Like most fights or debates the battle over Health Care reform revolves around a set of facts muddied and murky through the collective waters of political discourse, which is by the way the purpose of most politicking; to confuse the issue. Take this Associated Press article I stumbled upon a short while ago which does its best to confuse the issue and misrepresent the facts, a testament to the ignorance abound in this highly contested debate.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091026/ap_on_bi_ge/us_fact_check_health_insurance
This article written by Calvin Woodward squarely focuses on the profit margins of the Health Insurance industry, arguing against those who say that health insurers reap too much profit by focusing on a hand full of numbers that support this claim. This would be fine except that anybody with even faint trace of a clue about business and economics knows that profit margins tell very little about the story of any business, on their own. Revenue gives a much more revealing story, especially when combined with knowledge of operating costs and of course salary expenditures, where most of the would be profits in this debate have gone. But this is America, you say, where anyone should be allowed to make whatever they can. Well this is America, and that's where your health insurance costs have gone.
See it's not about profit. It's not about the overall success of any one company or what the shareholders and other do nothings have been able to extract from the sidelines. It's about how much fat there is at the top. It's about the amount people dipping their hands into the pot, taking more than they ever could deserve for the nothing it is that they do, making profits for themselves off of the backs of the sick and needy. I know I'm being cynical here, but if you haven't noticed, these types of people, the CEO's and corporate executive types, they're a bit greedy, kind of like me being a bit sarcastic at times. That's where this economy has gone. Take this article for example which does a much better job focusing on the key issue in this debate, rather than a talking point founded in rhetoric.
http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2009/04/health_care_ceos_owe_us.html
Those are obscene salaries, and that was only for a few select CEO's in one particular state, which does not account for the many executives within those same companies who no doubt make much more than they're contributions to the general health of the public warrants. I would like to see how much money is bonused and paid out to the fat at the top before coming to any conclusions about Health Care reform. Calvin Woodward of the Associated Press would rather you not. It's much easier to buy into his claim when focusing on such an irrelevant area. Ah, but that's the essence of politics. It's no surprise then that it's also the essence of this debate!
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Commodity markets and the manipulators controlling us all
What troubles me foremost about our society is our economy: the state of disrepair that it's in, how it actually works, the creative and worthless ways in which wealth is accrued by the wealthy in the 21st century and how controlled we all completely are by something as fictitiously unparalleled as money. If the game we are wallowing in was played on a level field, served our country rather than particular classes and had actual rules we were all bound to, then yeah I would be all gung ho for the American Dream, yet the sad fact is that the Dream has been one of the worst pieces of fiction ever paraded around to the public. Yes it has been a Dream, but in the utmost worst of the sense, as the American public has been asleep far too long at the wheel, dreaming up ways to make money without hard work or actual social worth. Take the $100,000,000.00 benefactor Andrew J. Hall, who off the collective backbone of American gas prices manipulated his way to a fortune. It's people like him who have artificially driven up the price of oil by storing it on oil tankers and in underground oil banks, using it like the commodity driven market it's become, as it's the commodity markets which have brought this economy down, trading futures and unsubstantiated capital. But it hasn't always been this way, nor should it be allowed one moment more.
Storing oil in tanks is an example of profit being artificially created, synthetically derived and anti-socially driven. Seeing as so many wealthy, affluent capitalists are capitalizing in similar fashion off these markets, keep in mind that there is an inherent artificial depletion of oil built into this business plan, which factors into supply, assuring huge sums of profit unabated. This is not an example of free market capitalism, it's an example of controlled and manipulated markets! People such as Andrew Hall, in cahoots with other self-important wealth hording opportunists have taken to operating clandestinely together behind the scenes to dictate the direction of the markets. Wealth can do that, through shear force! In other words these predators have figured out a way to legally manipulate the system in order to extract huge sums of profit for themselves, while everyone else actually laboring in life, i.e. the meaningful, useful people in our society who have actually contributed to the social well being of this country, are left stuck behind at the pump paying whatever price this cruel and inept game dictates. It's fool proof, works every time and is the single reason the price of gas has been driven to the levels they were. And it's our taxpayer money which will be footing this bonus for Andrew Hall, as he was contracted through Citibank. In other words, a man whose business practices helped contribute to this economic mess is being directly rewarded for these very actions. This, America, is where we've been led by the wealthy, which is why so many need to awake from this Dream, a fairy-tales dream filled with too many bad guys! If it were only that simple, to awake from a dream...
