the real nature and magnitude of what’s systematically taking-down their idolized allamericanwayof(half)life.  It isn’t such mere symptoms as epidemic “greed” and official malfeasance and institutionalized corruption which are the “root causes” of all this divisiveness and its accompanying misery.  So attempts to punish “wrongdoers,” however “self”-righteously “self”-satisfying, and efforts to tweak the machinery of government and business, however sincerely believed-in, always leave untouched the fatal flaws in attitudes and behaviors, indeed in the fundamental character of theamericanpeople (and every “one” of their fellah ‘n’ gal captives in the nation-state holding pens of the “global” maximum security regime) which are actually generating all of what’s plaguing them these days.

Our tame Sisters and Brothers would do well to start asking each other, instead, whether it’s at-all sensible to be waging all-out WAR-to-the-death against the very Living Arrangement of our Mother Earth who engendered them, as they’ve been doing now for over ten thousand years of being in-thrall to the “civilization” disease process, and yet not expect the whole idiotic enterprise to sooner-or-later blow-up in their faces….as it is doing right this minute.  It’s certainly daunting for any people to have to consider even the possibility that their fundamental assumptions about their own essential Nature, and that of Nature Herself, are incorrect.  That’s exactly what CONfronts “....your huddled masses,” however, and their wannabe lords-and-masters, too.

There are no CONventional solutions to this mess.  Neither can random collections of the ersatz “individual,” of whatever size or CONfiguration, address it to any mutually beneficial effect. 

Natural Persons ORGANized as genuine Living Human Communities, having a sufficiency of the Living Virtue of Organic Functional Integrity inherent in this Natural Organic Form of Humanity, can fulfill our given Function in Her Living Arrangement as vital components in Her immune system.  Nothing less will meet this Living Need.  So…..

ALL TOGETHER….NOW?!?!

HokaHey!

oddsox, February 27 at 8:55 pm,

Tort reform is not the solution.
Awareness is the solution.
Recognizing your own 70% Majority class and
culture, uniting and demanding political representation for your own
MAJORITY
united class and culture as a class and culture in
the making and enforcing of legislated law
and order is the solution.  Legislating and institutionalizing a new
political party(s) equal in every way with the Democratic Party and the
Republican Party is the only way to have political representation for
the united American Common Population as a class and culture that is
unrepresented now as children, subjects of the Duopoly Throne
that doesn’t believe in sharing.

“Yes, in this destructive and now-ascendant view, government exists to pad private profits but do nothing more—and that’s the kind of government we should all expect to get.”

That is, if we sit on our fat asses,incorporate the propaganda that is all around us, complain about nothing, stay ignorant about what our government is doing, and vote Republican. The latter is if we don’t demand a third party.

As long as the 70% Majority Common Population
accept the Right-Wing frame of division of their
class and culture into individuals of the Poor
Class and individuals of an Upper and Lower
Middle Class, they are dividing their class and
culture out of the power of being a class and
culture, because only as a united and
represented class and culture that they must
become,  will the 70% Majority Common
Population, the American Populace be able to
achieve political representation in the making
and enforcing of legislated law and order equal
with the American Middle Class Toadys and the
American Corporate Aristocracy.

Middle Class is a Right-Wing propaganda frame
and even
though it has been in use in the United States for
a long time,
it is nevertheless a propaganda frame of the
Common Population to remove the power of their
class and culture.

Propaganda being Rich and Poor, a binary choice
emotional rhetoric frame to keep people choosing
the Middle in a Rich or Poor Frame, they are
unable to choose Rich and Lord knows they can’t
allow themselves to be thought of as Poor, so
Middle is emotionally chosen like herding cattle,
they line to the middle. 

People will choose the Middle or Rich, instead of
being Poor.  No one wants to be Poor, they
would like to be Rich, so they choose a nebulous
Middle, amass debt, throw
away their class and culture and delete their
political
power of representation at the table as adults in
the
making and enforcing of legislated law and order
equally for their class and culture.  It’s a
Rich-Poor Propaganda Frame.

