Happy Easter

Happy Easter everyone. I hope you have a wonderful day.

One of those moments...

The other day I saw God walking around holding up something and asking everyone that stopped: where’s this, where’s this”     best I could tell it seemed to be the last vestiges of humanity

Have you ever noticed that Wall Street a very non Christian entity always has Good Friday off?   Huh?

I read that Paul Ryan gave up anxiety for Lent. Well if he would quit trying to appease the Freedom Caucus and the elitists and worked for the people he would not only give up anxiety for himself for Lent, but also a vast portion of the Country. 

We know the truth and the truth is not enough

The Establishment is winning

And if you haven’t noticed the establishment has nothing to do with which party is in power. They are in control either way.

It is always hard to fight uphill and when the other team has all the advantages, but the fight is now being fought by the establishment hoping for a Trump v. Clinton election.

I hope it is obvious why the establishment wants Clinton. She is the good candidate that gives them the appearance of someone fighting for the people, but so beholden to them that all the behind the scenes conversations are already done. She may win a few social issues in Congress, but the true changes we need will never materialize. And some people will consider her successful if those social issues happen, but overall the whole of the middle class will be left holding nothing.

So why Trump? Trump because he is everything the establishment wants. He is a complete distraction to what will be passed by Congress while he is President. Trump will rubber stamp many tax breaks and other so called job creating legislation looking like he is doing something. He will make great noise about a wall and who knows it might actually get started.  His supporters will feel empowered to tear up the Constitution and pretty much create their own laws locally that will stomp all over the rights of some people. If they cannot they may still attack people in a variety of ways to only inflame riots and unrest. This allows the Federal government to get tough against these so called anti-government protesters that come about thereby strengthening the excuse to create more laws to protect the government and spy on the people.  A stronger federal government only protects the privileges of the oligarchs and not the middle class yet the verbiage will be we need to protect the people from un-American activities.

I do not know how to convince people Trump is not an outsider. He is far from it and is only inflaming the far right which in the long run only benefits the elites. As I have said before he is part of the elites and will never turn his back on the people he does business with, eats with, etc… Trump actually working for the people is not going to happen. He is using their anger to fuel him becoming the top dog in the elitist club. The so called attempts by the Republican establishment to fight him or prevent from getting the nomination is either because they just do not like him personally and do not want him to be top dog because they could not stand the idea or because it is all a charade to enrage his followers and cause unrest to consolidate power behind federal muscle under the guise of fighting unrest.

Pick your poison, but either continues the slow death of the middle class and therefore a Democratic Republic United States with a Constitution for and by the people.

If, however, you still want to keep fighting, I will continue my series on social security to give ideas to any new party that develops that needs a policy or platform to present to the people and begin the fight to rebuild the middle class in our country.

Actually I was going to write some more today on social security, but right now I have to keep fighting internally to keep my attitude positive. I love my country and what it stands for, I just wish we make the dream grow from what our forefathers created. We may not be perfect and yet we can be good and always striving to be better.

Finally as I read through the posts on all the political news stories I see people talking about they know the two parties are not representing us any more or how Congress is failing us and there are hundreds of little thumbs up to these comments. So I post we need to do something or say willing to get started or help and nothing and no replies.  Why?

We know the truth and the truth is not enough

Random posts on a random evening

Below is a comment I made to one of the story boards to a Trump article. One of the many about him or his supporters. I thought I would add it to my blog, well just because.

I know I keep promising myself to quit reading and posting on these boards since it is so frustrating, however, now that we are knee deep in the sludge of the primaries I cannot stop myself. This is probably what I should have given up for Lent. And below this comment is something my youngest came up with that I thought was a very good and fun analogy. My post is from a few days ago and see below my post for hers.

I did edit it a slight bit, but overall it is copied from my original two minute moment:

Trump is right, there are angry people at our government. He is not harnessing the energy correctly.


He needs to give the whole country a very detailed non hyperbolic plan in how he plans to accomplish his rhetoric.


This gives everyone a chance to determine if he can be successful.

I ask the Trump supporters to consider two things. ( and maybe everyone no matter who you support)

First turn off the TV; don't read the stories; basically get away from everything and write down a one page outline of what you think needs to be done. Look at your priorities, what is feasible, remove emotional noise: so is it jobs, wages, social security, taxes, lobbyists, wall street, health care etc..? And put a note to each item notating pro or con and add an idea of YOURS that you have to make it improve the issue. Take your time.


Once done step away from it, go about your business for a day or so then re-read it. And determine what you realistically think can be done in one term.


Second and this is mainly for the Trump supporters, however, it wouldn't hurt for everyone to review their candidate.

Think about this: Trump is tapping into a legitimate anger especially with the job situation. Now remember Trump is a billionaire, he has spent his whole life working and playing with the very same people you are mad at today. How much of his life can relate to yours? Just because he says he is self funded and not beholden to Wall Street etc does not mean he is not part of them. They golf, eat, do business together etc... These are his friends. Do you truly deep down feel he is going to turn his back on them?    Really????


