Demands

Suggestion for List of demands for Wall Street sit-on movement


Every citizen should thank these brave young people who are taking the time for this non-violent Wall-Street Sit-On movement to show their discomfort for the welfare for the rich only system of government that is being carried on by both political parties. Future generations will hail these people for saving this nation from a ruthless and super greedy few (similar to pre-independent British royalty in some ways—power corrupts, even the best of us, so don’t allow it) and handing it back to its people as founding fathers intended.

I suggest that this movement have a list of reasonable and somewhat conservative, (such as no welfare for the rich) demands and state loudly that this movement won’t be stopped until those demands are met. This is essential since the major problems in the USA are due to the welfare for the rich only strategy that the politicians are currently engaged in for them to keep their positions. The majority of the people in this country worship individuality and self-reliance and thus will support (at least those who are not brainwashed by the media owned by the greedy few) any movement that is advocating no welfare for anyone than asking for welfare for those in need. So let’s hammer on eliminating welfare for the rich than asking for welfare for all.

I could write an exhaustive list of demands but let me write about one of the most disturbing phenomenon not only kill and bankrupt so many people but also the cause for our major deficit and debilitating debt that the advocates for welfare-only-for-the-rich are hammering on to use as a ploy to cut most needed programs such as public schools etc. that help the working man and woman and their families.

List of demands:
Demand number 1: – No Socialized Health Care for the rich

In the USA, currently we have the most bizarre system of socialized health care. The most powerful and the wealthiest people get free socialized health care while the rest of the population has to pay close to 50% of their income to health care companies as de facto taxes to get half those benefits.

For example Congressmen, Supreme Court judges, Military etc. get their health insurance paid by taxpayer. The major media personalities get their health care paid by their corporations as their fringe benefit (partly subsidized by the taxpayer as these corporations take a tax deduction for those payments). Thus none of these people will have to worry about their health care and won’t go out of their way to worry about those citizens who have none.

Similarly none of the top corporate management pays for health care out of their pocket. They get it free, paid by their corporation that is called a fringe benefit amounting to negligible taxation on their compensation while the working middleclass pay a huge percentage of their income as taxation to private corporations to get health care.

Also keep in mind that the US socialized system of health care is different from socialized health care that exist in rest of the civilized nations (where all citizens pay progressive taxes to get it and have equally good health care) in the world in the sense, under the US system, the government transfers taxpayer funds to a few private corporations (an oligopoly that is holding the health care industry hostage), over-paying billions to provide free health care to the powerful few in the society. This gives the power to pay over $100 million each in compensation to the top management of this cartel while we are experiencing a bankrupting deficit.

Keep in mind that the Medicare is a program to pay health care industry what they bill the taxpayer for taking care of the sickest people in the nation (over 65 crowd) while the young healthy people are paying insurance premiums to health insurance companies (to repeat a de facto taxation on their income). This shifting of health care risk of the older population to the taxpayer is one of the most humorous, if not for its deviousness, stunts health insurance companies have played on the taxpayer.

If taxpayer is properly represented by those who collect taxes then we either should require the insurance companies to insure people from cradle to grave or have the government competing with private companies doing the same, if we are to reduce our deficit and debt. Allowing insurance companies to take the profits insuring the healthiest population and then shifting insuring the risky old-age population to the taxpayer is crime. If the government is allowed to insure people from cradle to grave as a competitor to the private companies then the government can make enough gains from those premiums from young people—the same way private companies make—that they can use to offset the additional cost to insure them when they are old. But currently taxpayer is given the right only to take the losses but not the profits.

The first step to bringing down health care cost so that all citizens can afford is to eliminate the socialized health care that is provided only to the powerful and wealthy in the society. They should be required to pay for health care insurance the same way they pay for their auto insurance. Keeping in mind that most top corporate management even don’t pay their auto insurance but it is also paid by their corporations there should be legislation so that any such payments to be considered taxable benefits to them.

RonPaul

Questions for Ron Paul for President:


Like him or not, Congressman Ron Paul is one of the most honest politicians anywhere in the world. Yet sometimes I find some things Dr. Paul says totally bizarre. I hope Ron Paul or one of his campaign people could answer these questions or clarify them to those of us are debating if to vote for him. My questions are:

1. Do you ever doubt as to some of your beliefs so as to figure out if they are totally destructive to society?

2. Have you ever changed your mind about any major positions you had? If so what are they?

3. Could you please explain to us the health care system, we have in the USA, where the industry and the government almost through a conspiracy provide socialized health care to congressmen, supreme courts, top corporate management, major media personalities and all other powerful groups while running a system of health care inaccessible to the rest of the population without costing more than 50% of their wages or going bankrupt?