The Common Population is a 70% Majority
Common
Population Class and Culture, but through the
Right
framing a division of the Common Population as
the
Poor Class and a couple more divisions of the
Common Population as the Middle Class, the
upper and lower, very few of the common
population get any benefit because benefit
only goes to the Rich or the Poor, leaving the
Middle to fend for themselves.  Rich and Poor is a
Propaganda Frame to get
the population to choose the Middle, and the
ones getting majority benefit is the Rich,
because class and culture is
totally framed out of existence and accepted,
even though
the whole 70% Majority Common Population, the
American Populace is a class and culture. 
The Middle is not a class or a culture and
neither is the Poor a class or a culture,
with the exception of the toadys that divided out
of the
Common Population and declared themselves a
Middle Class of toadys to the Right represented
by the conservative DLC, the PPI, the 3rd Way,
the Neoliberals, Neocons and the New Democrats
and assisted by the Conservative Media always
allowing them to promote their conservative
agenda.

It is time the 70% Majority Common Population
realize
they are a Class and Culture and unite, instead
of allowing
themselves to be separated into individuals
where no
one has the benefit of Class and Culture for
legislation in the making and enforcing of
legislated law and order, and the rich make
legislation for their benefit; the middle of the
common population get nothing and the poor of
the common population get little. The middle
section of the Common Population needs to pull
their heads out of their arses and quit accepting
being the middle, realize being Middle Class is a
dupe, that the only Middle Class are the New
Class toadys of the Right.

Lafayette, again, on health care & insurance:

As you know, the US Health Care (Obamacare) bill passed last year. 
It’s 2700 pages long, I doubt any single individual knows what all’s in it. 
I sure don’t.

But here’s how it’s been working out for my family of 4 so far:

1) One month after passage, my rates went up 17% for no apparent reason.
2) This month, I received a letter informing me my premium is rising another 37% in April.

The reasons given for the most recent increase were to cover mandates under health care reform: removal of a lifetime benefits maximum, new coverage for preventative care, my children being covered until age 26 and removal of coverage limitations for pre-existing conditions. 

Bottom line: my health insurance premiums doubled in the 5 years prior to Obamacare.  They’re on a pace to double every 32 months now.

Obviously, this is unsustainable. I doubt my case is atypical.  It’s only a matter of time before middle class families like mine have to drop our coverage—and then sign up for the subsidized public option.  So much for competing on a level playing field.

IMO, what we’ve seen both before and after passage of health care reform is a giant game of pricing leap-frog played by the health care providers, insurers and malpractice attorneys. 

Something’s gotta give.  I’d suggest tort reform.

As long as the 70% Majority Common Population
accept the Right-Wing frame of division of their
class and culture into individuals of the Poor
Class and individuals of an Upper and Lower
Middle Class, they are dividing their class and
culture out of the power of being a class and
culture, because only as a united and
represented class and culture that they must
become,  will the 70% Majority Common
Population, the American Populace be able to
achieve political representation in the making
and enforcing of legislated law and order equal
with the American Middle Class Toadys and the
American Corporate Aristocracy.

Middle Class is a Right-Wing propaganda frame
and even
though it has been in use in the United States for
a long time,
it is nevertheless a propaganda frame of the
Common Population to remove the power of their
class and culture.

Propaganda being Rich and Poor, a binary choice
emotional rhetoric frame to keep people choosing
the Middle in a Rich or Poor Frame, they are
unable to choose Rich and Lord knows they can’t
allow themselves to be thought of as Poor, so
Middle is emotionally chosen like herding cattle,
they line to the middle. 

People will choose the Middle or Rich, instead of
being Poor.  No one wants to be Poor, they
would like to be Rich, so they choose a nebulous
Middle, amass debt, throw
away their class and culture and delete their
political
power of representation at the table as adults in
the
making and enforcing of legislated law and order
equally for their class and culture.  It’s a
Rich-Poor Propaganda Frame.

