36 replies to this topic

[Rogerdodger]

What I have not heard discussed is the real reason politicians want control of 1/6 of this country's economy.

GRAFT & CORRUPTION

The possibilities are endless with this much control over MONEY!
Do you remember how Hank Paulson left GS to become treasury secretary?
That worked out well for him and GS, didn't it?
Especially when the financial crisis hit and GS was able destroy it's competition while Paulson was given billions to secretly do with as he pleased. We will never know what happened to that money.
Now it's the administration's David Axelrod who left his lobbying firm AKP&D to push healthcare.
AKP&D is handling the public relations campaign for a coalition of groups that support health insurance reform. Part of this coalition is PhRMA.
The money paid by PhRMA helps to pay the salary of David Axelrod's son, who remains at the firm. That money also supports Axelrod's own 2 million dollar payout from the firm.

No wonder Axelrod set up a snitch website right in the White House! LINK

Imagine a politician who's wife/husband/son/daughter is a lobbyist for some medical supplier seeking a government contract.
Their product may be inferior and overpriced, but with the right "contacts" they might get the lucrative government contracts.
This will be better than the pentagon's $434 hammer and a $600 toilet seat cover and the half-billion-dollar travel booking system.

All this for a program that NO POLITICIAN will want or be on.
They get to keep their privately run health care, while selling us $1,000 bandaids.

Line up sheeple. It's time to be skinned. Again.
But it's your "right."

Edited by Rogerdodger, 23 August 2009 - 09:48 AM.

[stocks]

Can you give me ONE instance where government served you better than a private business could?

Cash4clunkers is a great success??

Feds pulling workers away from FAA to staff exploding Cash for Clunkers bureaucracy


Employees of the FAA’s air-traffic-control unit were asked to help, but the Transportation Department stressed Friday that essential safety personnel were not diverted from their duties.

A total of 1,200 workers, including about 300 contractors from Citigroup, the financial services giant, are now working seven days a week to review applications and reimburse auto dealers for rebates advanced to customers, officials said.

The department tripled its program staff to 1,100 last week, and recently added another 100 headquarters employees…

The National Automobile Dealers Association, which had endorsed the move, urged the Obama administration late Friday to extend the deadline because the program’s Web site was crashing.

Percentage of dealer claims that had been reimbursed by the feds as of Thursday: Seven. How bad does a program have to be to goose sales as much as C4C hs and still be badmouthed by the industry? This bad, I guess:

Laura Sodano, a sales manager at Curry Chevrolet in Scarsdale, N.Y., said dealers were not told why their applications had not been approved and were having to review the entire form to determine what went wrong.

“I don’t know one dealership that’s gotten paid yet,” Ms. Sodano said. “If they run out, we’re in trouble. It’s bringing us a lot of traffic, but it’s not a very good program.”…

If the funding is exhausted before all reimbursements are made, some dealers — and possibly G.M. — could end up having to write off the unpaid credits.

There’s actually a serious risk here that the feds are going to mismanage a simple car-rebate program into bankruptcy. Oh, and more good news: Confirming earlier suspicions, it’s foreign carmakers that are getting the lion’s share of the sales

http://hotair.com/ar...rs-bureaucracy/

[stocks]

What I have not heard discussed is the real reason politicians want control of 1/6 of this country's economy.

GRAFT & CORRUPTION

Rezko trial: Levine testifies about another alleged hospital shakedown

I could be naive on this issue, but is Illinois the only state in the nation where hospitals are viewed as shakedown targets? I expressed this sentiment last night, but going after hospitals for kickbacks just stupefies me.

Yesterday in the corruption trial of Antoin "Tony" Rezko trial, admitted political fixer Stuart Levine testified about an alleged shakedown against Edward Hospital, which wanted to build a new hospital in far-southwest suburban Plainfield.

http://marathonpundi...fies-about.html

[Rogerdodger]

Chicago Sun-Times


August 23, 2008

Sen. Barack Obama's wife and three close advisers have been involved with a program at the University of Chicago Medical Center that steers patients who don't have private insurance -- primarily poor, black people -- to other health care facilities.

