Sneaky Tricks Call For Firm Actions.

       A couple of items in the news in the past few days point out a problem this country has with corporations and the very wealthy. I speak of Volkswagen and it's decision to cheat on emissions testing technology and the hedge fund manager who bought the rights to a critical drug that sells for $13.50 a pill and then raised the price to $750.00 per pill. Because he could.
       My cousin said something I have to agree with. He said it's just "more proof corporations won't look out for the public if given the chance to." Just what chance have we given them anyway? Well we gave corporations the chance to be classified as people, but they don't want to treat other people as they would be treated. We gave hedge fund managers a terrific tax break called "carried interest", saving them millions per year. but that doesn't seem to be enough for them. They want to cheat too, by placing seriously ill people in a position of not being able to afford the drug that can save them.
       The sad thing is, corporations just don't really care about people and neither do extremely wealthy people. Of course there are exceptions, but those folks who do care about their fellow man prove it by agreeing they've got it too good and are willing to share. So what's my point?
       My point is that since these corporations and hedge fund managers have shown they don't deserve the special benefits we've bestowed upon them. It's time to take those special benefits away. It's time to put some of them in jail for what are clearly cases of criminality.
       Unconscionable actions call for conscious action. These folks and corporations will never change their actions until they are forced to by example. If you speed down the street at twice the speed limit and the cops just wave you on, you're never gonna slow down. But if you start getting speeding tickets, your gonna modify your schedule to allow for earlier departures.

What Goes Around, Comes Around.

       A terrific Indian doctor told me a story today that was very informative. It seems that some years ago a man who spoke no English, walked into the British embassy in his city in India and asked the gentleman behind the desk for a visa to go to England. The Brit became angry and threw the passport across the desk at the man, shouting "you can't speak a word of English, how do you expect to go to England?"
       Of course the man didn't understand any of this and so he turned to the woman standing behind him and asked what the Brit had said. She explained what the official had said. The Indian man said "Please tell him that 200 years ago the British came here to India. They spoke not a word of our language, not even a single letter, yet they made out okay. Why would he think I cannot do likewise?" She did as the man asked and told the official. The Brit sheepishly retrieved the passport and stamped it approved.
       The story got me to thinking about the first English speaking immigrants who came to America. They spoke no native languages, yet they seem to have made out well. So why is it that so many Americans now get so upset and angry at immigrants wanting to come to America for basically the same reasons as the first Europeans, but can't speak our language? What's so different?
       Oh, that's right, they aren't coming here to steal our lands and kill us. They're coming here to share in the American dream. But that doesn't explain why so many people are so bitter about their coming here. It does seem a bit hypocritical though, doesn't it?
      

What Makes A President?

       Just how much of an advantage is being a successful business person when it comes to leading America? If a candidate for President has shown to be a very successful corporate leader, it means they know how to make decisions under pressure, that's for sure. A corporate leader looks at financial reports and may decide it's necessary to cut the workforce by 10%, or eliminate company funded healthcare or pensions or lower wages or any combination of the above.
       That's what a corporate leader must do, because profitability is what business is all about. Everything a company does is geared to the bottom line. It has to be. What happens to the effected employees may weigh heavily on the CEO, but business is business is business.
       On the other hand being President of a country, America, requires that he or she must be more concerned with the well being of the citizens than anything else. At least that's the way it's supposed to work. Of course if the country is in a sound financial position, it's easier to take care of all the citizens than if it's deeply in debt, but regardless, the responsibility remains with the President toward all the citizens.
       Ya see? That's why I can't understand fiscal conservatives. The need to eliminate debt, while important and good, does not trump the need to care for all the citizens. There is that suggestion that balancing the books will then allow America to better serve it's citizens, that's true. What I can't wrap my head around is the question of what to do for citizens in crisis in the meantime? Do we just throw them away? A corporation doesn't have to worry about folks who lose their jobs and income. That's society's problem. But the country, ah the country, that is society. Those folks are the responsibility of the government, the country.
       The whole idea of a country like America is the idea of taking care to protect each member of it's society, it's population. Protect them from enemies, crime, and loss of opportunity to survive. If you eliminate or reduce supportive systems like food stamps or medical care in order to repair our financial house, you defeat the whole purpose of existing as a country. It's not easy, but we need someone who understands the needs of the people and is willing to fight to protect them.

Pity The Poor CEO.

       I was just looking at a chart that shows the ratio of worker pay to CEO pay in America. In 1982 the ratio was $1: 42, in 1992 it jumped to $1: 201, 2002 it was 1:281 and in 2012 it was 1:354. $354 for every $1 an unskilled worker made in the same company. Can you imagine that? Suppose you were an unskilled worker and you made $10 per hour. So in a forty hour week you make $400. But the CEO of that company makes $14,160 per week.
       $14,160 per week? Who makes that kind of money? Well, probably not the CEO of a small ten employee company, but the larger corporations, that's the kind of wages they're paying their CEOs. Of course it's not all in weekly paychecks, no, most of it comes in the form of stock options and other tax benefit ways so as to reduce their tax exposure. That's why they don't pay nearly as high a percentage of their income in taxes as you or I. You may pay as high as 38% of your total income while they may pay maybe about 15% of theirs, or nothing at all.
       That's how we get income inequality. It's not bad enough they pay less than half in taxes that you pay, but they make 354 times as much as you. And that only comes to $636,320 per year for the CEO. But there are a bunch who are raking in multi-million dollars plus per year. I don't even want to guess what those ratios are.
       Now don't get me wrong, a CEO has a lot more pressure to get things right. Being a CEO can't be easy. And if they don't do a good job, they're likely to get fired and that means a golden parachute worth millions more. No, being a CEO of a major corporation is no picnic, no matter what you may think. But don't feel too bad for them, after all, they're making somewhat more than you. And they get to keep a much larger chunk of theirs.