Some say Bernie and his end game sound good; it is we are too far in debt and with deficit struggles to even begin to implement anything he wants. And even if he was to win, Congress is so infested with self serving interests he couldn't raise one cent of the taxes he says he will to pay for his programs.

We want and need new leadership, new ideas, someone who understands it is 2016 and the planet is ever dynamic and has ideas for the future.

America is great. Lets keep it that way.

_____________________________________________________________________________

My youngest is a bit more creative. Here is her Bernie analogy and this is copied from what was written. I love all my children no doubt, but you gotta love this:

Bernie Sanders is like an angry old grandpa trying to protect his grandson (the middle class) from getting bullied. The DNC are the parents of the grandson who aren't really helping in any way. The parents offer "advice" such as 'maybe if you didn't smell so bad you wouldn't get bullied" instead of doing something productive like buying shampoo and soap to help the kid.  The parents (DNC) see Bernie as this old senile man that they need to put in a nursing home because he is so old, but the son (middle class) loves him so now what Bernie is doing is going to the principal (the corporations) and yelling at them to put in more discipline against the bullies and the principal really isn't  doing anything just seeing this crazy old man yelling at him and says that their going to do stuff just to make him shut up and go away, but when he sees that the principal shows no interest he decides to take action against his grandson's bullies and helps his grandson win a prize in the science fair. And last place is the bully because they found out the bully cheated and bought the science project online or something.


I would have changed the "principal" to government from corporation and yet overall she still probably did better than I would have done with this bit of story.

Way too hot too soon here in North Texas

Have a great evening.

What exactly is the size of Trump’s….

…support among right wing fanatics? And how much of the country is now this far along in their thinking?

How large is his support here?

I am sure you have read about the cancelled rally in Chicago and other happenings going on when he speaks.  At some point where does the truly responsible step in and start talking about how un-American his supporters are becoming. The so called establishment only fuels the anger of these right wing extremists when they say something. And quite frankly I am wondering how much some of the more behind the scenes King makers are quite happy all this is happening.

Think about it, the more you can say there is a need for greater security throughout the country the easier it is to control any legitimate new leadership for the people and against the establishment and DC government hence them.

Where is the middle class? The upper middle class? The Educated? Why are there not more outspoken Pastors, preachers, priests, rabbis etc? Why is it only fringe elements of the left and minorities standing up to what is developing behind Trump’s rise to the Republican nomination?

What, Mr. and Mrs. Average American citizen, you say? it is not really that bad.  Wait where I have heard that before …????      Germany 1920’s????????????????????

Folks, Democracy is not a spectator sport; it is participatory to make it work.

And as I write this I see on the internet news that there was another incident at a Trump event and Mr. Trump is his usual blusterous self.

Real change comes from the ground up, not from the top throwing out the smoke screen named Trump

Sorry I couldn’t resist the really bad puns.

Social Security Part III will come soon. 

Tackling Social Security part 2

I will be discussing the portion of the social security act that became Medicare. If you go back and reread the preamble there was nothing specific that talked about medical coverage. It was the general statement: “…make adequate provisions for the aged person….” that Medicare can be derived or at least in my thinking.

First though let’s tackle another issue and that is healthcare in this country overall. I do not think we can tackle improving Medicare until we address some other issues. We seem to have healthcare upside down.

The primary people in healthcare should be the patient and the doctor. Unfortunately Wall Street, big pharma, insurance companies, for profit hospitals, and a few other identities seem to get the most attention from Washington D. C.  Outsize profits seem to be the order of the day in healthcare instead of patients’ health. Now I do have to be careful in addressing this problem. One question is how do you define outsized profits? Just starting there touches on the basis for many of the problems facing healthcare in our country. The primary question is do we go to a more socialized medicine concept or do we let healthcare still be open to the general market place?  If we go to socialized medicine it resolves dealing with outsized profits, but opens up other issues. If not, how do we determine what is a reasonable set of expectations for the health care industry in regards to profits and overall business size.  And of course how do we get it back to making the patient and the doctor the primary focus.

And resolving the healthcare issue is one of the great examples as to why democracy should work or more importantly why it needs to work. Healthcare is not a right, but it is an obligation for the individual and for society. People can expect that their health is of more importance than the benefit of the system that provides healthcare. How does this work?

One problem is the failure of what is commonly referred to as Obamacare. There is definitely some benefit in trying to overhaul a system that was getting out of hand. Expenses to the patient and overall insurance costs expenses are becoming untenable to the middle class’ budget. And being able to afford insurance to prevent a catastrophic illness from destroying a family’s budget/life/future is a wonderful benefit. Obamacare did not resolve this problem. Sure many more people have insurance, but the cost of health insurance is still going up and the cost of medical care is still going up and is going up faster than wage growth. And then you read many insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, for profit hospitals are making money and some of them making very large profits and add on that they have to meet Wall Street expectations as to earnings etc and you have an upside down healthcare industry.

