As more and more people loose their jobs and income stagnates while
prices rise, those in the $50k year bracket are finding themselves
falling further and further behind. As is reported here.

The recent recession is exposing how many American
families have been treading on the edge.  Problems were
already in the system before the recession began but
the downturn in the economy was the ultimate catalyst.
Many families were using credit cards as a means of
supplementing a decade of stagnant wages.  The median
household income for the entire country is $50,740.  In
addition we have 34,000,000 Americans now receiving
some form of food stamps.  They are not part of the
middle class group.  Yet when we dig deeper into the
data, it is clear why so many Americans are going broke
on $50,000 a year.

This is very bad because this trend will make it's way further
and further up the income ladder. Sooner or later people
will not stand for it and take matters into their own hands.

C

I missed this weeks Bill Moyers on Friday. But caught it now. All
I can say is WOW !. Bill Moyers has hit it out of the park again. 

DR. DONALD BERWICK: It is, I guess, politically
correct, widely believed, that to say that American
health care is the best in the world. It's not. There's
a much more complicated story there. For some kinds of
care my colleague Brent James calls it rescue care.
Yes, we're the best in the world. If you need very
complex cardiac surgery or very advanced chemotherapy
for your cancer or some audacious intervention with
organ transplantation, you're pretty lucky to be in
America.

You'll get it faster and you'll probably get it better
than in at least most other countries. Rescue care
we're great. But most health care isn't that. Most
health care is getting people with diabetes through
their illness over years or controlling the pain of
someone with arthritis or just answering a question for
someone who is worried or preventing them from getting
into trouble in the first place. And on those scores:
Chronic disease care, community-based care, primary
care, preventive care. No no, we're no where near the
best. And it's reflected in our outcomes.

We're something like the... We're not the best health
care system in the world in infant mortality rates.
We're like number 23. There is an index that is used in
rating health care systems, which is the rate of
mortality that could have been prevented by health
care. There are at least a dozen countries with lower
rates of preventable mortalities than the United States
and not one of those countries spends 60 percent of
what we do on health care.

This program really does lay it on the line. The problem is
NOT just insurance...it's the whole system that is broken.

A system where profits trump patients. A health system that
is as sick as it's clients.

Please watch the video. It will enlighten you.

C

Tanzan and Ekido were once travelling together down a
muddy road. A heavy rain was still falling.

Coming around a bend, they met a lovely girl in a silk
kimono and sash, unable to cross the intersection.

"Come on, girl," said Tanzan at once. Lifting her in
his arms, he carried her over the mud.

Ekido did not speak again until that night when they
reached a lodging temple. Then he no longer could
restrain himself. "We monks don't do near females," he
told Tanzan, "especially not young and lovely ones. It
is dangerous. Why did you do that?"

"I left the girl there," said Tanzan. "Are you still
carrying her?"  

I Lost my father when I was 14. It was very sudden.  He died of a
brain hemorrhage when he was 42. We were in Miami at the time
and he and my mother were looking for a place to buy so as to
move there from North East Ohio.

I had had a very bad fight with him the night before, The first real
fight I had ever had with my father.  I was left at the motel we were
staying at to look after my younger brothers and sisters. 

My parents were expected back before lunch but lunch time came
and went and they had not shown up. I was concerned and also a
bit angry for them to be so late.

Somewhere around 3 in the afternoon a Coral Gables policeman
arrived and told us the my father had had a stroke.  It was as if
all the air and energy I had suddenly left.  I knew this was very,
very bad. I tried to comfort my younger siblings and told them it
may not be so bad. Snuck out side and cried my eyes out for a
few minutes. Went back inside as if nothing had happened.

My mother did not show up until around 7 that evening. She said
our father was dead.  She put her head on my shoulder and cried.
Then we all walked to a the nearest phone both and she called her
father, my grandfather and told him. She told us that he was coming down
to take us up to his place in outside of Phillie. You see my mother
did not drive.

We stayed there at my grandfathers for the next 6 months while my
mother learned to drive and got all the legal items take care of.
Selling the house in Ohio, getting our items which were in storage
transferred to my grandparents place. Etc.

We eventually moved back down to Florida..Naples on the west coast.
A year or so after we moved there the subject came up as to whether
or not my mother would ever remarry. She said absolutely not. I gave
a non committal answer of Ok or some such. But in my mind I was
saying (YES !).

You see my relationship with my father had soured considerably over
the last year and a half or so before his death. The mild mannered yet
sometimes distant man I had known began to change. He became
easily angered. Would contradict himself. Rageful.  He had become
like Dr. Jekyll and Mister Hyde. With more and more of the Hyde.

One minute nice and caring the next angry and mean.

