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Public funding of elections is really the only thing that is going to work. "Your future is with us and not with the big money interests" might be true, but we must get all the money-grubbing out of congress.
mental healthcare needs to be included in the debate. we need to have a system that gives total suport to thoose with mental disorders. not the hmos 25 visits in a year for a therapist.
I was so interested to hear the psychological process that turns a liberal, conscientious senator like Ron Wyden into a mouthpiece for the insurance industry. Wyden truly believes he means well and that his insurance run health-care plan will work.
There are countries who use private insurance companies to run their National Health Care plans, but they aren't using private insurance companies who have designed their business structures with unethical practices for more than a decade. There is no way that we can reign in our Insurance executives and suddenly, overnight turn them into ethical, compassionate gatekeepers for health care. Insurance companies have slowly and methodically formed their pool of exectives and employees into robber barons who believe they are justified into wiggling out of paying for promised care.
US Insurance companies would have to do a 180 degree turn in how they run their businesses and this would necessitate hiring new executives and employees who live their lives in ethical, compassionate ways.
We may as well have the US Government hire those new employees for the medicaid program in order to avoid retraining the robber barons in the US insurance industry.
http://www.portlandia.etsy.com
Dude!!!! You crunched sanders.senate.gov . . . Yesterday, it was Priate.org!!!
Solve healthcare by removing those two most heinous legal words from the Medicare Act “over sixty-five” and slicing out the donut hole out the Part “D” AND popping the FICA cap. Bingo! Bango! Boom! No problem AND enough cash to cover Social Security F O R E V E R also.
Max Baucus needs a copy of Bernie’s pamphlet . . . And a new job.
Note: I composed this post in MSWord and pasted it on the blog. I indicated the paragraphs I copied from the article at the Indian Resource Center website by preceding and following them by the word "snip" inside of the backward and forward and backward arrow signs. These arrow signs didn't appear. Apparently the site interprets them as some kind of HTML or something. Booooooooo!
The two paragraphs I copied from that article are the two right after the link to the article. The first paragraph started with "Communities living around Coca-Cola’s bottling plants across India are facing severe water shortages," and the second paragraph started with "Towards the end of the rally, the marchers decided to march to the factory gate"
On Thursday, July 2, 2009, Thom spoke with an investment advisor name Joe Ponzio. I usually listen to the show from a secure secret location, but I had slipped out without my normal security detail and was motivating around town when I heard that interview. Ponzio repeatedly cited Coca Cola as good company to buy stocks in and I was surprised that Thom never raised any question about the ethical implications of such an investment.
After that segment, a woman caller did raise the ethical concerns, but Thom parried her objections by saying that Coca Cola wouldn’t benefit from our purchases of their stock. The company only benefits when it sells its stocks in the initial offering. He also added a comment that some organizations buy enough shares to be able to attend shareholders meetings so that they can raise questions about the company’s policies. I think Thom’s answers missed the mark.
I’ll address the last point first. The segment was about Ponzio’s investment strategies not about protest tactics, so that point didn’t apply to the questions the caller raised.
Thom’s first point was that Coca Cola wouldn’t get any money from your purchase of its stocks. That’s true, but the picture is more complex than that. There are several ways that our purchase of stock can benefit the company.
Demand has an influence on the price of stocks and when you buy stocks you’re maintaining or boosting demand, keeping the price up or even increasing it. Thom has pointed out many times that a major part of the compensation for upper management of major corporations is in stock options. When you keep the stock price up by maintaining or increasing demand, you increase the compensation of the very management that plans and carries out the policies you may find objectionable.
Your purchase of the stock may benefit the company itself in other ways. It can help the company raise money for expansion or other purposes. This can happen in at least two ways. The company can issue a new stock offering. The higher the price of the stock in the secondary market, the greater the value of the new stock issue and the more money the company can raise. If the company seeks to borrow money from a financial institution, the price of its stock is one of the factors that will be determine whether it gets the loan and the terms of the loan.
Individually, most of us don’t have the power to impact the price of a stock, but what if the millions of Thom’s audience went out and bought a stock based on what they heard on his show. Don’t you think that would impact the price of the stock, which would have an effect on the company in the ways I’ve stated?
But let’s put the benefit to the company aside. Let’s assume that what I’ve written above is wrong. I think that a case could be made for not investing in the stock of a company like Coca Cola. When you buy a company’s stock, unless you’re doing it for protest purposes, you’re essentially co-signing to the company’s policies and business practices or at the very least saying you don’t care.
Activists have criticized and protested many of the policies of Coca Cola.
It’s been charged that union activists in Colombia have been killed and tortured by paramilitaries working in collusion with Coca Cola plant management. This goes back to the early 1990s at least. Barack Obama raised the repression of labor in Colombia when he voiced opposition to a trade agreement between the U.S. and Colombia.