As you know, none of the powerful people in the USA pay money to get health care. They get it free and it is called a fringe benefit amounting to negligible taxation on their compensation while the working poor pay a huge percentage of their income as taxation to private corporations to get health care.

Also please keep in mind that the US socialized system of health care is different from socialized health care that exist in rest of the civilized nations (where every citizen pays a progressive taxes to get it and have equally good health care) in the world in the sense, under the US system the government transfers taxpayer funds to a few private corporations (an oligopoly that is holding the health care industry hostage), over-paying billions to provide free health care to the powerful few in the society. This gives over $100 million each in compensation to the top management of this cartel.

I am not sure if to vote for you or first find out more about you as to figure out if you are capable of recognizing that you are so wrong in a few major issues that may destroy so many lives even if some other policies you advocate make lot of sense.

SS

If building a retirement fund is left to the individual as the USA is becoming a corrupt society (giving evidence to the fact that even a great nation can be taken over by a few ruthless & turn it corrupt) where few people control most of the wealth (including the media) then all the money in retirement funds of common people will end up in the hands of the few at the top since the financial market is becoming more and more a zero-sum game where an average person has no chance of going mano-a-mano with the powerful insiders of the financial markets .


In addition, most people cannot afford to save enough to invest for a private retirement fund because they are not paid an adequate compensation to save when they have a job in some cases and in other cases because there is no security of an ongoing jobs, with large corporations (own by the 2% at the top) exporting those jobs to make more wealth. The greatest American of the last few decades Franklin D Roosevelt (who dedicated his life to serving the common people, not the 2%) knew this and this is why he created Social Security Insurance where both employers and employees by law were required to set aside a certain amount as insurance for the retirement fund of employees.

When FDR created Social Security trust fund he anticipated that those funds to be separated and invested in government bonds paying a fair market rate for money. FDR did not anticipate the future politicians to be so uncaring as to tap into the retirement funds of the least powerful members of the society and destroy the only nest egg they had. FDR apparently did not have the foresight to see the rise of Nixon, Reagan, Bush, Burns, Greenspan, Bernanke and Fox news (Murdoch) to take over the USA--still Bernanke and Murdoch have time for redemption.

The Social Security Trust fund is going bankrupt because politicians stole the trust fund money to give as corporate welfare to their cronies and second because the Federal Reserve brought the rate of interest so low that the trust cannot make a fair return even on the money left in the trust fund. The Fed brought this rate so low also to help their cronies who control most of the wealth in the nation. It is only those few at the top can borrow money at those low interest rates but as you go down the ladder the poorest pay legally-protected usury rates to borrow money. Also let’s not forget even the trillions in new money Fed is creating also end up in the pockets of this 2% without tricking down except as debts to keep the 98% in further bondage and fear.

If you look at the budget you will see that most of the expenses in the budget are due to corporate welfare programs (two biggest expenditures defense and Medicare are replete with corporate welfare). Social security check is the only one that goes to the benefit of the common people. This is why the rightwing is hell-bent on destroying social security since they detest any benefit to the common man but want to empty the treasury as welfare for the 2% at the top and have the 98% available to bargain for slave labor to make more money for the 2%. Capitalism is a great economic system but what we have had in the USA since the 1970s is not capitalism. This scam has been possible only because the wealthy few have managed to brainwash a significant segment of the population through extremely well-paid media personalities and keep the good people (for example good, intelligent people such as Noam Chomsky) away from the media. If people knew the truth then this scam would not have been possible.

Medicare

US Healthcare system which is going out of control is a major reason for the US debt and deficits. This is how it works:

From the time you are born until you are 65 years old (capturing the most healthy and least costly life span of a person) the healthcare insurance companies charge citizens a health insurance premium which is subsidized by the US government and state governments through a tax deduction costing the federal budget about $400 billion per year in deficit and a few more billions to all the state governments. This healthcare insurance premium is the biggest regressive tax imposed in the history of the world. More money you make the lesser the rate of insurance (indirect taxes) you pay. In the case of most working people health insurance is paid by their employers and thus people do not recognize this and think that it is free. But it is not and it is a regressive tax on their income. This taxes amount to over 50% of annual income of the poorest families and bankrupt about 700,000 people every year. This punishment on the nation is in addition to about 45,000 people, the healthcare industry is killing every year by not providing adequate healthcare.