My mother had known something was wrong but not what as he did not
tell her much. Just that he was sick and she passed it off. She did not
WANT to know.

I did not find out until many years later just how sick he was. After talking
at length with my cousin, his niece. You see he did know exactly what was
wrong and had told his mother. He had some very intense tests done but
never told anyone else about it.

Meanwhile I had a lot anger, loss, guilt and fear surround that part. A lot
of baggage to carry. To the point of having nightmares.

It was not until is was in my 40s that I finally was able come to deal with
that whole period in my life. And it took 8 years of group therapy and
counseling.

I came to be able to let go of that part of my life. But I cannot say that it
has not effected me. Because it has. 

I still have problems with relationships with members of my own gender.
And there are still buttons that can be pushed. But not nearly as many
as before.

Letting go is not easy. Especially when one has to let go of a ghost.

C 

At least one liberal Dem considers the self proclaimed Blue Dogs
to be brain dead.

Moderate Blue Dog Democrats "just want to
cause trouble," said Rep. Pete Stark,
D-Calif., who heads the health
subcommittee on the tax-writing Ways and
Means Committee.

"They're for the most part, I hate to say,
brain dead, but they're just looking to
raise money from insurance companies and
promote a right-wing agenda that is not
really very useful in this whole process,"
Stark told reporters on a conference call.

A spokeswoman for the Blue Dog caucus did
not immediately respond to an e-mail
request for comment.

Thursday's call was being hosted by the
liberal group Campaign for America's
Future to release a report making the case
for a strong new public health insurance
plan to compete with private insurers as
part of any health overhaul legislation.

Well lets see if this is an accurate evaluation. Now when one
turns blue...that is cyanotic.. This usually indecates a lack of
of oxygen. If this condition persists for a significant amount
of time it can lead to brain damage.  And eventually death.

So I would say that Congressman Pete Stark's remark is
likely...spot on.

C

Robert Kiyosaki gives us a brief bio-economic lesson on both.

The stock market has been going up since March 9, 2009.
Talk of "green shoots" fill the air. Yet, in spite of
the more positive news, I continue to recommend that
people prepare for the worst. The following are some of
my reasons:

1. I believe the stock market is being manipulated. I
suspect the government, banks, and Wall Street are
doing everything they can to keep the market from
crashing. Our leaders know that nothing makes the world
feel better than a raging bull market.

[Emphasis mine]

Do I have any proof that the market is being
manipulated? No. I just smell a rat, or a pack of rats.
I believe greed, self-interest, arrogance, and fear
control the financial markets. I suspect those in
charge will do anything to keep us all from
panicking... and I don't blame them. A global panic
would be ugly and dangerous.

2. In my view, this global crisis has been caused by
the Federal Reserve Bank, the U.S. Treasury, Wall
Street, and the central banks of the world. They caused
the problem, profited excessively in doing so, and now
profit by being asked to fix the problem.

[Emphasis mine]

Every time I hear a politician mention the word
stimulus, my mind flashes back to high school biology
class, when I touched battery wires to a dead frog to
make it twitch. Today, you and I are the dead frogs.
Pretty soon the dead frog will be fried frog.

In the 1980s, our government's hot money stimulus was
measured only in the millions of dollars. By the 1990s,
the government had to ramp the stimulus voltage into
the billions in order to get the frog to twitch. Today
the frog has jumper cables with trillions in
high-voltage hot money pouring through the lines.

While most us feel better when we have more
high-voltage money in our hands, none of us feel good
about higher taxes, increasing national debt, and
rising inflation for the long term. Another old saying
goes, "Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease." I
say the government stimulus cure is killing us frogs.

3. Old frogs don't hop. Another reason I am cautious
about the future is that the Western world has a
growing number of old frogs. Between 1970 and 2000, the
economy responded to bailouts and stimulus packages
because the baby boomers of the world were entering
their greatest earning years -- their purchasing power
increased, and demand for homes, cars, refrigerators,
computers, and TVs boosted the economy.

The stimulus plans seemed to work. But when a person
turns 60, their spending habits change dramatically.
They stop consuming and start conserving like a bear
preparing for winter. The economy of the Western world
is heading into winter. Hot wires and hot money will
not get old frogs to hop. Old frogs will simply join
the bears and stick that money in the bank as they
prepare for the long, hard winter known as old age. The
businesses that will do well in a winter economy are
drug companies, hospitals, wheelchair manufacturers,
and mortuaries.

As an old frog no quite on his last legs, I suggest you give his whole
article a good read. And when you are through...read it again.

Then continue gathering your wither stocks because it's going to
get a lot colder before it gets warmer.



C

You might want to consider this. A rather graphic reenactment of
the consequences of your actions.  The video is here. Driving while
distracted....nearly as bad as driving while drunk.