Storing oil in tanks is an example of profit being artificially created, synthetically derived and anti-socially driven. Seeing as so many wealthy, affluent capitalists are capitalizing in similar fashion off these markets, keep in mind that there is an inherent artificial depletion of oil built into this business plan, which factors into supply, assuring huge sums of profit unabated. This is not an example of free market capitalism, it's an example of controlled and manipulated markets! People such as Andrew Hall, in cahoots with other self-important wealth hording opportunists have taken to operating clandestinely together behind the scenes to dictate the direction of the markets. Wealth can do that, through shear force! In other words these predators have figured out a way to legally manipulate the system in order to extract huge sums of profit for themselves, while everyone else actually laboring in life, i.e. the meaningful, useful people in our society who have actually contributed to the social well being of this country, are left stuck behind at the pump paying whatever price this cruel and inept game dictates. It's fool proof, works every time and is the single reason the price of gas has been driven to the levels they were. And it's our taxpayer money which will be footing this bonus for Andrew Hall, as he was contracted through Citibank. In other words, a man whose business practices helped contribute to this economic mess is being directly rewarded for these very actions. This, America, is where we've been led by the wealthy, which is why so many need to awake from this Dream, a fairy-tales dream filled with too many bad guys! If it were only that simple, to awake from a dream...
Saturday, July 25, 2009
W.R. Grace: The epitome of a broken legal system from a functioning standpoint
"Not Guilty" was the verdict as read by the jury May 8th, evidence no doubt to the lack of evidence available to them in the trial, which by no means was lacking in abundance, but rather, excluded by the trial's judge: Donald Malloy. For those unaware, the four remaining executives of the W.R. Grace Company still alive enough to stand trial for environmental crimes charges were acquitted on all charges of conspiracy to knowingly cover up the violation of the Federal Clean Air act, as well as the knowing endangerment of human lives. While a not guilty verdict implies a legal innocence, the actions of the W.R. Grace Co. towards the residents of the surrounding villages of Libby are the very definition of what should be illegal, not the evolution of dodgy cunning legal precedence.
There are a few things that need to be considered before rendering an opinion on the jury's decision, but of utmost importance is Judge Molloy's decision to bar forty-six of the fifty-three items presented as evidence from the prosecution's case, given the absurd reasoning he states for doing so. Below is an excerpt from Judge Molloy’s ruling.
"The Court has a concern that the potential for confusion lurks elsewhere in the government's proffered exhibits, particularly in light of the manner in which the government has presented its case to date. The prosecution's practice of presenting incomplete proof calculated to exclude all evidence adverse to its litigation position, while permissible as a trial tactic, does not induce confidence that the government will eschew the opportunity to argue misleading inferences from documents admitted without either party having an opportunity to examine a witness who can help contextualize the exhibits.”
"While they show the Defendants' knowledge, the government has made clear that it has in mind for them another purpose: to argue that the company's inclination toward discretion in its internal discussion of potential liability issues involving its finished commercial products is in fact evidence of a sinister agreement to defraud the United States and cause releases in and around Libby. The evidence does not support the inference. The potential for confusion of issues and undue prejudice outweighs the limited probative value of the memos."
The only potential for confusion I am able to gather from this statement is the murky wordiness of this overtly confusing rhetoric. If I may gather from the pretentiousness of his Honor’s logic, evident in the ridiculous effort taken to confuse the issue, the Judge is stating that he finds the jury incapable of interpreting the evidence in regards to the charges, and further that he himself fails to see the relevancy of this evidence in regards to the charges, despite his acknowledgment that it proves the defendants were aware of their actions. I am glad I took a foreign language in college to prepare me for my work with translations!
It is the duty of the jury to decide what occurred, not the duty of the judge to filter the available facts, and if this is indeed the case, that the Judge is charged with this overly empowering right, than the entire legal system needs to be retooled! If the Judge is allowed the right to dismiss evidence, than by no means is any American judged in the eyes of the law by their peers; but rather, through the biased eyes of their Judge.