How many times do you see an ad for a new medicine that deals with a certain condition (I chose the word condition on purpose) and yet there is a monstrous amount of side affects you need to worry about. And think about this, they are advertising these new drugs heavily.  To me it seems they are selling you the condition so you have to buy the medicine. Yeah there are medical problems, but if you are seeing ads how prevalent is the condition or how much do they have to sell it. You would think that if people had the condition or illness that a doctor can make a reasonable assessment of your condition and decide what if any medicines you may actually need.  Most pharmaceutical companies send drug reps out to the doctors, why the heavy ad blitz.   Again think meeting wall street expectations.

Obviously I am dealing with a market place healthcare system and not socialized medicine, yet that does not mean that we put the cart before the horse. You are more important than the health of a company. If they cannot manufacture what we truly need in medicine, what are they manufacturing. The doctor should make the decision what is needed not late night TV. So the pharmaceutical companies should not be measured by Wall Street expectations, but by ours. I think we need private market companies because they will make the effort to find the medicines and products we need in a more competitive and efficient manner, but the true healthcare market should be the driver of need.

And then there is insurance and this is where Medicare comes back into this writing. And many of the same arguments as above exist for insurance. Wall Street does not need to be the driver of expectations for the measurement of these companies’ success. The driver should be the patients’ needs. And the discussion could branch out in many directions from here, such as health, eating habits, holistic medicine, etc which I am going to brush aside and just talk about insurance. What should we reasonable expect for healthcare and how much is our responsibility and how much should society contribute. And of course the flip question is, should society even contribute. We already answered the question when we created Medicare. At this point we feel it is a combination of govt. management and individual contribution. There is a whole separate payroll deduction. Is this insurance? Conceptually it is not suppose to be, however, we have now added buying insurance to supplement Medicare and we treat it as insurance in some ways.

Do we truly combine Medicare into an insurance policy and pull it completely out of social security and maybe even out of the government’s hands?  Do we create insurance policies for life via Obamacare? I do not think we can answer these questions or any similar ones till we pull special interests out of Washington and the discussion. This is where democracy or at least the way our country should run should apply. The interests of the people in certain arenas such as healthcare have to take precedent over any individual interests where it be a locale or a business or organization.

So step one to truly reform Social Security and Medicare begins with overhauling special interest and Congress. Step two for Medicare is defining what we really need in healthcare. Can we continue to contribute through the current payroll system into a mass pool and have it meet the needs of our society’s healthcare needs for the elderly? One answer exists because we had to create Medicaid.

One answer is to create socialized medicine and implement price and care controls defined and regulated by the government. This to me will actually be more expensive in the long run than reigning in Congress and removing Wall Street and the companies’ influence on legislation

Step three is the details. And I mentioned one option above and that is insurance for life. So does that mean we never contribute to Medicare again and just have one premium and carry it with us. And can we shop insurance companies like auto or home to get the best price possible. Do we continue to rely on employers to help foot the bill as part of the benefit package of working for a company? Many employers are also strapped as to paying healthcare. And this leads me to some confusion, you would think employers would be the largest voice on Capitol Hill to reign in insurance costs, yet it doesn’t seem to be a priority for them.

Do we continue with a two deduction system? One deduction is for our health insurance through our employer or our payments to a private insurance company directly and then the Medicare Tax withholding for future use. Can we put aside Medicare money like we put aside retirement money?  How we answer healthcare reform will have an impact on how we make these decisions.

Do we go back to one deduction for Social Security, prepay insurance with it and when we receive benefits we automatically have Medicare which is what most people going into retirement think is going to happen. And if we keep the 80/20 responsibility how do we help people prepare for retirement so they can afford the 20% of their share of healthcare costs? And by reducing costs overall would this mke the 20% more palatable to a retiree’s budget? Could we create a lump sum Medicare savings plan? And if so do we create a pool trust or individual accounts? Is it all individual contributions, which probably will not fly since some people would use it more than others. Which unfortunately circles back to what I wanted to brush off, how much responsibility does a person have in taking care of themselves or government regulating their care if society is going to contribute to some of each individual’s healthcare and healthcare costs.

These are some of the questions and some proposals offered in discussion for the Medicare portion of what do we do with Social Security. If you have managed to struggle through to this far you realize health care is a monster that needs improvement for us now and into our retirement. And as previously mentioned Obamacare did not resolve the core problem of health care costs and ultimately how much is our and our society’s responsibility. Medicare is not a stand alone issue to resolve.

Can we do the same for Medicare contributions we might do for the retirement portion and invest it? Heck you could even use Medicare to invest in the same insurance companies etc that profit from Healthcare, somewhat of a push me pull me relationship to the cart and the horse. The final problem is balancing the amount of government intervention into the whole healthcare system and determining our responsibility for ourselves. None of this is an easy feat.

Part three will be about the social welfare aspect and then part four is hopefully a concise recap of ideas and proposals discussed.