As can be seen from the italics section below, a considerable part of what is going on in medicine is corruption. Not all though, as I have read some of the costs of medicine can be attributed to the costs of education. But I recall seeing shows like 60 minutes, 20/20 and others featuring and covering dozens of scams that go on in the medical business across the United States.

It does not really matter in the long run if there is medicine available to the masses as long as the bulk of the food, water and air we ingest is laced with dozens of things, no hundreds of things, which are bad for the human body. Anyway, I have come to think that the human appetite for destruction and greed are impulse’s that are simply to powerful for us to overcome.  I think that it is almost impossible that the majority of humanity ever will really care if every one has medicine or is warm, fed or housed. I have concluded the same about ethnic cleansing, genocide, war, and for taking care of the environment as well. The real crisis, as many have noted long before me is and has been our inhumanity to one another across the world. Given our history as a species there is no telling how bad things will get.

“The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is taking steps to eliminate this type of fraud by joining forces with the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate fraudulent Medicare suppliers. The work of the multi-agency team of federal, state and local investigators is generating results. During a three month period, this targeted criminal, civil and administrative effort against individuals and health care companies that fraudulently bill the Medicare program yielded 56 arrests and stopped companies who collectively billed more than $258 million to Medicare. It is the first step in a protracted effort to eliminate the potential for fraud”. Webpage, here

Back in March of 1993 I took a course on the economic theories of a man named Henry George. I personally found the course very informative both in Mr. George's theories and economic theories in general. Since the course struck me as being very much in keeping with what seemed to me common sense principles I was surprised to find that Mr. George's contributions to the field of economics were not more widely known. Then I read his biography, Who Was Henry George and read the following,

"Inevitably he was reviled as well as idolized. The men who believed in what he advocated called themselves disciples and they were in fact nothing less: working to the death, proclaiming, advocating, haranguing, and proselytizing the idea. But it was not implemented by blood, as was communism, and so was not forced on people's attention. Shortly after George's death, it dropped out of the political field. Once a badge of honor, the title, "Single Taxer," came into general disuse; except in Australia and New Zealand, Taiwan and Hong Kong and scattered cities around the world, his plan of social action has been neglected while those of Marx, Keynes, Galbraith and Friedman have won great attention, and Marx's has been given partial implementation, for a time, at least, in large areas of the globe."

"But nothing that has been tried satisfies. We, the people, are locked in a death grapple and nothing our leaders offer, or are willing to offer, mitigates our troubles. George said, "The people must think because the people alone can act."     http://www.henrygeorgeschool.org/whowashg.htm 

Evidently, Mr. George had been ridiculed and mocked by some of the various vanguards that existed back then because I went on to read this, "I do not wish to be misunderstood as falling into the trap of the socialists and communists who condemn all privately owned business, all factories, all machinery and organizations for producing wealth. There is nothing wrong with private corporations owning the means of producing wealth. Georgists believe in private enterprise, and in its virtues and incentives to produce at maximum efficiency. It is the insidious linking together of special privilege, the unjust outright private ownership of natural or public resources, monopolies, franchises, that produce unfair domination and autocracy."

If nothing else I suggest for those of you who visit & read my humble but aspiring blog that you at least read Henry George's biography page, you may one day come to see it as a life changing, eye opening event. I found this quote one time by one of the founders of some of the great principles on which this republic is supposed to stand for, I thought it fits.

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs." Thomas Jefferson 

"We have reached the deplorable circumstance where in large measure a very powerful few are in possession of the earth's resources, the land and its riches and all the franchises and other privileges that yield a return. These positions are maintained virtually without taxation; they are immune to the demands made on others. The very poor, who have nothing, are the object of compulsory charity. And the rest -- the workers, the middle-class, the backbone of the country -- are made to support the lot by their labor."

"We are taxed at every point of our lives, on everything we earn, on everything we save, on much that we inherit, on much that we buy at every stage of the manufacture and on the final purchase. The taxes are punishing, crippling, demoralizing. Also they are, to a great extent, unnecessary."

"But our system, in which state and federal taxes are interlocked, is deeply entrenched and hard to correct. Moreover, it survives because it is based on bewilderment; it is maintained in a manner so bizarre and intricate that it is impossible for the ordinary citizen to know what he owes his government except with highly paid help. We support a large section of our government (the Internal Revenue Service) to prove that we are breaking our own laws. And we support a large profession (tax lawyers) to protect us from our own employees. College courses are given to explain the tax forms which would otherwise be quite unintelligible." http://www.henrygeorgeschool.org/whowashg.htm#wo

It seems there are a lot of people with their heads buried deep in the sands of denial, leaving their backsides exposed, to take a screwing from the fat cat's, corporate bosses, robber baron banker's and the politician's.

