Aloha Politics

Why don’t you know the facts of the EU social safety net? Why won’t the plutocrat owned American media cover this?

In the European Union everyone to include low wage workers who aren’t even unionized are able to receive 4 weeks paid vacation a year. They are able to receive as a human right complete medical and dental to include a prescription plan with little or no co-pays or deductibles. They are never exposed to exclusion of medical services based on pre-existing conditions, which seems to be a uniquely American phenomenon. Everyone to include low wage workers gets paid sick leave. Everyone gets job protected paid maternity leave by right of law. Now why don’t these things exist in America? Is it by accident or by design and if it is by design, who designed it? Who profits from it? To whose benefit and whose detriment. Moreover why isn’t this on every news channel. Why is it you have to read about this on a Kos diary. Why isn’t this news headlines all across the country everyday? Who owns those media outlets? Who influences editorial policy. Is the American media complicit in aiding and abetting Wall Street in screwing the American worker and screwing the American taxpayer. Why aren’t we mad as hell about this everyday! When is it enough??

Here are some simple facts, simply put did you know that students in Continental Europe basically don’t have student loan debt? Why don’t you know that?

Isn’t it enough that they’re drowning your kids in student loan debt. You want to know something even crazier which I’m sure you don’t know, did you know the lifetime limit of the Federal Stafford Student Loan hasn’t been increased in over 20 years! Now why the hell is that? Who are they trying to keep out of higher education, could it be that if too many working class stiffs get too educated, that they will try to dismantle this system which is rotten to the core from the inside, because that’s it isn’t it. They want to limit educational opportunity to just their people on the one hand, on the other hand they want to drown you and your kids in student loan debt. Did you know this doesn’t happen in any country in Continental Europe, I’m sure you don’t know that. I want to know why you don’t know that? Who has kept that information from you? And why? Did you know and this is serious, that education in Continental Europe is almost free. Let me just say that again, so that nobody thinks this is a typo, education in Continental Europe is almost free of charge that is to say, that American students probably spend as much or more on books, just books for the school year, than students in Continental Europe spend in an entire year’s tuition. You may ask how is that possible? Let me ask you how is it possible that you didn’t know that? Could it be so they can continue to drown you and your kids in student loan debt, because this has become a source of neo-indentured servitude, therein creating a really compliant workforce, because now you really need that job. You have got to pay off a lot of student debt, imagine that. Well you don’t have to imagine that, you live it everyday, and you swallow it and you take it and you take it until you can’t take it anymore, and then it’s enough! Oh by the way those same students in Europe get virtually free health insurance and if they have a family they are covered as well. Again tiny or no co-pays or deductibles, no pre-existing conditions to exclude one from health care coverage.

Go here for the full story: Why doesn’t the plutocrat owned American media report on the European social safety net?+

The President’s action and Congress’s inaction in this matter show that the partisan shadow-boxing that goes on in Washington is just so much kabuki for the cameras. There certainly is no “deep partisan divide” about serving the interests of elites like bankers and the military industrial complex. This matter amply demonstrates the utter failure of our election system to deliver a government that provides real checks and balances to represent the interests of the war-weary and economically damaged American public.

Go here to read the full story: Obama continues Bush’s “State of National Emergency,” Congress Abdicates Legal Responsibilities+

Superfraud

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a turkey!

I thought I had worked out all the worst-case scenarios for the supercommittee (there was never a best-case). But this is even worse than my worst imagining: a deal to undermine key social insurance programs in return for a promise that Congress will come up with a plan for raising revenue at some future date. If you think that promise has any credibility whatsoever – if you have any doubts that the end result would be to gut Social Security and actually cut taxes for the wealthy – I have this Nigerian bank account that can be yours if you send me $100,000 in expenses.

If we hadn’t deregulated banks and markets, we wouldn’t be facing the kind of disaster that we’ve seen over the last three years. If we hadn’t drastically reduced tax rates for the wealthy, we wouldn’t have seen pension funds dry up and middle class wages stagnate. If we hadn’t given corporations more and more political clout, we wouldn’t be where we are—in a broken system that serves them, not us.

Go here to read a really simply put well written article using baseball as a metaphor: Three strikes against Wall Street

Full Story here: Updated – My Call to Senator Kerry – Not Reassuring
This is what

I identified myself as a resident of Massachusetts. I told the woman who answered the phone that there should be no cuts to Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid. She then read me a script saying that revenues have to be part of the package and that we have to make sure that Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are solvent, and that there was a coming demographic problem with the aging of the baby boomers. So I told her that there was no problem with Social Security, and that Social Security was solvent until 2037. She then said that there was a problem with Social Security after that. Then I told her that this projection was based on an extremely pessimistic view of the US economy – that it would grow more slowly than it has every grown in the last century, including during the Great Depression. At this point, she decided that she couldn’t talk to me any more since she had nine other callers on hold. This, in spite of the fact that she answered my call on the second ring. She said I should send an email to Senator Kerry. I pointed out that Kerry limited the size of the emails he would receive, and she said that I could attach anything I wanted to the email. I told her that I had more to say and that she needed to listen to me. Then she hung up on me.

I was going to tell her the following:

1. Social Security is solvent.

2. Medicare and Medicaid would save enormous amounts of money if we had Medicare for all and could negotiate with drug companies on prices of drugs.

3. The top 1% of earners (over $450,000 per year) used to have about 8% of the total income in the 1970s. Now they have nearly 24% of the total income, and the top 0.1% has 11% of the total income. This is where the money needs to come from, as well as from increased corporate taxes.

4. I was also going to refer her to the comprehensive reports on Social Security and health care on the web site of the Sudbury Democratic Town Committee (sudburydemocrats.org). I even mentioned the web site before she hung up.

WASHINGTON — The House early Saturday approved a huge package of spending cuts, slashing more than $60 billion from domestic programs, foreign aid, and even some military projects, as the new Republican majority made good on its pledge to turn the grassroots fervor of the November elections into legislative action to shrink the size and scope of government.

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