The Common Population is a 70% Majority
Common
Population Class and Culture, but through the
Right
framing a division of the Common Population as
the
Poor Class and a couple more divisions of the
Common Population as the Middle Class, the
upper and lower, very few of the common
population get any benefit because benefit
only goes to the Rich or the Poor, leaving the
Middle to fend for themselves.  Rich and Poor is a
Propaganda Frame to get
the population to choose the Middle, and the
ones getting majority benefit is the Rich,
because class and culture is
totally framed out of existence and accepted,
even though
the whole 70% Majority Common Population, the
American Populace is a class and culture. 
The Middle is not a class or a culture and
neither is the Poor a class or a culture,
with the exception of the toadys that divided out
of the
Common Population and declared themselves a
Middle Class of toadys to the Right represented
by the conservative DLC, the PPI, the 3rd Way,
the Neoliberals, Neocons and the New Democrats
and assisted by the Conservative Media always
allowing them to promote their conservative
agenda.

It is time the 70% Majority Common Population
realize
they are a Class and Culture and unite, instead
of allowing
themselves to be separated into individuals
where no
one has the benefit of Class and Culture for
legislation in the making and enforcing of
legislated law and order, and the rich make
legislation for their benefit; the middle of the
common population get nothing and the poor of
the common population get little. The middle
section of the Common Population needs to pull
their heads out of their arses and quit accepting
being the middle, realize being Middle Class is a
dupe, that the only Middle Class are the New
Class toadys of the Right.

Lafayette, if you’re calling for a public option to private health insurance, you have my attention.
How do you feel about a private option to public education?

from a state constitution law that prohibited borrowing…
to alternate ways via dummy corporation state bonds…
to eliminating state law that prohibited borrowing…
and since then to rack up more debt that’s tacked on!...

let government be taxpayer investment broker agents… and see country and state go broke!...
let investment brokers manage people… and see taxpayers lose their money and rights!...

(and while popular brand names and labels attack each other and attract that attention…
their bottom lines hide beneath the ground inside the same seeds they sprouted from!)...

(and also… http://citizenvoices.us )...

best wishes’n'ways’n'todays to stop government from ineptly managing people’s money and lives!...

ITW: Once you have a precedent to disallow collective bargaining for public workers, the next step is to disallow collective bargaining for corporations

Which is why the French have made it a constitutional right to strike, meaning that negotiations are obligatory.

Americans cannot understand how backwards the US is in terms of the right to work, to belong to a union and to have collective bargaining.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights was passed by the UN General Assembly in 1966. Ostensibly, it has never been ratified by the US?

Consider this Amendment from that covenant:

Article 21 & Article 22 mandates freedom of association. This provision guarantees the right to freedom of association, the right to trade unions and also defines the International Labour Organisation.

What is a trade union for if not to bargain collectively?

There may be no Khadaffi running LaLaLand on the Potomac, but then neither to the plutocrats need one if Americans behave like sheeple.

Once you have a precedent to disallow collective bargaining for public workers, the next step is to disallow collective bargaining for corporations that do business with the government, and finally to outlaw collective bargaining and unions altogether, which is what the Republicans have been seeking since the 1880’s.

They fought real slavery but have always wanted to replace it with zero workers’ rights—take what we give your or starve.

SERVICE THIS

DS: Recall that in recent years, we’ve witnessed two separate debates over two types of taxpayer-subsidized laborers.

Somebody, quick!, send DS a dictionary.

Subsidy = a sum of money granted from public funds to help an industry or business keep the price of a commodity or service. Or, a sum of money granted to support an undertaking held to be in the public interest.

Am I nitpicking? I don’t think so.

Civil Servant employees perform public services and are salaried to do so. Just like anyone who works for General Electric or IBM who proffers their services in exchange for a salary.

The question therefore is: What is and what is not a Public Service?

Conventionally, they are services that are deemed far too important to be left to private enterprise. For instance, if your house is burning, do you want the firemen to check, before intervening, if you’ve paid your annual service fee? Ditto police-work.

Some, me included, would also add Health Care to that list. I would also add Education, which also must be universal to assure optimization of a country’s economic growth.

However, do either of the above preclude and obviate private enterprise from participating in the market for such services? Of course not, for as long as minimum criteria of service performance are met. In the case of Education, it could well be average grades obtained throughout a pupil’s educational program resulting in a High School diploma.

