Tag Archives: economy

Health Care

There seems to be a lack of sensibilities anywhere. I frequently have experienced
the world as a cold cruel place, where the ice cold sadness of the lack of humanity
their can be in this world. The world is a lonely place for many.
the myth of large government is believed to Be perpetuated by Liberals.
True, but it come from Conservatives also. Government, even during the most ardent
Conservatives has never ever happened except when serving the people.
Do I want a society where people are taken carte of from cradle to grave?
Actually, yes and no. But I do not want to live in a society where people are abandoned and treated cruelly due to their misfortunes?
Government does many good things. Public transportation, public schools,
libraries, the post office, motor vehicles. How would we like to live in a
world with no government? In our Conservative government the people need to
be bailed out.
I remember a Conservative friend of mine who disliked the notion of National Health Care.
He had finally been stricken with cancer and the hmo’s where not there for him.
He needed money for his condition. And he finally passed away. His wife wound up loosing her home of 30 years. She we live in a world where people loose all their treasured possessions and memories? I could remember my friend joking with me when he said, “I wonder what happened to all those Social Programs I voted against?” When they are gone, one cannot go looking for them.
And there is a women I knew who had five children, when her husband passed away, simultaneously she lost a good paying job. She spent months on unemployment which payed her less than her salary.
Than she received a substandard job in which she was driven into further poverty. What would become of her family and her dreams? A fulfilling life is out of the question.
It seems we have a cold cruel government that cranks out a lot of victims.
The I asked my cousin, who is a doctor in Italy, whether then Government interferes
with National Health Care. He said, just as anywhere else, or anything else there are rules.
Not, service provided for the patient his just handled through your National Insurance Card.
Same as a Credit Card or Debit Card, in fact, there is no government involved. They just provide the funding. In fact it reduces the size of government and i never hire bill collectors or a staff like American Doctors do, even I actually save money.
Poverty can easily be solved without Government interference. It is called the Universal
Income. Or The Basic Income Grant. In Functional Governments poverty is eliminated
rather than Having to qualify, each person has an entitlement. No embarrassment, humiliation, or apologies for being poor. It also eliminates Large Government because there are no offices to pay for, or officials to pay. Nor is there Government control over peoples lives. In New York State, the Government was sued by Unions and welfare workers. the Government declared. if you are working, people shouldn’t work for free. In New York and Illinois, the Government acts as a pimping service for business to get free workers. A violation of the 14Th Amendment of our Constitution.
Eliminating the departments of Welfare in the USA and instituting a Livable Universal Income would
save the nation from Excessive Government and the salaries that go with it and reduce taxes.
It is estimated that the Government would be reduced and we would save 8 billion dollars a year.
A Doctor from Italy said to me, “When you talked about fear, I still remember a poor uneducated farmer in a little town in Sicily,
who was always saying she will never vote for liberals or left wingers because it will take away the house she had. For curiosity she (the Doctor) went to see her house and she found out she lived in the slums with no electricity, no water, and no toilet.
Even now with fear, people reacting to any change and I personally believe that until we do not push the idea that wealth is for everyone ( and for wealth I intend good housing, less working hours, a living wage, good education, good and free medical care, meaningful jobs, nutritious food ).
If we do not develop a social consciousness in this country and learn to invest in the future with positive change we are forever trapped in
A world where we sort out winners from losers, where one side always wins and the other always looses. I think that we could agree on what kind of a world we would all want to build. it would be a world each of which protected and respected the basic human freedoms. It would be a world which demanded of each government that it accept its responsibility to insure social justice. It would be a world of constantly accelerating economic progress — not material welfare as an end in itself, but as a means to liberate the capacity of every human being to pursue his talents and to pursue his hopes. It would, in short, be a world that we would be proud to have built. I am partially quoting Robert F Kennedy here.
National Health Care is affordable and can save us billions in fees and taxes, and there in no Government in the way, no death panels. Single Payer is the way to go. We are the only industrialized nation not to have it. We can eliminate corporate welfare and price gouging by the corporations. e General Accounting Office projects an administrative savings of 10 percent through the elimination of private insurance bills and administrative waste, or $150 billion in 2002. This savings would pay for providing medical care to those currently under served.

See: http://www.healthcare-now.org/hr-676/whats-single-payer/

The End Of Jobs

Tino Rozzo

My original article was nuked by Newsvine, this is a replacement. Lets consider this a missing episode.
____