Michelle Obama -- currently on unpaid leave from her $317,000-a-year job as a vice president of the prestigious hospital -- helped create the program.

Obama's top political strategist, David Axelrod, co-owns the firm, ASK Public Strategies, that was hired by the hospital last year to sell the Urban Health Initiative program.

[stocks]

This is not about healthcare; it's about government (both parties)

I spoke with thousands of voters at town-hall meetings this summer. What I gathered from them is that it's not just the proposed overhaul of health care that has them upset. Many also expressed a sense of betrayal. In spite of their hope for change, it still appears that the government in Washington is run for its own benefit and the benefit of special interests—not for the benefit of the American people. The folks I met with also don't trust politicians in Washington to address mounting long-term challenges to our economy.

http://online.wsj.co...ss_opinion_main


CNN poll: Majority thinks the govt wants a total healthcare takeover -- The guy’s credibility is shot

He’s been swearing up and down for months that he’s not after a government takeover of health care, and this is what he gets. Likewise, after assuring us ad nauseam that seniors won’t lose any Medicare benefits, the split found by CNN on whether Medicare recipients will likely be better off or worse off under ObamaCare is … 26/43. The guy’s credibility is shot. ... Too many out-and-out lies about the numbers, too much doublespeak from prominent Democrats about the public option as a trojan horse for single-payer

http://hotair.com/ar...pose-obamacare/

[salsabob]

Here's from someone on the ground and in the know -

AutoNation to order more cars as it waits for $54M
By KIMBERLY S. JOHNSON (AP) – 2 hours ago

AutoNation Inc. said Wednesday it will increase vehicle orders in the fourth quarter as it seeks to restock showroom floors emptied out during the Cash for Clunkers program.

The Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based auto retailer said it would boost orders 50 percent in the fourth quarter from the third quarter. The company also ordered more cars than expected in the third quarter.

"We had such a huge success with Cash for Clunkers that we are lean and need to increase orders of core products," said CEO Mike Jackson.

Automakers sold a total of 1.3 million new cars and light trucks last month, with more than half of the sales coming under the government rebate program.

AutoNation, the nation's largest dealership chain, said it sold 13,000 vehicles during the clunkers program which began in late July and extended into August. The company's dealerships stopped selling cars under the program three days before it officially ended to ensure dealers were able to process the paperwork to receive per vehicle reimbursements of $3,500 or $4,500.

The government owes AutoNation more than $54 million from clunker sales, with Jackson adding that the company's dealers have "received a very small portion" of the rebate cash owed so far.

"We expect to get paid in 30 to 60 days," he said. "We're confident we will get all our money."

Auto sales are expected to fall in September, but the August lift will give the annualized selling rate a boost in an otherwise dismal year for sales.

Jackson, like several other automakers and analysts, estimate a seasonally adjusted annualized selling rate, or SAAR of 10 million to 10.5 million units for 2009.

"We think the worst is behind us," Jackson said. "We expect a continual, gradual recovery in the fourth quarter and expect in 2010 the SAAR to be above 11 million units."

Shares of AutoNation fell 18 cents to $17.84 in late afternoon trading.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Probable the best thing that could happen to this country is for Health Care to pass with ALL its boogeyman issues (public option government takeover, death panels, medicare gutting, etc.) and not only does the world not come to an end and grandma is not taken out and shot, but things actually get better for a lot of folks - folks on the ground and in the know; just like the cash-for-clunkers.

Then not only will the clown hall screamers and naysayers look as idiotic as they are,, but it would put a nail in the coffin of the GOP as a vialble national party. Why do you think they are fighting all this so hard?

This is what Fourth Turning Crisis are all about - flushing the Third Turning's culture wars, greed, myths, and hypocrisy down the toilet. It happens about every 80 years - plays hell with the stock market though.

[stocks]

I'm confident that the US government will do as good a job with a healthcare monopoly as it has with everything else it has done.



What that old definition of insanity again?

or,
If we've learned nothing from history, have we learned anything?

The reason why "we don't learn anything" is because narcissism and megalomania are genetic.

Some people are just born with the overpowering need to feel superior to other people and control their lives.
It's a personality disorder. They can't help it and they can't change.
Debate is a waste of time, they are on a mission.