Health Care could also be regulated to assure that private enterprise achieves a certain level of performance ... instead of simply billing for services rendered. But, at the same time, why not have a Public Service Health Care Service. There is no reason whatsoever that Health Care should not be a Public Service. And the cost of a National Health Service would not be anywhere near the present cost of private-insured HC-programs.

Finally, private enterprise already benefits very handsomely from the Public Sector. After all, the DoD, a service that protects our country from foreign invasion, spends fully 20% of the national budget on both Civil Servants (those in the military and subcontracted for services by the military) and those furnishing the military various armament programs.

MY POINT

Public Services are an integral part of our economy. They are not “socialist hand-outs”. They can be performed by regulated private enterprise or by dedicated Civil Servants working for state or Federal governments. The latter have no profit motive and therefore perhaps can perform services at lower cost.

All that the public (who is the eventual consumer of such services) care is a quality delivery of the service at a reasonable price – and to every citizen (anywhere) who might ask for it. And if the two, private and public, are asked to compete on the same level playing field, that can only serve the best interests of consumers of Public Services.

Seems like the ordinary people are flocking to states like Wisconsin to tell the Re-thuglicans “Enough”, because the Squid-o-crats haven’t stood up for them since 1982.

samosamo,
Re: breaking up the big banks:
Yes, I’ve been blogging this idea about for well over
2 years (including a letter to my senators & reps +
Obama & Biden & here on TruthDig), it’s great to see
Kansas City’s Federal Reserve President Hoenig’s
weighted opinion in agreement.  Robert Reich’s, too,
if you’ll allow me to stretch his point calling anti-
trust legislation “a traditional tonic” for Too-Big-
To-Fails.

The goal isn’t to punish the banks, but to create
more competition between them.
Better local lending practices, increased employment
and lower CEO pay will be happy by-products.
(Actually, let the stockholders pay their new CEOs as
much as they dare… only no bailouts this time)

AT&T’s 1985 breakup can serve as a model, as can the
Trust-busting during the first two decades of the
20th century (railroad, oil, tobacco, cattle, steel
trusts).
There is ample precedent under the 1890 Sherman Anti-
trust Act.

And the timing couldn’t be better!
All big-bank TARP loans have been repaid. The $2B of
principle left outstanding is spread out among 500-
odd smaller banks, most owing $100M or less.

——-

As for the mainstream media, I agree with you there
isn’t a nickel’s worth of difference between them in
the newsroom.  And it seems they act in concert, even
the human interest stories are the same on nightly
newscasts from ABC, CBS & NBC.

But their ratings are falling fast & there are so
many alternatives.  Cable news (Fox, CNN), PBS, and,
of course, internet sources like Huffington Post and,
yes, TruthDig.  Traditional newspapers are morphing
into online media hubs, too—I visit the Wall
Street Journal, NY Times, LA Times, Washington Post
easily and often. 
As Thomas Friedman likes to describe it, the news
industry is becoming flat.

What this means is, homogeneous as they are, the MSM
are wounded and losing strength.  It’d be hard to
prove how they restrain trade, one of the key burdens
of proof in an anti-trust suit.

****************

Ian H,
“”“(1), the department may sell any state?owned heating,
cooling, and power plant or may contract with a private entity
for the operation of any such plant, with or without solicitation
of bids, for any amount that the department determines to be in
the best interest of the state.”

Does anyone read that and think that is going to lead to a
balanced budget and any form of fiscal accountability? I no I
don’t. It makes me think of Halliburton and Blackwater and how
even in a time where information is instantly available,
corruption is paraded right in front of us.”“
*****************

I don’t either. For basically when private buys public they do so
knowing their tax obligations are severely reduced or not
required at all. That is a basic part of the ‘unfettered’ world
market which just so happens to include the american backyard.