Skilled labor within an industry is eliminated by the introduction of technologies operated by semiskilled or unskilled workers. Work is fragmented, and individuals lose the integrated skills and comprehensive knowledge of the skilled craftsman.
I once worked as a computer operator, The Company installed a new computer. 12 operators lost their jobs and the Computer did the work 10 times faster. I never was hired again as a computer operator.
Related to the topic of deskilling is evolution of the work place.
A economist once said, in the factories of the future there will be two employees. A Dog and a man. The man will feed the dog and the dog will keep people away from the machines.
The unemployment rate rose from 9.8 to 10.2 percent in October. The largest job losses over the month were in construction, manufacturing, and retail trade.
In October, the number of unemployed persons increased by 558,000 to 15.7 million. The unemployment rate rose by 0.4 percentage point to 10.2 percent, the highest rate since April 1983. Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the number of unemployed persons has risen by 8.2 million, and the unemployment rate has grown by 5.3 percentage points.
Federal benefits are up to 20 additional weeks to those in about 26 states with unemployment rates exceeding 8.5 percent. In the past two months, more than 600,000 out-of-work people have exhausted their benefits, according to the National Employment Law Project.
The extension brings maximum state and federal unemployment insurance to 99 weeks, the longest ever, reflecting the severity of a recession that has thrown more people out of work for longer periods than at any other time since collection of such data began six decades ago, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. This is a good argument to install the Universal Income.
A Capitalists last year laid off the highest number of employees since 2003, while the media industry pink-slipped people at the highest rate since 2001.Employers announced more than 1.22 million job cuts in 2008, up 59% from the previous year. In 2003, more than 1.23 million had been fired. The 2008 hike was driven by the financial sector, which shed 260,110 jobs, the third-highest total for a single industry since Challenger started tracking data in 1993. Layoffs in the media industry, which includes film and TV companies, amounted to 28,083 last year, the highest since 43,420 staffers were let go in 2001 following the bursting of the. December layoffs amounted to 166,348, a record for the final month of the year since 1993. Layoffs in U.S. up 59% from 2007 Media industry made most cuts since 2001
Corporate America last year laid off the highest number of employees since 2003, while the media industry pink-slipped people at the highest rate since 2001.Employers announced more than 1.22 million job cuts in 2008, up 59% from the previous year, thanks to an accelerating of cost cutting in the back half, In 2003, more than 1.23 million had been fired. The 2008 up swing was initiated by the financial sector, which ridded 260,110 jobs, the third-highest total for a single industry since 1993. Layoffs in the media industry, which includes movie and TV companies, amounted to 28,083 last year, the highest since 43,420 workers were made redundant in 2001. In that year total layoffs amounted to nearly 2 million, followed by nearly 1.5 million in 2002. December layoffs racked up 166,348, a record for the since 1993.
Microsoft – 5,000
Intel – 5,000
Time-Warner – 800
Disney – 600
Harley-Davidson -1,100
Deere & Co. – 662
Boeing – 5,300
General Electric -1,000
Motorola -4,000
Merrill LynchBank of America – 35,000
Las Vegas Sands – 11,000
Johnson ControlsAlcoa – 13,500
United States Steel – 4, 225
Eaton – 5, 609
Hertz Global Holdings – 4,000
Best Buy – 500Pfizer – 800
Google – 100
Oracle NA
Below is a list of every major lay off I have uncovered since January 1st, 2009.
There have been over 180,000 layoffs since January 1st.
Date
Company
Lay Offs*
Article
Jan 5
US Steel -4200
Jan 5
Cigna -1100
Jan 6
Alcoa -13500
Jan 7
EMC -2400
Jan 7
Walgreen-1000
Jan 8
Union Pacific-200
Jan 9
Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold -2700
Jan 9
Oracle -500
Jan 12
Textron-2600
Jan 12
Mosaic -1000
Jan 12
Best Buy-500
Jan 13
Cummins-1300
Jan 13
KeyCorp -200
Jan 14
Motorola -4000
Jan 14
Delta Air Lines -2000
Jan 14
Ecolab -1000
Jan 14
Google -100
Jan 15
MeadWestvaco -2000
Jan 15
General Electric -1000
Jan 15
Marshall & Ilsley -800
Jan 15
Autodesk -700
Jan 15
Xerox -200
Jan 16
Hertz Global Holdings -4000
Jan 16
Advanced Micro Devices-1700
Jan 16
ConocoPhillips -1300
Jan 16
WellPoint -600
Jan 20
Clear Channel-1800
Jan 21
Eaton -5600
Jan 21
Intel -5000
Jan 21
Burlington Santa Fe -2500
Jan 21
UAL -1000
Jan 21-State of Maryland
700 -Maryland Layoffs
Jan 21
Walt Disney
600
Jan 21
SPX
400
Jan 22
Microsoft
5000
Jan 22
Huntsman
1600
Jan 23 -
Harley-Davidson -1100
Jan 23
Deere & Company-600
Jan 23
Abercrombie & Fitch-50
Jan 26
Caterpillar -20800
Jan 26
Pfizer -19800
Jan 26
General Motors -9700
Jan 26
Sprint Nextel -8000
Jan 26
Home Depot -7000
Jan 26
Texas Instruments -3400
Jan 26
IBM -2800
Jan 26
Lincoln National -500
Jan 27
Target -1000
Jan 27
Masco -600
Jan 28
Boeing -10000
Boeing Layoffs
Jan 28 -
Starbucks -6700 -Starbucks Layoffs
Jan 28
Time Warner -1250
Jan 29
Eastman Kodak -4500
Jan 29
Textron -2000
Jan 29
Ford -1200
Jan 29
Black and Decker -1200
Jan 29
Walt Disney -600
Jan 30
Caterpillar -2100
Caterpillar Layoffs Continue
Feb 2
Macy’s -7000
Macy’s Layoffs
Feb 2
PNC Financial -5800
PNC Financial Layoffs
Feb 2
Liz Claiborne -700
Liz Claiborne Layoffs
Feb 3
Electronic Arts -1100
EA Layoffs
Feb 3
University of Arizona -600
University of Arizona Layoffs
Feb 4
Time Warner -2700
AOL Time Warner Layoffs
Feb 4
Cisco Systems -2000
Feb 5
Estee Lauder -2000
Estee Lauder Layoffs
Feb 5
Allergan -400