Are You Related To A Corporation?

       I'd like to tell you about a very distant relative of mine by the name of General Electric, or as we in the family call him, Gen. Gen is something of an extraordinary person for a distant relative. I say that because most, if not all of my close relatives vote regularly and pay taxes every year and at the standard rate for their income group. Not so with cousin, twice removed, Gen and all his friends.
       Ya see, Gen isn't allowed to vote and it's certainly not because of his age, he just never got the right to vote. And usually he doesn't pay taxes, in fact he quite often gets a refund from the government that can amount to nearly 75% of his net income. He has his own business in which he employs thousands upon thousands of employees, and nearly all of them pay taxes.
       The thing is Gen is a corporation. Now almost any person can incorporate themselves, but with Gen, he actually is a corporation. He's not a living breathing human person, he's a Supreme Court appointed person. Corporations are like that, ya know. Now I'm sure there was some obscure reason for making the claim that corporations are people, probably for tax purposes. But think about it. Corporations seem to get the rights of actual people without any of the disadvantages of real people.
       You never heard of a corporation being rushed to the hospital for an attack of appendicitis, did you? No, and you never heard of a corporation like General Electric going out for diner either. Gen's CEO probably goes out quite often and on the corporate's plastic to boot. Something else Gen can do that the rest of us can't. He can call up just about any member of Congress or even the President and ask for a sit down, and get it, to discuss some piece of legislation he likes or dislikes. And the thing is, he's more than likely to get what he wants because he spends a whole bunch of money on elections and campaigning.
       And there's the rub. Corporations get to write legislation and bring extreme pressure on Congress to do their bidding, unlike you or I who have a hard time getting to speak to a staffer. So if some piece of legislation is gonna harm you, forget about getting it defeated if it will help a corporation in the slightest way. Maybe something should be done about that.

I Finally Get It.

       I finally get it now. Guns don't kill people, people kill people. After all this time I finally get it. It's true. It's like, well it's like spaghetti. Spaghetti doesn't make you fat, people who eat too much spaghetti make you fat. So to keep from getting fat, you eat less spaghetti. Simple solution, just abstain from eating so much. Go on a diet.
       So if that spaghetti diet can work then why can't we go on a gun diet? Of course for any diet to work for a whole society, everyone who eats spaghetti has to cut back. The same should then be true for a gun diet. The whole of society has to cut back on guns for this diet to work. That means fewer gun purchases and fewer shots being fired. Buy less ammunition. And some need to abstain altogether. Folks who are addicted to spaghetti will have to abstain, and some gun people will also have to abstain.
       My vote is to have the NRA abstain. They seem to be addicted to guns. For everyone. So for this gun diet to work, the NRA is going to have to abstain from guns for every last person on earth before we get down to the last persons on earth. I propose for these addicts to shooting, that we limit the shooting to a few days a year. For those who seem to be addicted to killing, we form an addicted list and not sell them guns or allow them to possess guns.
       Let's face it, we've become a nation of gun lovers who aren't afraid to tote them thar guns all over towns and cities and diners and churches and movies in the hopes of getting a shot off at some real or imagined bad guy. Maybe we should use the money we would ordinarily spend on guns and bullets and all that on paying for more cops who are trained to protect us. Just like spaghetti addicts could spend their pasta money on salad greens.
        Just a thought.

Whose Fault Is The V.A.?

       Boy oh boy, did you see the reports out about the V.A. and how over 300,000 applicants died before they could be processed into the system? How over 800,000 applicants are waiting to be processed? That's unbelievable, it's unconscionable. How could the V.A. be so irresponsible? The V.A. was formed for the express purpose of serving veterans, especially those in need of medical services. How could that many veterans in need of medical attention not get processed into the system and begin receiving the medical care they need?
       Ya know what? Whoever is responsible for this backlog should be punished by the courts and receive sever prison sentences. There's just one problem with that idea. If we did that, there would be no one left in Congress to pass any laws. That's right, ya see, starting back about 20 years ago, Congress began to cut funding or not increase funding, in order to keep even with inflation, for the V.A.. Then all of a sudden we got into two wars.
       And unlike previous wars, instead of many, many soldiers getting killed, our military doctors began saving those lives. Wonderful, but it meant that many, many more injured veterans were now in need of medical care. But guess what Congress didn't do? They didn't increase the funding for the V.A. I guess Congress thought that if we could save all those lives, we could take care of them.
       The problem is the doctors saving those lives were in the military, but once the lives are saved, they discharge them. That's when the V.A., which already had it's hands full, got swamped with all those extra veterans but no new money to take care of them. Try this sometime. Put ten gallons of gas in your car and drive until you run out of gas. Then put another ten gallons in and continue driving for twice the distance. Doesn't work? The V.A. can't do twice the work with the same funding either.