C

From a fairly conservative UK paper, The Independent. Mary Dejevsky
has this to say.

That wallet element helps explain the deep-seated
misgivings that have surfaced about Obama's plans
for health reform. A majority of Americans
believe they have adequate health cover. Their
choice of job may be limited by their insurance
requirements (and labour mobility reduced). And
their calculations may be upset " sometimes
disastrously " by accident or illness.

But with most pensioners protected by the state
system known as Medicare, an "I'm all right,
Jack" attitude prevails. It coexists with the
fear that extending the pool of the insured, to
the poorer and more illness-prone, will raise
premiums for the healthy and bring queuing, or
rationing, of care " which is why stories
about the NHS inspire such dread. The principle
that no one should be penalised financially by
illness is trumped by the self-interest of the
majority, then rationalised by the argument that
health is a matter of personal responsibility.

The point is that, when on "normal", the needle
of the US barometer is not only quite a way to
the political right of where it would be in
Europe, but showing a very different atmospheric
level, too. For there is a mean and merciless
streak in mainstream US attitudes, which
tolerates much more in the way of inequality,
deprivation and suffering than is acceptable
here, while incorporating a large and often
sanctimonious quotient of blame.

This transatlantic difference goes far beyond the
healthcare debate. Consider the give-no-quarter
statements out of the US on the release of the
Lockerbie bomber " or the continued
application of the death penalty, or the fact
that excessive violence is far more common a
cause for censorship of US films in Europe than
sex. Or even, in documents emerging from the CIA,
a different tolerance threshold where torture and
terrorism are concerned.

[Emphasis mine]

BINGO !!! could not have said it better myself !

A mean, merciless and sanctimonious population.

C

I have my health insurance through BC/BS Florida. Since I'm a state
employee, it is through the State of Florida. I recently had to have
emergency surgery for appendicitis.  My obligation so far has been
$1900 for hospital and $130.00 for the surgeon.

Now if I had had to have this same procedure done outside the state,
it would have been drastically different.

According to my statement the total for the hospital was $19,000.00
Thats right 19 grand. BC/BS pays 60% of this or 11,400.00. My surgeon
would be around 40% of $1000.00 plus 40% of ER at around $1000.00.
These are just estimates since my insurance picks up all the ER fees.
So for this fairly simple procedure my out of pocket would be around
$12,000.00. A healthy chunk of change.

And this is probably on the low side. In other words if I had anything
major, like a traffic accident or a heart attack where I would have
hat to be hospitalized for any length of time. Or in ICU or needed
extensive surgery...I could have bills exceeding tens of thousands of
dollars just because I needed it out of Florida.

Now to be fair I can get out of state coverage but it too only covers
facilities that are "in network". I would still be responsible for out
of network providers. And if I was unconscious, I would be taken
to the nearest facility whether it was covered or not.

So even if we modify the current system...unless any bill stipulates
full coverage in any state...I would be no better off.


C

Well Wall Street is up to the same old tricks.
Anyone who is stupid or gullible enough to buy any of this crap,
deserves what they get.

Wall Street may have discovered a way out from
under the bad debt and risky mortgages that have
clogged the financial markets. The would-be
solution probably sounds familiar: It's a lot
like what got banks in trouble in the first
place.

In recent months investment banks have been
repackaging old mortgage securities and offering
to sell them as new products, a plan that's
nearly identical to the complicated investment
packages at the heart of the market's collapse.

"There is a little bit of deja vu in this," said
Arizona State University economics professor
Herbert Kaufman.

But Kaufman said the strategy could help solve
one of the lingering problems of the financial
meltdown: What to do about hundreds of billions
of dollars in mortgages that are still choking
the system and making bankers reluctant to make
new loans.

Trying once again to make their books look clean by scrubbing
thoroughly with toilet water and toxic waist.

Un-freaking believable !

C.

Paul Rosenberg seems to think we are nearly there.

    Lacking legitimate routes back to power, their last
    hope is to invest the hardcore remainder of their
    base with an undeserved legitimacy, recruit them as
    shock troops, and overthrow American democracy by
    force. If they can't win elections or policy
    fights, they're more than willing to take it to the
    streets, and seize power by bullying Americans into
    silence and complicity.

    In my previous diaries today, I've made mention of
    the fact that conservatives/Republicans have been
    quite willing to break the rules for some time now,
    so they have plenty of practice, as well as the
    inclination, to go gleefully skiing down that old
    slippery slope:

    When that unholy alliance is made, the third stage
    -- the transition to full-fledged government
    fascism -- begins.

