This Alternet article gives the facts behind America's bloated, inefficient, and second rate (well actually seventeenth rate - or worse) healthcare system. And it makes the point that our system is focused on sickness not on health because a healthy population isn't profitable. Nothing new there - I knew most of it and I haven't even seen Sicko yet.

However its link to employment figures is interesting - it points out that the explosion in healthcare spending which is the reason for the explosion in healthcare costs to Joe Public, has been the driving force behind the explosion in healthcare employment. So guess what happens if you throw out the inefficient private healthcare system and put in one that is efficient and centrally managed by a single payer? Well you'll get massive unemployment in the healthcare sector because a business that spends six times what other countries spend on administration is clearly going to need far fewer employees - and that, as Bush would say, is "bad for the economy".

So America, you're going to have to continue to suffer because no government wants to sit by as hundreds of thousands of healthcare workers lose their jobs and ruin their unemployment statistics. Can you imagine the battles with unions that will happen if the squeeze on these bloated HMOs ever comes along? Never mind that it might be good for the health of the rest of us, never mind that it would save us hundreds of billions, and never mind that its what works for every other developed nation.

I have to say I was shocked by the high profile GOP people involved in this Rapture baloney thinly disguised as support for Israel... See the video. But I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

Hot on the heels of my last post about "America: Freedom to Facism" as if by magic a court ruling shows up that lets a man off who has been refusing to file and tax return and pay his "taxes". Apparently they failed to show that his income was actually taxable, which was one of the main points of AF2F - that employment wages are basically straight barter - you give your time and the employer gives renumeration for what that time is worth.

Okay, so there could be some profit in the wages for time equation - maybe if you're a CEO making say $50M a year it could be argued you salary was inflated and your time wouldn't be worth $50M to you. But just how you'd ever show that I don't know. You could also argue that most people are drastically underpaid for their time, so what is that - a loss that you can write off against other taxable income (such as stock market profits).

So I'm actually guessing that an IRS argument would go like "your tax free allowance is basically what we think you're entitled for your time, everything else in excess is profit for your time and incentive for you to get out of bed in the morning and go to work for money". But that hardly seems right since everyone gets the same allowance so it is saying that an unskilled worker's time is the same value as a highly skilled one (say a doctor, teacher or rocket scientist). Economically that makes no sense to me... but then again I expect they just decided any other way of taxing wages as income is unworkable and more regressive so they just stuck with what they figured was easiest to enforce (or not as the case may be!).

I just got done with watching America: Freedom to Fascism using NetFlix on demand (you can also watch a low res version yourself for free on Google Video).

This documentary could have been made by Michael Moore - I rather wish it had for the reason it would gain wider audience and of course notoriety. But other than that I think it was spot on and concurs with many of my thoughts on "What's wrong with the country formerly known as America?". The truth is at all times there have been many things wrong and until the last twenty years or so it seemed like the general trend was to improvement. But as this documentary points out America that no longer appears to be the case.

The writer Douglas Adams mused on how humans had spent thousands of years coming up with ideas to make everyone happy (without nailing any one to a cross) but how each one seemed to revolve around the movement of small green pieces of paper "which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy." - I think this documentary essentially says they same.

It seems like there may have been a few liberties taken along the way - so far the best evidence I can find for the case that the 16th Amendment was never ratified indicates it is based on minor technicalities that probably apply to any amendment's ratification you care to examine. It seems pretty clear that the spirit, if not the exact letter of the amendment was ratified by the required 75% super majority of states. Other arguments made against the legality of taxes may stand except of course, apparently, in a court of law. However the larger point is really quite beyond the legality of collecting non-apportioned income tax - it is how that, and many other "anomalies" of this supposedly "free" country continue to be enforced basically by brute force of collusion between money, media and corporate collusion in the houses of power that run the show and hold all the big bang, bang you're dead weapons.

That said - don't forget you've never had it so good - and even if the answer to "You think that's freedom you're living" is a hearty "No!" it is, almost the closest you'll get in the world. At least that is until unverifiable electronic elections become ubiquitous, untraceable humans and money - illegal, and descent - treason. Chose your moment to act or act up wisely America, because your days of freedom may be numbered.

Business Week's story Shoppers concerned about Chinese goods misses some obvious points when it quotes "Joyce Simple, a church secretary, interviewed on a recent shopping trip to a Wal-Mart". Joyce says "I'm scared to death. We are dependent on our government inspecting things, I would be careful of anything that came from China."

Gee didn't anyone tell Joyce who the #1 importer from China is and the huge percentage of WalMart inventory that comes from China - last I heard it was close to 80% inspite of their red-white and blue flag waving activities. Oh well, ignorance is bliss but if she really wants to avoid Chinese goods she should shop else where and put money where her mouth is.

Later on in the article it says "There's no question that too many Chinese manufacturers and food producers put the bottom line ahead of safety". Oh really, well I think there may be a certain carrot being dangled in front of them by major retailers like WalMart who put the bottom line above everything else as almost any article or interview with a former WalMart supplier would reveal. So if there was anyone who chose to turn a blind eye or pray to god (literally) that quality goods would be delivered at bargain basement prices, that would be WalMart.

After all for the corporation there is nothing to lose - most of the time they would be okay and if there was a problem then well, it is easy for them to point the finger at the government and say it was someone elses for not inspecting the goods. Thus they are simply leveraging the wonderful economic crutch of "externalities" whereby society gets to foot the bill for all of industries blunders - from pollution, global warming, industrial accidents, to poisoned consumers - while they reap all the profits from cutting corners at every opportunity.

You see when it is convenient big government is a big evil monster that must be destroyed because its always telling us what to do with pesky laws and regulations, and collecting those nasty taxes and driving prices up. At other times those same people will tell us it is of course the governments job to protect us from them. Naturally they wont say it literally, but when things like ground plastic in pet food show up because they went with the cheapest bid (hmmm, rather like NASA has always had to do) and they want the government to foot the bill for testing every load of food that arrives because they can't trust their corner cutting suppliers, well that's the implication.

So you see, shopping at Wal*Mart is just perpetuating corporate welfare - to those that need it least, and its perpetuating businesses that do what everyone does best - looking after #1 above all and screwing over their neighbors for nickels and dimes.