The India Resource Center has a lot of information about impact of Coca Cola’s actions in India. There’s a lot of information about Coca Cola in India at that site. Here are a couple of paragraphs from an article on their website. The article is at http://www.indiaresource.org/press/2004/mehdiganjattack.html
Communities living around Coca-Cola's bottling plants across India are facing severe water shortages, and the groundwater and soil have also been polluted, directly as a result of Coca-Cola's bottling operations in the area. The Coca-Cola company has also illegally occupied land in the area. Furthermore, tests have confirmed that Coca-Cola products in India contain high levels of pesticides, including DDT, sometimes higher than 30 times those allowed by US or EU standards. Coca-Cola was also distributing toxic waste from its plant to farmers in India, including Mehdiganj, under the guise of "fertilizer".
Towards the end of the rally, the marchers decided to march to the factory gates, about a hundred meters from the site of the rally. The armed police reacted violently and swiftly, with no warnings. The armed police launched a vicious lathi (baton) charge on all the marchers, and many women, in particular, became the target of male police officers who beat them incessantly. The police also chased after community members in the surrounding fields to beat them, many of whom were escaping the site of the violent police action. A Budhist monk was also attacked by the police, who showed no regard whatsoever for any one present in the area. The police attacks were ordered by Mr. Tahir Iqbal, ADM in Varanasi.
If that isn’t enough to convince you, you might want to Google coca cola protest. Maybe one of the 1,800,000 links you get in a fraction of a second will touch your conscience.
One last issue you may want to consider is the impacts of various coca cola products themselves. When you look at the ingredients of many of the soft drinks, you see the first ingredient is water and the second is high fructose corn syrup. Thom and many others have serious concerns about high fructose corn syrup.
But let’s look at the cost of water, just plain old drinking water. I looked up the cost of water in Portland, Oregon, in part because someone we know lives there and I compared it to the cost of bottled water on sale at a local supermarket in my area. I was able to find the cost of tap water in Portland for the year 2006. I don’t know what it costs today, but even if the cost doubled, which I doubt, the comparison is shocking.
I did a breakdown of the numbers, but to shorten this post, I’ll just give the bottom line results. In 2006, you could turn on the tap and the water flow out at a cost of 0.3 cents a gallon. Today, I could go to a local market, and if I had their discount card, I could buy a case of 24 bottles (16.9 ounces each) at a cost of 93 cents a gallon. The bottled water costs you 310 times as much as tap water and you’d have 24 plastic bottles to dispose of.
There are other issues as well. Coca Cola’s main brand is Dasani with sales in the hundreds of millions of dollars. In early March of 2004 in England, the company was forced to admit that Dasani water was tap water with a little extra treatment. A few weeks later, Coca Cola withdrew 500,000 bottles from the British market because tests found illegally high concentrations of the carcinogen bromate. (To be fair, Coca Cola discovered the problem itself and began withdrew the batch without being ordered to do so, and the health damage would have been for long term use.)
It’s my opinion that Thom’s answer was wrong because he only looked at who would get the money you’d spend to buy the stocks. But if you look a little deeper, it seems that when you buy stocks like Coca Cola, the company can benefit, and any profit you make will be at the expense of other people and the planet. In the end, I think it’s a moral question and the caller’s concerns were warranted.
Mark,
I’ve been listening to Thom since he took over this time slot when Al Franken left Air America to run for the Senate back in 2007. He’s been talking about the emergence of China and the decline of the United States as economic powers the whole time. He’s also been talking about his concerns about immigration, the decline of the “American” middle class and the connection he sees between the two for the whole time.
You seem to think his position on immigration is racially based. I remember a comment you posted some time ago in which you implied that Thom thought of Hispanics as vermin and pests.
Although I disagree with some of Thom’s views on immigration and several other issues, I don’t attribute his views to racism. I see his views on immigration as based purely on his economic analysis and his stated “America first” point of view.
By the way, I've repeatedly criticized Thom for the scarcity of Black and Latino guests on his show and for his guest list which is heavily weighted towards conservatives and away from progressive guests. I also regularly challenge him on a number of his views. So I'd doubt I'd been seen as an apologist for Thom Hartmann.
Your mental filters may have removed Thom’s humanitarian work from your memory, but I recall Thom talking about going to many countries around the world, often at the risk of his life, to provide humanitarian aid and help to people of color, sometimes in war zones. He went to Uganda during their civil war, he’s been to several Latin American countries during times of crisis and violence, and last year went to bring humanitarian aid to the people of Darfur. Those are just the ones I can remember right now and I know he’s discussed these activities since you’ve been posting on this blog.
I understand your sensitivity to the issues of immigration and racism. However, I think you misinterpret Thom’s views.