    And that's where we are today.  The fleeting signs
    of the past are over and done with:

    Now, the guessing game is over. We know beyond
    doubt that the Teabag movement was created out of
    whole cloth by astroturf groups like Dick Armey's
    FreedomWorks and Tim Phillips' Americans for
    Prosperity, with massive media help from FOX News.
    We see the Birther fracas -- the kind of urban
    myth-making that should have never made it out of
    the pages of the National Enquirer -- being openly
    ratified by Congressional Republicans. We've seen
    Armey's own professionally-produced field manual
    that carefully instructs conservative goon squads
    in the fine art of disrupting the democratic
    governing process -- and the film of public
    officials being terrorized and threatened to the
    point where some of them required armed escorts to
    leave the building. We've seen Republican House
    Minority Leader John Boehner applauding and
    promoting a video of the disruptions and looking
    forward to "a long, hot August for Democrats in
    Congress."

    This is the sign we were waiting for -- the one
    that tells us that yes, kids: we are there now.
    America's conservative elites have openly thrown in
    with the country's legions of discontented far
    right thugs. They have explicitly deputized them
    and empowered them to act as their enforcement arm
    on America's streets, sanctioning the physical
    harassment and intimidation of workers, liberals,
    and public officials who won't do their political
    or economic bidding.

Yep...we maybe nearly there.

C

It is said the even a dead cat will bounce if dropped from a
great enough height.   And this rebound sure looks like
a dead cat. And it ain't bouncing.

 The numbers reported Thursday by the Mortgage Bankers
 Association show clearly that rising job losses are
 worsening the nation's housing troubles and threaten
 the Obama administration's efforts to keep owners from
 losing their homes.

 The quarterly National Delinquency Survey showed that
 almost one in 10 homeowners with a mortgage was at
 least one payment late, and thus delinquent, while
 another 4 percent had entered the foreclosure process
 on their loan.

 Nowhere is there less sunshine in this picture than
 Florida. The survey found that from April to June, 12
 percent of all Florida mortgages were in the
 foreclosure process and about 23 percent of all
 Florida mortgages_ almost one in four_ were late on
 payments or under threat of foreclosure.

 In California, 10.8 percent of all mortgages were 90
 days or more past due or in foreclosure. While the
 Golden State accounts for 13.3 percent of U.S.
 mortgages, it's also the site of almost 20 percent of
 foreclosure starts from April to June.

 More worrisome is a trend emerging deeper in the
 numbers: Subprime loans given to the weakest borrowers
 are now a declining portion of delinquency and
 foreclosure rates, while prime loans, given to the
 most highly qualified borrowers, are a rising share.

 "The rise in prime delinquencies . . . is a clear
 indication that employment is the driver of mortgage
 performance, with the worst performance coming in
 those areas that are combining jobs losses with large
 drops in home values like California and Florida," Jay
 Brinkmann, the group's chief economist, told
 McClatchy. "We won't see a turnaround in delinquencies
 until we see improvements in employment, most likely
 the middle of next year."

Somebody needs to find out what's in the Kool Aid that
Benanke has been dinking because it can't be legal.


C

"As for you, my fine friend -- you're a victim 
 of disorganized thinking.  You are under the 
 unfortunate delusion that simply because you 
 run away from danger, you have no courage.  
 You're confusing courage with wisdom.  Back 
 where I come from, we have men who are called
 heroes.  Once a year, they take their
 fortitude out of mothballs and parade it
 down the main street of the city." 
 The Wizard of OZ

Gopher turtles are protected in the State of Florida.
They have no real enemies except man. Or rather people
in cars. Many are killed on the highways of Florida
every year as they try to cross and get to more
dryer areas in the summer or warmer and damper areas
in the winter.

While on my back back from a run down to the local
home improvement store - located on a fairly busy
six lane highway - I see first one car ahead of me 
in the middle lane heading east. He put on is emergency 
flashers and got out. Another vehicle, in the left lane
(the one I was in) pulled up next to him and stopped
also. I wondered what was going on. A problem with
his car maybe ? Well stopping right there was a 
dangerous thing to do. I stopped and watched.

The gentleman in the center lane car bent down and 
picked up a gopher turtle and carefully walked
across the west bound lanes and put it down in the
grass. He then returned to his car and proceeded on
his way as did the person in the lane I was in.

That this turtle had made it as far as it did with
out becoming another turtle statistic...was a miracle
in and of itself. I have rescued many such turtles from
certain death but never on a major highway. Mostly
on safe two lane back roads. Though I must admit I 
have rarely seen any on major highways that were not
already road kill.

I wondered all the way home if I had had the courage to 
in the middle of a busy highway to rescue a turtle
or any other animal, or would I have simply swerved to
avoid it...hoping others did the same...yet knowing that
at leas one would not.

C