Then when Americans turn 65 reaching the age that is too costly for the insurance companies to pay for their healthcare, the companies shrewdly shift that cost to the federal government through the Medicare program which is bankrupting the nation due to spiraling cost of unaccountable healthcare in the USA.

The irony of this welfare scam is that until any American is 65 they cannot get even a medical check-up if they don’t have insurance. Even if they have insurance, often insurance companies deny it (praying them to die quickly) since the high cost of healthcare has to be borne by the private insurance company but the minute the patient is shifted to Medicare insurance then the same hospitals would grab the person to the hospital and do not let the person die. The longer they keep him alive by any means possible, more money they can squander from the government. The healthcare industry charges about $10,000 per day to keep a dying man alive by hooking him/her up to all the high tech machines. And this same industry will refuse treatment when Americans are under 65 and, insured by their partners, the private Health Insurance industry. Such a scam could not have been perceived in fiction but this is the reality in the USA.

CAPITAL

There is a very good reason why there is no money available for small and medium-sized private businesses. Simply it is because the bankers, funds and brokers who have too much money in their hands could make a better return by gambling their money in the casino called financial markets. Since it is not their money that these middlemen have, if they win they win, if they lose their investors lose or get bailed out by the taxpayer represented by their corrupt government.

For example if a middleman who holds money lends to a private business the only way they will be safe is if the private business continues to make profits. Not many private businesses can continue to make profits any more since the whole business world is being monopolized by a handful of mega-sized businesses with access to unlimited capital. Even if the small businessman continues to make profits (owing to some miracle) the middleman can collect only an insignificant interest payment.

Contrast this with what happens when these middlemen give money to a public company via buying stock of that company: They can immediately collect a huge commission amounting to 8 to 12 percent. And on top of that, the middlemen get a large number of stock options to buy the stock of such a public company at a discount price. So the next thing these middlemen do, with the help of their associates in the market, is to run up the stock of this public company on which they invested their money. Then they cash out the stock options they got as part of the deal to provide them capital and make extra money. This is how stock market bubbles are created. Even speculative stocks run up in price due to the buzz being created by the middlemen who invest their investors’ retirement funds on these speculative stocks.

Almost every influential person in this country knows what’s going on and as long as we have this system in place, the USA will remain a nation of very few people controlling all the wealth and the majority living from month to month (the characteristic of a Third World nation). If you wonder how such a small group of people could control the majority to go along with such a system. It is through the control of the media that they use to brainwash the majority. Their goal is to brainwash enough people and divide the nation so that they can continue with this scam benefitting only a handful of persons

Russelll

Bertrand Russell wrote “Political Ideals” in 1917 and here is a quote from it. As you will see, it applies to the USA today just like it applied perfectly to Europe in nineteen hundreds:

You can read the ebook at http://www.fullbooks.com/Political-Ideals.html

The present economic system concentrates initiative in the hands of a
small number of very rich men. Those who are not capitalists have,
almost always, very little choice as to their activities when once
they have selected a trade or profession; they are not part of the
power that moves the mechanism, but only a passive portion of the
machinery. Despite political democracy, there is still an
extraordinary degree of difference in the power of self-direction
belonging to a capitalist and to a man who has to earn his living.

Economic affairs touch men's lives, at most times, much more
intimately than political questions. At present the man who has no
capital usually has to sell himself to some large organization, such
as a railway company, for example. He has no voice in its management,
and no liberty in politics except what his trade-union can secure for
him. If he happens to desire a form of liberty which is not thought
important by his trade-union, he is powerless; he must submit or
starve.

Exactly the same thing happens to professional men. Probably a
majority of journalists are engaged in writing for newspapers whose
politics they disagree with; only a man of wealth can own a large
newspaper, and only an accident can enable the point of view or the
interests of those who are not wealthy to find expression in a
newspaper. A large part of the best brains of the country are in the
civil service, where the condition of their employment is silence
about the evils which cannot be concealed from them. A Nonconformist
minister loses his livelihood if his views displease his congregation;
a member of Parliament loses his seat if he is not sufficiently supple
or sufficiently stupid to follow or share all the turns and twists of
public opinion. In every walk of life, independence of mind is
punished by failure, more and more as economic organizations grow
larger and more rigid. Is it surprising that men become increasingly
docile, increasingly ready to submit to dictation and to forego the
right of thinking for themselves? Yet along such lines civilization
can only sink into a Byzantine immobility.

