Clawing back America

Dear Editors,

Can it really be true, as reported in the news, that the first “bail-out money” was used to invest oversees in lieu of rebuilding our economy? If so, perhaps now is the time for the so-called “claw-back” legislation for repayment of our taxpayer funds, which can well be used, as formerly intended, to correct the housing corruption. It will take many letters from “We the People” to induce members of Congress to legislate for repayment of that money. Greed can no longer be tolerated if our economy is to be restored.

The border control issue continues to be discussed but no action has been taken to rectify the problem. Could it be that greed is once again involved with guns going into Mexico and drugs coming back? We cannot allow this to continue. The simple solution would be to return our troops from Iraq to guard our northern and southern borders, thereby eliminating the cost impact of that illegal war and illegal aliens in America, as well as the loss of lives in other countries. Why are American military troops used all over the world while our borders remain unprotected? Isolated rhetoric is nonsense; it is time to “come to the aid of our country.”

– Evelyn Stacer, Mancos

P.S. The audacious greed of AIG bonus use of taxpayer money is contemptible, which must immediately be addressed by Congress. Is it also going overseas or is it finally time for “claw-back?” The pen is mighty!

Health care for all Coloradans

Dear Editors:

A large contributor to the U.S. crisis of health-care financing and delivery is the administrative bureaucracy of profit-first, multi-payer insurances that siphon 31 percent of our health-care dollars to profits and exces

Journalist T.R. Reid contrasts U.S. health care with that in five other industrialized nations in his documentary “Sick Around the World.” None of the five countries he visited – Germany, Switzerland, Japan, Taiwan and Great Britain – utilizes for-profit insurance; all pay on average half as much per capita for health care as the U.S., and all have better health-care outcomes, longer lives, etc.

Rather than a quality-centered health-care system, the U.S. profit-centered model of health care has compromised our primary care infrastructure. At least 100 overburdened U.S. emergency rooms have closed their doors over the past decade. It was recently reported that Denver’s University Hospital became the eighth area facility to close its psychiatric unit; at the same time, it maintains a new six-story building on the Fitzsimmons campus dedicated solely to billing, processing more than 1,000 different forms for over 1,000 different insurers.

Over 20 federal and state studies, including the Colorado Lewin Group study in 2007, have demonstrated billions of dollars of savings in health-care spending, as well as the ability to provide comprehensive health care for all, utilizing a single-risk-pool publicly financed and privately delivered health-care system. 

The Colorado Guaranteed Health Care Act, HB09-1273, has been introduced to create the structure for comprehensive reform that guarantees health care for all Coloradans. In addition to streamlining administrative health costs, HB09-1273 stipulates annual negotiation of fair reimbursement to all providers; negotiation of prescription drug and medical equipment costs; support for education to address primary care, nursing and other provider shortages; and prioritization of retraining for displaced workers.

In the place of inadequate private insurances that have seen premium increases of more than 100 percent since 2000, the single public-payer model of health insurance separates health coverage from employment, establishes a sliding-scale premium based on income, and permits full choice of health-care providers. Read more about the proposed bill at www.HealthCareforAllColorado.org, then urge your legislators to support HB09-1273, comprehensive healthcare for all Coloradans.

– Michele Swenson, via e-mail

Burning the books

Dear Editors,

Very instructive real asset price histories are kept little-apparent to the people. This is, effectively, book-burning. See the first chart: “Real Dow & Real Homes & Personal Saving & Debt Burden” at http: //homepage.mac.com/ttsmyf/RD_RJShomes_PSav.html

Here in our town, this book-burning is done by newspapers, libraries and institutions of higher learning. And these outfits purport to be friends of “community, family, etc.,” but never purport to be friends of “fool ‘em if you can.” They are false friends. “The public’s right to know” is replaced with “What is intellectual honesty’s cash flow?” These book-burners walk W.C. Fields’ talk: “Never give a sucker an even break, or smarten up a chump.”

Here is a great example of how severely the people are being suckered by this book-burning: on 3/9/2009, the Dow closed equal to its January 1966 average close, on a real basis – both the Dow and CPI-U increased by the same factor 6.64. Zero change in the Dow’s consumer purchasing power over 43 years! See it here:http: //homepage.mac.com/ttsmyf/43equal.gif

I noted at the start “real asset price histories are kept little-apparent to the people.” At the URL there, two one-time-only precedents in major newspapers are cited, from 10, and 2.5 years ago. Get a good look at them, and see them up-to-date at the URL. Ten years ago, Real Dow was 85, it maxed at 100., and on 3/9/2009 it was ca. 46.4. Two and a half years ago, Real Homes (national index) was 99., it maxed at 100., and most recently (11/2008) it was 68. Both these subsequent histories are UNsurprising, given the two pasts – which book-burning kept little-apparent to you. Refer to W.C. Fields quote above.

I assume that you have now seen enough histories, with false highs subsequently reversed, to concur with “Hidden or Not: Serial Herd Behavior IS Our Track Record.”  Re. the merit of Our Track Record, abetted by book-burning, I ask:  Do you know folks who had kids to have someone to sell high to?

– Ed Hamilton, Durango