Will California Lay Down and Die . . . Or Will It Regain Control Of Its Money System and Thrive?
Wells Fargo started in California on March 18, 1852.
Bank of America started in California on October 17, 1904 (it was originally called "Bank of Italy").
These two banks owe their prosperity to the state of California.
But now, Wells and B of A are refusing to honor California's IOUs (as are JPMorgan and Citigroup).
Is California going to take this lying down?
Is Schwarzenegger - the former world champion bodybuilder who played the Terminator and Conan the Barbarian - going to just give up?
Or will California take back control over its money system by forming its own bank?
Read this to learn how and why it should be done.
http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/
Happy birthday, Nikola Tesla!
10 July 1856 - 7 January 1943
It might be a good idea to start studying up on foraging for wild foods right now so you have the skills if you need them in a few years. There is a ton of nutrition and flavor waiting for us in our weed patches. Garlic Mustard, which is considered terribly invasive, is also very nutritious. Dr. John Kallas said on the news that the reason Garlic Mustard is a problem is that we need to eat more of it! But be sure to study up carefully so you identify the right weed before you cook it up!
http://www.wildfoodadventures.com/workshop.html
I can't wait to hear the latest news from Bernie on whats happening in Health Care with wonderful Al Franken, finally in Washington! I sure hope Franken puts on his satirist cap now and then while on the Senate floor. It would be terrific.
Loretta
http://www.portlandia.etsy.com
http://www.portlandlivingweird.blogspot.com
I got a terrible sweet tooth last night and went searching the candy isle for something without corn syrup. I wound up with a bag of jiffy white popcorn.
It was just reported on MSNBC's "Morning Meeting" that the secret program that CIA director Leon Panetta stopped as soon as he was told about it (recently) was Cheney's secret army (aka Cheney's assassin squad.) Reportedly, both Republicans and Democrats alike whom Panetta informed were shocked.
I'll post a link to this report when/if it is added to the MSNBC website.
Does Thursday's disccussion on China suggest that Thom has come to the reluctant realization that despite the fact that our "trade policy" with China lacks nifty catchwords like "NAFTA" and "CAFTA," we face a far greater threat to our national survival from China than we do from the combined "efforts" from our "friends and neighbors" here in the Western Hemisphere? Stay tuned.
DRichards- Fat people buy more food = more profit.
And if you die young as a result of overeating, that is less money
Social Security has to pay to you in retirement . So its a win win for business and government.
Re: High fructose corn syrup (causes one to eat more).
Why would the food industry want you to eat more?
Loretta,
'Just got a phone call and I have to leave. I'll catch up with you on your face book page later!
Re: CIA
Just asking, Is the CIA really necessary for the US (other than "our" economic interest)? How did we survive before the creation of the CIA? Is the CIA really a tool for the very rich?
I really like the word "misled". It is less offensive the word "lied".
Kind of like "I didn't cheat on you, I had an affair"!
Thom:
4 words:
"Deep Economy"
Bill McKibben
This should be required reading for EVERYONE!
Thom,
Could you please post the URL to the BPRC effective glucose and fructose article? I tried to Google it (maybe I should "Bing" it) and found BPRC websites for:
Byrd Polar Research Center, Biblical Prophecy Resource Center, Big Peach Running Company, and Baltimore Public Relations Company, to name a few.
Thanks!
Loretta Long,
Okey dokey. Thanks, Loretta!
Careful, Thom. When you identify the "little man in the gray cardigan who is really pulling all the strings," you draw his gaze. LOL
Fairy tales always say "the giant" can be slain. Is that really disguised wisdom that humans have tried to pass down through the ages? Hmmm...
William Engdahl mentioned investing in peace as part of the solution, and this made me think of Kucinich's Department of Peace - a concept LONG overdue!!!
Hi Quark,
Ooops.. I was wrong. My Facebook name is Loretta Long.
Thank you.
Regarding Defense spending and US imperialism: The Defense spending has really nothing to do with defense and everything to do with spending for jobs in key Congressional districts and states, mainly in the South but no region is immune. I can never figure out why is it we cannot come up with a public spending regime that employs engineering and precision labor talent at the same scope as Defense contracts. When we finally get around to installing high-speed rail, where do think we are going to get the technology? It's going to come from Japan or Europe or Canada. We will buy it off the shelf because we will not be able to produce reliable train sets that can achieve 185 to 200 mph. We will get some construction jobs out of it but that's all. Instead we use all our talent on F-22s and F-35s. That helps Newt Gingrich's old district outside Atlanta and some in Texas, but where's the return on investment? Can we make more money with an F-22 or a Polaris sub? Nope! Will they stop a terrorist with a box cutter? Probably not.
So what's the point?