The dismissed evidence was mostly intra-office correspondence; memos stating the outright admission of their deadly practices in print. This, however, was not at trial in the case according to the Judge, because none of the memos the prosecution presented to him dealt with a direct conspiracy to violate the Federal Clean Air Act, a narrow minded interpretation indeed! And that is my problem with the law, the narrow minded, almost mathematical approach at play determining justice in our society, as if only a certain number of variables need to be met to defeat any sordid equation. According to the law Judge Molloy may be correct with his narrow minded interpretation, but this is the very law which has determined W.R. Grace has done nothing wrong. I say the laws on the books even beg of such actions. It’s the system of justice which needs addressing. No way does a civilized society foster such corrupted jurisprudence, which says a lot for our civility. That a company can make themselves billionaires knowingly poisoning so many through such deceptive, cheek in tongue logic, only goes to show how far we have fallen as a society. There are those who say that our system of justice is the best in the world, that there are country’s who have it far worse than we could ever imagine. The latter no doubt is indeed in its obviousness true, but such concessionary logic is insulting when applied in regards to the supposed leader of the free world. Freedom is something that was earned, many years ago by our forefathers, but the very forces which brought on their great indignation towards their oppressors have come full circle, enacting applicable similar forms of injustice on the very people who made this country once great. The ones who drove this country to greatness were not millionaires with the power and capabilities of skirting the law, but hard working, innovative individuals, who lived by the sweat of their brow! That is lost in this injustice, as all that’s left is the scar of the dollar and the unknowable lives affected by this tragedy.
America the beautiful, no more.
It’s sad beyond all hell.
There are a few things that need to be considered before rendering an opinion on the jury's decision, but of utmost importance is Judge Molloy's decision to bar forty-six of the fifty-three items presented as evidence from the prosecution's case, given the absurd reasoning he states for doing so. Below is an excerpt from Judge Molloy’s ruling.
"The Court has a concern that the potential for confusion lurks elsewhere in the government's proffered exhibits, particularly in light of the manner in which the government has presented its case to date. The prosecution's practice of presenting incomplete proof calculated to exclude all evidence adverse to its litigation position, while permissible as a trial tactic, does not induce confidence that the government will eschew the opportunity to argue misleading inferences from documents admitted without either party having an opportunity to examine a witness who can help contextualize the exhibits.”
"While they show the Defendants' knowledge, the government has made clear that it has in mind for them another purpose: to argue that the company's inclination toward discretion in its internal discussion of potential liability issues involving its finished commercial products is in fact evidence of a sinister agreement to defraud the United States and cause releases in and around Libby. The evidence does not support the inference. The potential for confusion of issues and undue prejudice outweighs the limited probative value of the memos."
The only potential for confusion I am able to gather from this statement is the murky wordiness of this overtly confusing rhetoric. If I may gather from the pretentiousness of his Honor’s logic, evident in the ridiculous effort taken to confuse the issue, the Judge is stating that he finds the jury incapable of interpreting the evidence in regards to the charges, and further that he himself fails to see the relevancy of this evidence in regards to the charges, despite his acknowledgment that it proves the defendants were aware of their actions. I am glad I took a foreign language in college to prepare me for my work with translations!
It is the duty of the jury to decide what occurred, not the duty of the judge to filter the available facts, and if this is indeed the case, that the Judge is charged with this overly empowering right, than the entire legal system needs to be retooled! If the Judge is allowed the right to dismiss evidence, than by no means is any American judged in the eyes of the law by their peers; but rather, through the biased eyes of their Judge.
The dismissed evidence was mostly intra-office correspondence; memos stating the outright admission of their deadly practices in print. This, however, was not at trial in the case according to the Judge, because none of the memos the prosecution presented to him dealt with a direct conspiracy to violate the Federal Clean Air Act, a narrow minded interpretation indeed! And that is my problem with the law, the narrow minded, almost mathematical approach at play determining justice in our society, as if only a certain number of variables need to be met to defeat any sordid equation. According to the law Judge Molloy may be correct with his narrow minded interpretation, but this is the very law which has determined W.R. Grace has done nothing wrong. I say the laws on the books even beg of such actions. It’s the system of justice which needs addressing. No way does a civilized society foster such corrupted jurisprudence, which says a lot for our civility. That a company can make themselves billionaires knowingly poisoning so many through such deceptive, cheek in tongue logic, only goes to show how far we have fallen as a society. There are those who say that our system of justice is the best in the world, that there are country’s who have it far worse than we could ever imagine. The latter no doubt is indeed in its obviousness true, but such concessionary logic is insulting when applied in regards to the supposed leader of the free world. Freedom is something that was earned, many years ago by our forefathers, but the very forces which brought on their great indignation towards their oppressors have come full circle, enacting applicable similar forms of injustice on the very people who made this country once great. The ones who drove this country to greatness were not millionaires with the power and capabilities of skirting the law, but hard working, innovative individuals, who lived by the sweat of their brow! That is lost in this injustice, as all that’s left is the scar of the dollar and the unknowable lives affected by this tragedy.
America the beautiful, no more.
It’s sad beyond all hell.
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