Single Payer Healthcare

I may as well get this post out of the way.  I support single payer healthcare…as long as the single payer is the patient and the recipient of the pay is the doctor.

Socialized medicine is such an awful idea for this country and really represents a step backward for freedom in this country.  Like Social Security and so many other large programs meant to do good, it will bankrupt the country, become bloated and never deliver on the original promise made.  If we care at all about having a monetary system in this country that is built on wealth and capital we need to stop looking for holes to throw money down.

More government intervention is the not the solution for the problems caused by other attempts at intervention.  I hope and pray something reverses this love affair with socialism/fascism corporatism that this country seems to be having the last two decades.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer

It will be dead soon.  Good riddance.  Terrible newspaper that hasn’t made any money in years.  In this post I told you about a run-in I had with representative from the P-I.  I hope he’s found gainful employment with some place more stable.

As promised, I will buy their last edition on their final day and use it for toilet paper.  Which section should I start with?

You all vote:

• Local
• Sports
• Business
• Comics
• US/World

What I've been up to

I've been a little slow on the blog posts as you've noticed. Here's why.

I got my mom out of the Nursing/Rehab facility on February 13th and went home. She spent two days at home with 24 hour care but really wasn't able to stay home alone safely. So she's living at my house.

We've been working on her getting her to do the very basic aspects of life independently. You know...walking, eating, bathroom, medicine management, etc. I took every day off last week to dedicate fully to getting her to a point where she could be at my house when no one is there.

I've not had any free time to do anything and the stress level (which has now subsided) has been very intense. So to the many of you who asked me to comment on Obama's speech...I will...eventually but honestly I watched the whole thing and just said, "So what."

I have some awesome posts coming up, but haven't put them together yet. Posting will now resume a normal schedule...thanks everyone for understanding.

Socialism is dead?

...but Nationalization is alive and well apparently.

We're all fooled by this obviously.

The benefits of competition

The greatest generation overcame the Great Depression, defeated Hitler and nuked Japan for all of the freedoms we now enjoy.  They then went ahead and gave birth to the most selfish and spoiled generation of jerks known to man.  These are of course the baby boomers.

I call them jerks because the promises made to their parents through Roosevelt's hankering for massive intervention they claimed for themselves.  If claiming these promises for their own were not bad enough they doubled their portion at the taxpayer's trough. 

They are a large generation and the wealthiest age demographic in the history of the country.  Despite their wealth and bloated population they're not content until the entire country is broke taking care of them.  This said, they are experiencing many benefits of competition in a market.

Recently I visited an assisted living/retirement community.  The building was erected only a year ago and sits just six blocks from my middle-class subdivision.  The place has a resort vibe to it that makes you realize the days of "old folks homes" has long since past.  This place is nicer than my own home.

The large baby boomer population is now approaching retirement age so the business of caring for them has become a growth industry, even in this uncertain economy.  Companies that provide Assisted Living and retirement services must now compete for retirement dollars by providing amenities, comfort, and true community.  Only competition and the promise of a profit would produce this type of product.

We should be thankful that Obama's new Raw Deal doesn't include a provision for a Federal Retirement Housing Authority.  I'm sure if it did it would involve repurposing older Veteran's Hospitals and Asylums for the Criminally Insane...at twice the cost.

So while the baby boomers are ruining our country, it's good that they provided this one nice little market object lesson for all of us.

Disclaimer:  Please...if you're in the baby boomer generation understand that I'm only joking.  You're not ruining this country any more than say...70's Disco music did.

Inconvenient Debt

Glenn Beck used to be a conservative and with the help of Ron Paul,  Penn Jillette and lately Bob Barr, he has begun a bit of a libertarian transformation.  Here he uses a timeline graph to demonstrate money supply as it relates to different events in our nation's history.

Hat tip to Producer J. who took a little time off from his great work on the Dave and Steve Show to forward this video along.

So where is the $800 billion coming from?

The short answer is nobody knows. 

Once Congress appropriates this money and the President signs the bill into law all we will know is that around 800 billion dollars will be authorized for spending for the purpose of economic stimulus.  The US Treasury will then go about getting the money for Congress to spend...except it's not there.

The Treasury will go to the Federal Reserve and they will go about doing all that they can to procure the money.  We have no idea what the Federal Reserve will need to do in order to get this much money.  After all of the bailouts it's not likely they will be able to borrow all of it without dramatically raising interest rates.  How will this impact the economy?  The very act of getting the money to stimulate the economy may end up dragging it down further.  The average congressman has NO IDEA what will be required to get the dollar figure they are appropriating.

1. If it is borrowed interest rates will be forced to rise
2. If it is monetized then inflation will rise
3. If it is taxed then the private economy shrinks

It would be nice to hear just once, someone in government (besides Ron Paul) acknowledge that the simple act of securing this money could do great damage alone before it is even spent.

New Drug Czar?

No one subject works to gather emails in my Inbox than the subject of our nation's drug policy.  When I write about drug legalization it just seems to piss a whole bunch of you off.  Sorry.  I advocate for the legalization of drugs and I do so without reservation. 

President Obama looks to have selected former Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske to the position and I think this could lead to a positive direction on drug law enforcement.  Kerlikowske was a joke when it came to leading Seattle's police, but his position on drug enforcement was pretty reasonable.  He followed much of the groundwork laid by former police chief Norm Stamper (Norm appeared in this post last year) who made sure that marijuana possession was demoted to the lowest enforcement priority...lagging far behind jay-walking.  (and if you've ever jay-walked in Seattle you know this to be true)

I don't like having laws that are such nonsense that we don't bother to enforce them.  This tendency in America really erodes the rule of law as a whole, but the Federal Government has victimized so many innocent people due to unreasonable (and unconstitutional) drug laws that a "non-enforcement" policy is a true improvement.

Since many of you can't imagine a non-user advocating for legalization...I'll end this post with my obligatory disclaimer:

I've never taken any drugs in my life without a prescription from a doctor.  Having been around drug users in my life I very actively talk about the lack of wisdom related to so-called casual drug use.

Is Stimulis right for you?