The Serious Pirate is no where without the big bag of booty. Lesser Pirates, of small booty bags, are without the steely ambition to rob and plunder what they can, as availed they are of favorable trade winds. The sturdy, thirsty Pirate, the Pirate of the hemp booty bag, has dressed for the job he or she wants. Now On! Do you see that booty now?
Ay, sir! Sing out when you see the Booty! Sing out!
Sing out every time!!
The Goose …I Can Move You If You Let Me…?
Let’s just start from today. This isn’t a suicide luge. This is the very beginning of what could be the largest expansion of tax dollars into private industry—“Healthcare Reform.” It is going to operate free of the short term wax and wane that might characterize the banks—Hello low hanging fruit. Healthcare: put your money in their stock and you won’t even need their insurance.
Oh the banks! Who needs regulation? How did they manage to suck out funds from taxpayers and increase their market share in positions outside of banking? Oh, that’s right. No industry exists which operates outside these banks.
And now … brought to you by the miracle… of fractional reserve banking….sponsored in part by the gee-eight-taxpayers …is a graph of the credit supply over time:
The Banks! That’s where the money is.
Just to show how full of shit and messed up the banks are. I have a google portfolio invested in the whole sector, in various ratios, worth 2000 bucks. As I write this, it has been almost two weeks and I’m up more than ten percent. It doesn’t really matter what the numbers are at any given point, but we’ll keep checking in on the progress. There are some reasons I chose these banks, I would like to run them down… for me and you. Because there is no reason to choose these banks over others, except that these are “some of the big ones” which are directly plugged into what ever media outlets I have been googling—ie-all over the only available “news” anyone can possibly search out…ie-only the vast insider trading complex (think-Mutual Funds) can claim to have more perfect knowledge, and after this crash: is there any doubt those people are lying to the people who are lying to the public. Wall
Healthcare
When I give the impression that wholesale profiteering via the worst aspects of society is the duty of the Pirate—it is duty in the ultimate service of all. Accordingly, I would also like to shake the tree a bit in the other direction. I think a single-payer system is the only choice. It is the only just choice. Pragmatically, there are a few impediments which have flown under the radar: bureaucratic expansion and pharma-insurance inertia.
To set up a single-payer system, a few things are required right out of the gate. Assuming any incarnation of health care reform passes, bureaucratic expansion is a consequence. Single-payer, “Canadian style,” requires massive governmental expansion. If there is anything except a fundamental expansion in Medicare/Aid, expansion is created in the already bloated private sector.
I don’t want to spend much time with the plans which are currently before Congress, as I don’t believe for a moment that anything is going to get fully resolved before the mid-term elections, when Republicans are banking on this as THE issue on which to attack BO and the Dems. Consequently, I would only say that to pass a “bare bones, cover pre-existing conditions, cover ‘non-cost-effective’ patients only” plan is probably the only scenario. There isn’t a way to magically disappear the Insurance lobby.
Government expands, theoretically, to oversee the expenditures by Insurers made to those patients who WILL lose money for the company, but whose cost is deflected, by definition of law, to the public sector. Explain why this does not happen: The government has set up the rules to cover every one, even if they are too expensive for “traditional” profit-margins-->Thus, companies begin a rigorous endeavor to ostracize as many patients as possible to “pass-off” to the taxpayer--> Once the government picks up the tab, they are lost, as they do not own the means of production (or distribution) to treat these mass of new patients effectively --> The Government turns back into the Insurance companies to see where they would place them. So just skip the last step. Once caste as a “too-sick-to-help-welfare-case,” insurance companies don’t even need to ask the government what to do about you, they go ahead and fix you … at the maximum cost. Add forty million Americans into the equation, and it is not difficult to see how these insurance companies are poised to grow into super-mega giants.
The real meat of bureaucratic extension occurs within the Insurance companies as they collude—with alacrity—to sketch the landscape in anticipation of future regulation, thus securing future profits for all. As this regulation gradually does occur—what will be its character? How does a government recruit and fight these large companies with bureaucratic oversight, when the means of production for training medical oversight lie squarely within the large insurance companies themselves? Is the US Government condemned to hire Industry-trained inside/outsiders to regulate these oligarchs? Well, it didn’t work so well for the SEC… or the FDA. The Patent office is an arm of the Dept. of Commerce, and looks like a zoo these days. When was the last government regulatory office which worked? Regulatory bodies in this nation fail the basic character test required to regulate. And here is the kicker: If such a deal were to become a reality, it is no stretch to say that tons and tons of jobs are sure to be created. Government and private sector jobs. There are powerful incentives to make this shit a reality.
Until you find … that the wrong… and the right… are within your mind.
I consider it a duty of all good socialists to think about our institutions and what they can do better. If we do, in fact, grant all this money and power back to the middle men insurance companies, what can we ask them to do in exchange? But envision the future: Private Industry picks up where socialized government should be. Impending populist backlash can be mitigated by doing this very thing. For example, a mandate—populist, corporate, or government—that health insurance companies begin to “invest” in the well-being of their clients, not vice-versa. “Social Integration,” rather than vertical/horizontal, into fitness centers. I would like to see insurance plans based on biking, hiking, etc. You might see a reduction in blood pressure, monthly payments, and win a vacation to
I would have to think this sort of social integration factors some way into the immutable laws of profit-margins. The industries of the future have everything to do with harnessing collective power—like the wind. Green industry especially carries this quality. The opportunity costs of inaction present unknowable human tragedy. On the other hand, it doesn’t take a mole with eagle eyes to see the golden shores of renewable energy approaching the horizon. Thus, the enterprising energy corp. can freely claim its inordinate share of booty, while branding themselves as energy prophets and the savior of humanity…
This is exactly why Social Integration is so dangerous. Society is going to be rebuilt, its planned obsolescence is coming up due on top of technological revolution. Our highways erode, water systems deteriorate, obsoleteà Our food supply must change à Water and Waste and Recycling plants will be built. Transfer from coal to renewables requires “grid” efficiency—nascent industries demand serious oversight and incentives for growth. And all these problems are connected to the political which is connected to everything else, as per the leitmotif of the era.
It might be fun to bask in the expansion of the rationalist-materialist world. Science, understanding, bringing common focus to bear with the mighty ocean of potential. To close your eyes and think yourself caught upon an unstoppable existential current, but such sweet daydreams are not possible in the face of Orwell’s boot: the Immortal Corporation.