The absurdity of all of this is that our elected prostitutes can get away with justfying the relegation of public sector employees to the lowest common denominator of labor’s value as dictated by our glorious and greedy corporatocracy and that the very people in the private sector who are being screwed and devalued themselves are all in favor of it instead of demanding the return of what has been stripped from them! Can the American populace be so stupid as to allow these latter day robber barons and their political minions to destroy our physical and societal infrastructure while allowing the perps to do so in the name of the never to be seen “trickle down” bonanza? Can these same benighted citizens be so dense as to not understand the reason for the turmoil in the ME? Of a hopeful answer to the above I despair! FREE BRADLEY MANNING!!!!!

I don’t think we should get carried away with saying Democrats are willing to draw a line in the sand. I think that masks their actions as something more noble. I won’t claim to be an expert or even well-informed when it comes to what’s going on in Wisconsin.

What I have seen from an admittedly uninformed look is that all of this attention on breaking up the unions is stealing the spotlight from yet another example of massive corruption.

“(1), the department may sell any state?owned heating, cooling, and power plant or may contract with a private entity for the operation of any such plant, with or without solicitation of bids, for any amount that the department determines to be in the best interest of the state.”

Does anyone read that and think that is going to lead to a balanced budget and any form of fiscal accountability? I no I don’t. It makes me think of Halliburton and Blackwater and how even in a time where information is instantly available, corruption is paraded right in front of us.

I think we’re just seeing more and more and more examples of laws being twisted and warped as long as it’s for the right price.

****************

oddsock “It’s anti-trust legislation. Now’s the time to break up
the big banks so We The People won’t be held over a barrel
again.”“
************
Agreed but if we talk anti-trust legislation, I have often
wondered when that legislation was rescinded or just ignored,
then not just for banks. A reason the jobs left this country and
the remaining facilities left behind, empty, is the 2 most
deleterious monopolies of all, the horizontal and the vertical
integrated corporations. If this country wants to create jobs to
put people back to work, then breaking these monopoly
monsters up is imperative.

Case in point is the mainstream media especially where only 4 or
5 owners control what the hapless minions of america just turn
on their t.v. to watch and believe in the ‘exoteric infotainment’
dribble they spew out daily for the minions to mull over for
making decisions which is mostly empty air.

When will the average voter realize that they don’t belong in the same category as the rich? By rich I mean those people that own companies or enough stock to make a living without working. They are the people and corporations that will do anything to avoid paying taxes.

All the rest of us should be proud to be a taxpayer helping to provide a better world for our children, grand-children and great-grand-children.

If you follow the path of the rich, you will soon find out that the path becomes littered with the bodies of those less fortunate than you. Will you at least help to clear the path, or are you one of those who will just step over those left behind? If you are, I feel sorry for you as you will soon find other obstacles on the path that you can’t overcome. The Rich will never let you into their Kingdom.

The Supreme Court put nails in the individual rights’ coffin when they wrongly declared that corporations have an equal right to free speech .... as if.  Now anybody with enough cash can influence public policy - that’s why the bankers who really caused all the budetary problems will continue to get off scot free.
So the corporate god-heads who oppose collective bargaining of any kind have decided to cut the legs from under public employees - EVEN when those same employees agree to cuts in benefits and pay. 
  Ask yourself this question: What does a person “deserve” by way of pension, salary, working conditions, health care, and other benefits on the basis that the person has an advanced degree (masters and above) and over 30 years experience?  On that basis, experienced teachers should be making what engineers and technical workers make; instead, Govs. Walker, Christie, and Daniels choose to cut them back below what that teenager at the 7-11 makes.
  Note that the public employee pension fund in Indiana has also been at bankruptcy level for years.
  The whole issue of collective bargaining and budgets are really a subset of an international takeover of power by big corporate players.  Massive monetary power trumps ALL.

How will the powerful in DC ‘recommend’ we ‘fix the nation’s finances’?

1 Continue the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy
2 Continue to tax hedge fund managers at 15%
3 Continue the low tax rates actually paid by corporations (not the nominal, but
the actual rate)
4 Cut middle class pensions
5 Eliminate employee rights
6 Raise payroll taxes on working Americans (and even tax their unemployment
benefits)
7 Continue to fund the overhead of ‘health’ insurance companies at 20%
8 Limit actual health care to Americans
9 Reduce Social Security benefits by manipulating the ‘cost of living’
computation and extending the retirement age for eligibility
10 Continue policies that encourage private corporate speculation by providing
for private sector debt to be shifted to the public, i.e. to the taxpayers.