In the last six months I have had a few encounters with angry senior citizens that are beginning to give me the idea that it maybe some what of an informal trend or pattern. I have a friend who is a nurse in a nursing home and she claims that she has noticed elderly patients “with more spunk” was how she put it.

Last month I pulled into a local bank and a minute or two later a car pulled into the space next to mine. As it is not my custom to look into people’s vehicles as they pull up next to me in a situation like this, I could not help looking into this car because after sitting there for a few seconds I noticed the vehicle was still somewhat swaying a little. As I looked into the car an older man sat there banging the steering wheel, kind of bouncing in the seat, talking loudly to himself, with occasional spittle projectiles discharging and he was very flushed about the face and neck. After I observed the gentleman for about 10 seconds give or take, he caught himself and looked directly at me.

I am not sure if this chance encounter or a few other circumstances I have seen mean that there are more angry and frustrated senior citizens in general but I am wondering if it is a possibility.

For as long as I can remember, going back to the 80’s, to the savings and loan banking crimes or the junk bond rip-off and further, people who commit “white collar” crimes, seem to get away with serving little or no time. Currently, Bernard Madoff is another example of this phenomenon. He is the alleged master mind of what no doubt will be, if true, another historic level crime against countless thousands of people, and yet even now he remains free of jail. I have no doubts either, that he will conveniently die before any measure of justice punishes him. That’s what happened in the case of Kenneth Lay, CEO and chairman of Enron who was convicted 10 counts of securities fraud and other corporate level crimes. He died some three and a half months before his sentencing. This kind of non-justice, show-justice treatment, of the worst, of the worst rich criminal$, seem$ to be a perk that comes along with being a criminal from the elite and ruling classe$.

At the same time if some regular every day person steals a pack of cigarettes and they are in a three strikes state, they will get a life sentence in prison.

Another example of the elite and ruling classes getting away with things the average person would not is in the way the government, the corporations and the banking sectors are doing the financial accounting. If any average person was book keeping in the ways some of these people are justice would be dispensed swiftly and harshly.

Right now a song called Gangsters Paradise, by the rapper Coolio, comes to mind when I think of America. I feel like a totally helpless prey item for the rich and powerful.

US Attorney General Eric Holder said he thought in large part Americans are cowards when it comes to dealing with race. If his objective was to spark controversy and stir discussions he has been successful. However calling people cowards is no way to start a discussion if the debate is to be cordial, remain friendly or for arriving at a equitable solution.

For the record I do not agree. What I see is a natural fear of engaging in such a controversial and emotional issue. By all accounts, those of reasonable people anyway, people of color have made tremendous strides in America, to me there is no doubt of this. However, in everyday life, segregation still occurs; rather it is by personal preference or by those who just do not want socialize with anyone outside their race because they have negative feelings about people of other races. An option I think people should have as well. Does this make Americans cowards? I do not think so.The bigger issue to me has been and continues to be class and wealth.

I think America has dealt enough with race and made enough progress in racial matters that we have earned the right not be called cowards by the Attorney General of the United States. I think I know what Attorney General Holder is trying to get at with his comments but like many of us, some times the wrong words just come out.

From my experiences I have concluded that there are some white people who will, no matter what, remain unable to accept the equality of all people. For these people it is impossible to respect the human and constitutional rights of nonwhite people, making it difficult to have as stress free society as we can in the US.

So maybe separatists should be given some territory to live in all white communities. With this experience maybe they will conclude what history already has taught, that white people can be as vicious and oppressive with each other as they can be with other races.

All throughout the history of Europe there has been horrific violence, slavery, inquisitions - witch hunts, feudalism, civil and class warfare, brutal religious warfare, exploitation – oppression, revolution(s), brutal dictators, tyrants kings and more. The white separatists have even forgotten what prompted the dissident piligrims and others to originally leave Europe and come to America in the first place. In the history of the US there are many examples of how brutal white people are and can be to one another, like the civil war, in the history of the West and in how some corporations have treated white people in circumstance, after circumstance.

Until it is acknowledged that humanity has more in common, than we do not have in common and that we should be working together, I believe the future of human kind is in peril. It follows then, that circumstances will only continue to get worse for us, sparking even more chaos.

If the words, buy American, are so bother$ome to some world leader$ and other$, I wonder if they'll approve of and allow us to then, "make it in America"?

I hear about how staggering the trade deficit is and the imbalance of production levels between America and its trade partners and I wonder if America will have to fail before those dictating the economic policy will approve any measures to balance the trading situation. How much longer will we be expected to accept this economic situation as normal when obviously it is absolutely abnormal for people to be failing so rapidly and in what is damn near breath-taking numbers and having circumstances, not of their making destroying their lives?

If I am understanding the arguements of the anti US trade side, Americans are not supposed to buy American goods or produce much here either and believe that will solve the economic circumstance of what is supposed to be my country too? 

I think something has to give here in this equation and say if we can't buy America, can we "Make more in America" then, please? May the economic gods here my plea.