It seems likely that if the Government both Federal and State can not respond to these basic needs, why are they so shocked and surprised by the skeptic approach many American’s are voicing about Health care. Now don’t take me the wrong way the Barnie Frank piece on the Woman from another planet was right on! Many of these disturbed comments have no place in the discussions, but still the pressure of survival is touching more and more of main street and the tone of discussion is reaching a peak. Not to mention the President and the Democrats in name only taking a walk on the Public Option instead of explaining the savings that could be had to the American people, has been a total miss management of the issue. The Public Option held out the greatest hope of taking one of life’s basic needs off of Middle class American’s worry list. Just Like Medicaid did for seniors back in 1965 when it was implemented.
You really should take the time to look these articles over if your interested in understanding more about what is worrying Main Street and why they are not looking at the Health care debate with as much energy as the folks from outer space
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32…
13% of all American home owners are either behind on payments or in foreclosure.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32…
for the second week in a row Jobless claims are up.
regardless of the outcome of the Health Care Insurance reform we need to remember it is still about the economy that matters most to Main Street America and the fact that the Obama Administration seems to have moved on is no indication that the economy is on the right track, or is even showing signs of true healing instead the only thing healing are the Bailed out banks that are using our tax money to pay huge bonuses and keep their jobs and paychecks in tact. There is something to be said about the growing divide in the have and have-nots when we can spend trillions on the elite and watch the furniture pile up on the street corner with out comment.
I was hopping that our congress would find the time energy and brain power to multi-task these two issues and show how one is important to the other yet most of what is coming out is they have moved on and only Health care is on the mind. Lets hope we see and here more soon.
As Usual Just my Opinion
A modern version of the WPA and CCC are needed HERE – just as outbidding the Taliban for brawn is what it will take to shut down the Afghanistan sink hole.
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p>I am NOT talking about nation building, either, but rather that fathers will do anything to keep their families from starving before their eyes AND when Americans are more worried about a roof over their heads and their next meal most won’t care or feel positive about health care reform.
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p>Reminder Abraham Maslow was right if deficiency needs like food, clothing, shelter, safety are not met, then higher functions like empathy and advance planning are just not supported.
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p>Where are today’s college graduates going to work? What happens when the laid off factory workers in Detroit and the laid off financial workers in Boston run out of unemployment?
and regulations making the rapid creation of jobs impossible. Not too long ago I read an article somewhere about how if FDR tried to reproduce the New Deal with projects like the TVA Dam, he would be shit out of luck. It would take 10 years of planning, surveying, environmental studies… before they finally figured out the Dam could not be built due to fish migration and downstream water issues. Anecdotally, a very good friend of mine has a small company doing construction/paving… here in MA and he told me hundreds of millions of dollars of Stimulus money is stalled coming into MA for these same reasons. The Fed money is there but we need “shovel ready” projects and most of them take YEARS to plan and get approved before a shovel gets lifted.
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p>Do you think FDR would be sidelined by having the prevailing wage laws stop him from hiring plain old laborers to sweep streets if they had to in order to get a paycheck and work 8 hours. He had the luxury of just being able to do things like hire 10,000 men and give them sledge hammers and rail and timber and they would go lay tracks for trains.
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p>Obama has his hands tied trying to do much of this and THAT IMO is why the Stimulus money has not made a significant effect on our economy yet.
This post on Baseline Scenario complete with scary graph shows a number of frightening things:
The author goes on to point out that the mortgage servicers have learned to game the regulations so that when they renegotiate the mortgage they skim off a huge fees(50% of the payment in some cases) and so it ceases to be in the interests of the creditor to renegotiate. We also have a shortage of people able to do that kind of renegotiation.
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p>This policy had the promise of braking the downward spiral on the real estate market. That promise is unfulfilled.
it seems that the health of the economy is gauged by the stock market, which has stopped the nosedive and has begun to creep upward. The people on CNBC are all a chatter about how we are now in a recovery and are conversing that a good strong rally is right around the corner.
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p>They don’t have a clue about what is really going on in hometown America. The market goes up even on reports of increased jobless claims because the increase was less than they expected (huh?). It seems they don’t get that the truth is that PEOPLE ARE STILL LOSING JOBS.
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p>I could on and on, but you are right. The economy is not improving, perhaps it is stagnant, but that is no comfort for the people who are spending their entire paychecks every
week on housing, utilities, and basic needs.
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p>I did hear Obama mention a few weeks ago that the economy has not improved yet and that the health of the economy cannot be gauged by stock market. It was refreshing to hear him speak the truth, however it was largely ignored and I have heard nothing of it since.
I appreciate you coming around to my point of view. Can you see how the mandated approach to healthcare has put people out of work while giving them healthcare? How maybe the people yelling at town halls have some point?
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p>Mandated healthcare will be a huge windfall for insurance companies. End-of-life rationing will be a windfall for huge companies with pension obligations.
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p>Too often we imagine that the battle is between somebody making $40K/year and somebody else making $90K/year. In fact, some people got trillions of dollars from the government, and others got they salaries effectively cut in half by inflation caused by “printing” that money for the bailouts.
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p>The main issue for us is no longer an adversarial system between two classes (upper mid and lower mid), it’s the mercantile class, which uses government policy for its business advantage, versus everybody else.