The bet is at least 80% of these will be part of the ‘solution’ from Obama, the
Republicans and nominal Democrats who are actually Republicans.

Pity the American citizens who have lost all control - and lost almost all
influence - on their own government.

“Two Pay Standards”
One for those of us who work in the real world, and one for those who have a monopoly on the labor supply for the government.

Those of us who work in the real world are getting our benefits trimmed back. State governments are going to be doing the same for their workforce.

Is there really a “right to collective bargaining” if you work for the government?  If not, why are we pretending that there is?

Welcome to the real world, my socialist friends.

self-correct… $7.25 x 1000 = $7,250.
(Alan, you got me goin’ nuts, too!)

Alan, your The National Financial Equity Bill of 2011 is nuts.
 
I don’t even think you mean it the way it’s written: 
Minimum wage is $7.25/hr right now, x1000 = 72,500. 
And you want any individual “in possession of worldwide assets” over that amount to give the rest to the US Treasury?

“‘Time for bed,’ said Sleepy Head.  ‘Time enough,’ said Slow.’  ‘Put on the pot,’ said Greedy Gut, ‘and we’ll eat before we go.’” 

Those “self”-chosen few whose unabashed avarice is the subject of so much bitter criticism here are every-bit as desperate about the disintegrating ‘situtation’ as are the supposedly “self”-abused “huddled masses” among the lower eCONomic orders.  What they all have in-common, though, is the CONgenitally-ingrained belief that it’s nothing but the make-believe of “money” that can and will give them their best chances of surviving the coming (hell….the already-in-progress and on-going and steadily-worsening) catastrophe.  It’s just that the “Wall Streeters” have figured-out a lot more “efficient” method for raking-in the stuff in substantial quantities.  Meantime, the lesser breeds buy lottery tickets….or hope for some other “lucky break” to lift them out of ‘the fire’ and back into ‘the frying pan.’

It’s all symptomatic of the terminal stage of the “civilization” disease process.  Recognizing that they’re deathly ill, however, and as a direct CONsequence of their own foolish behavior at-that, is no easier for the billions of “individual”-ized Humans addicted-to (or hoping to become addicted-to) “modern” comfort and CONvenience, than it is for junkies generally who are temporarily ‘enjoying’ still relatively easy access-to (or hoping to get that access-to) their drug-of-choice.

Meantime, our Mother Earth and Her Natural Living Arrangement are not standing-still.  The natural imperative to keep balance and harmony within it is already overwhelming the rapidly diminishing artifactual capacity of homo domesticus to sustain the forced imbalance, with its accompanying din-of inequity (thought stupidly to be entirely to the advantage of that doomed sub-species in-general, but most especially to the benefit of the ruling elite in-particular) that is presently giving-way….with all the terrifying implications and effects that has for and on all our tame Human Relations.

What the ‘rich’ know full-well, but the rest of the inmates have yet to realize, is that there simply isn’t room enough in the ‘life-boat’ of the eCONomy (which is nothing, anyhow, except the ‘operating-system’ of the “ciilization” disease) for any but their own ‘kind,’ and enough of the technocrats among their retainers to keep it afloat.  That means ninety-plus percent of the inmate population is already effectively redundant to the privateering pyramid scheme.

For all of them, the only remaining viable option is The Tiyoshpaye Way….The Way of Genuine Organic Community….Natural Persons ORGANized to fulfill the given Organic Function of Humanity here as components in Her immune system. 

ALL TOGETHER….NOW????

HokaHey!

Note to TDOFF,  You made my day with your blog.