HEALTH

The scam carried on by the corrupt Healthcare industry along with its insurance arm in the form of welfare-for- the- rich- socialized- medicine is the main reason why the US government and the state governments are going bankrupt. The healthcare industry is charging every working American the most regressive tax that takes away over 50% of annual income of the poorest families and bankrupt about 700,000 people every year. This punishment on the nation is in addition to about 45,000 people, the healthcare industry is killing every year by not providing adequate healthcare. The major reason there is hunger, poverty and human rights violation in the world is due to the corruption by a handful of ruthless people. In the USA such corruption is being manifested via the deceitful actions of the most powerful healthcare industry lobby holding the major governing institutions hostage as they bankrupt the nation. Let me explain how it is creating over $23 trillion in unfunded liability.


From the time you are born until you are 65 years old (capturing the most healthy and least medically-costly life span of a person) the healthcare insurance companies charge citizens a health insurance premium which is subsidized by the US government and state governments through a tax deduction costing the federal budget about $400 billion per year in deficit and a few more billions to all the state governments. This healthcare insurance premium is the biggest regressive tax imposed in the history of the world. More money you make the lesser the rate of insurance (indirect taxes) you pay. In the case of most working people health insurance is paid by their employers and thus people do not recognize this and think that it is free. But it is not and it is a regressive tax on their income.

None of the senators and the congressmen pays any of the health insurance since the taxpayers pay it for them. In the case with almost all of the wealthy, their corporations pay it and since it is so regressive they don’t feel the effect of it. That is the shrewdness of the healthcare industry. They take care of the most vociferous in the nation for free (welfare for the powerful—the smartest bribe) so they comply by allowing the industry to tax the people most regressively.

If you are poor and cannot pay health insurance companies this tax then the only choice you have is to enter the emergency rooms in a life and death situation (thus about 45,000 die every year) and that cost the taxpayer whole lot more money since the state governments pay such expenses as Medicaid payments. Some state governments are now closing down their police departments not being able to pay all their expenses (The wealthy can afford private security so this is going to affect mostly the middleclass).

When Americans turn 65 reaching the age that is too costly for the insurance companies to pay for their healthcare, the companies shrewdly shift that cost to the federal government through the Medicare program which is bankrupting the nation due to spiraling cost of unaccountable healthcare in the USA. The irony of this welfare scam is that until any American is 65 they cannot get even a medical check-up if they don’t have insurance and even if they have insurance, often insurance companies deny it (hoping that they will die quickly) since the high cost of healthcare has to be borne by the private insurance company but the minute the patient is shifted to Medicare insurance then the same hospitals would grab the person to the hospital and do not let the person die. The longer they keep him alive by any means possible, more money they can squander from the government. The healthcare industry charges about $10,000 per day to keep a dying man alive by hooking him/her up to all the high tech machines. And this same industry will refuse treatment when Americans are under 65 and, insured by their partners, the private Health Insurance industry. Such a scam could not have been perceived in fiction but this is the reality in the USA.

It is not hard to stop the healthcare industry bankrupting the nation. We can do that as follows.

1. Stop welfare-for- the-rich- socialist- healthcare program by disallowing the tax deduction for paying health insurance premiums by employers. This will save the tax payer about $400 billion per year and reduce the government deficit.

2. Stop the taxpayers paying the healthcare cost of congressmen and other government employees but instead make everybody pay for healthcare expenses including insurance premiums from after tax dollars as they pay auto insurance.

3. Breakdown the health insurance cartel and the healthcare industry cartel and increase competition to reduce cost.

4. Encourage not-for-profit healthcare providers and insurance companies to enter the field and compete head on with profitable companies.

5. Get rid of the Medicare and Medicaid programs gradually by easing them out by transferring that cost to not-for-profit healthcare companies. That will save the government this $23 trillion in unfunded liability.

Unless we do this, with over 23 trillion in unfunded liability in Medicare looming over us, we cannot stop the USA from going bankrupt because more money the healthcare industry profiteers make more powerful and greedier they get and will continue bilking the nation till the government no longer can print and borrow money from the rest of the world go pay them. Such an end will lead to a major World War that may cost the lives of millions of people.