David Sirota column’s reminded me of Warren Buffetts comment when asked
about the possibility of class warfare in the U.S. His response was “we already
have class warfare and the billionaires are winning.” A billionaire like David
Koch can pick up the phone and get access to Scott Walker (even a fake David
Koch), while the governor doesn’t have the time to bother with his fellow state
employees. Mr. Sirota’s column did a nice job summing up what is really going
on in this country today. No matter which political party is in power, we pay
homage to Wall Street and banks. They must be protected at all costs. Too bad
about government employees. They are just servants, who should know their
place. That is the way capitalism works in the U.S. A few get all the goodies
while the rest get those famous trickle down crumbs. If enough members of a
family unit work, they can accumulate enough crumbs to maintain a semblance
of a standard of living. CEO’s get upset if Obama dares criticize their outsized
incomes and whine about being “picked on”. Obama then has to go around
apologizing to Wall Steet and the Chamber of Commerce. Republican’s then go
on the record complaining that Obama should quit apologizing for America,
which he has never done. Republican’s love it when Obama apologizes to Wall
Street for demonizing them. Luckily for Wall Street, it takes a lot to get America
mad, but Scott Walker is getting close.

Regarding the wall street ‘workers’ who say you have to pay more to attract talent, I say this: with talent like that who needs incompetence.

There is a problem with referring to our banking and other financial enterprises as ‘Industries’. They are ‘Businesses’. ‘Industry’ usually connotes a ‘Product’, and most ‘Industries’ are named for their product(s), e.g. the Automobile Industry, the Steel Industry, the Computer Industry’. So if our ‘Financial’ businesses insist on being called ‘Industries’, we should name them for their products, i.e., the Fraud Industry, the Scam Industry, the Theft Industry, the Steal Industry, the Ponzi-Scheme Industry, the Will-Of-The-Wisp Phony-Derivative Industry, et.al.

Quote: It also suggests that Democrats are willing—finally!—to draw a line in the sand.

Uh, winner of the Naive Columnist of the Week Award.

odd sox is dead on: “serious” anti-trust steps must be taken and taken soon. But I would be very surprised—and very pleased—to see it happen in the Great Liberal Hope’s second term. No, rather, I predict it won’t happen until we are at the very brink of ruin—again. Not sure I’d bet on it then either.

Honest labor creates the capital that the ists trade on, yet the laborers are paid a fraction of that capital’s worth. Other, productive, brinks of ruin can be created when the laborers refuse to labor.

oddsox ~ Yes, the tarp has nearly been repaid. Nonetheless bankers are getting risk free funding through the back door overnight lending window of the Fed. They use that money to buy T-Bonds, (the interest rate payment is on the taxpayer’s back) and leverage that pretty much guarenteed source to do the same kind of exotic trades that got us this bag of worms economy.

There was a tacit understanding that a recovered investment banker sector would raise all boats by reaching out to those caught in the collapse. Reckon there should have been something written in stone. “Trust us, we’ll do the right thing for ya.” Same mantra heard over the mortgage lending counter, and yet a heavily lobbied Congress bought it.

Carnegie’s “Wealth is responsibility” quote only goes as far as supporting the traders down the hall who are now touting their bonuses with the purchase of gold flaked hamburgers (true, a new craze amidst elites), in off hours. So I think the article touched only the tip of the iceberg.

Damned if I don’t partly agree with Sirota here!
Even though nearly all the TARP money has been repaid ($2B of $245B principle still outstanding), the bailout was an act of extortion against the American people.
But the solution isn’t an NFL-style salary cap or jail time for corrupt CEOs (as Sirota suggested in a previous op-ed).
It’s anti-trust legislation. 
Now’s the time to break up the big banks so We The People won’t be held over a barrel again.
 
KC Fed. Reserve President Thomas Hoenig agrees: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/8344309/Kansas-City-Federal-Reserve-Bank-President-Thomas-Hoenig-calls-for-Wall-Street-banks-to-be-broken-up.html#disqus_thread

and Robert Reich hinted at it as an overlooked solution in his book, “Aftershock.”

As for the public employees in Wisconsin, Sirota again sets a false premise and overlooks the obvious.
A much better piece on the subject was penned earlier this week by David Brooks, NY Times. 
He offers a solution, too.  A good read!

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/22/opinion/22brooks.html?_r=1&ref=davidbrooks