Opinions Based on Facts: OBOF SS & MORE PART 43

WELCOME TO OPINIONS BASED ON FACTS (OBOF)

Name	Published
OVERVIEW	Dec. 28, 2010
SOCIAL SECURITY PART 1	Dec. 30, 2010
SOCIAL SECURITY PART 2	Jan. 10, 2011
SOCIAL SECURITY PART 3	Jan. 17, 2011
SOCIAL SECURITY PART 4	Jan. 24, 2011
SOCIAL SECURITY PART 5	Jan. 31, 2011
SOCIAL SECURITY PART 6	Feb. 07, 2011
SOCIAL SECURITY PART 7	Feb. 14, 2011
SPECIAL ISSUE	Feb. 18, 2011
SOCIAL SECURITY PART 8	Feb. 21, 2011
SOCIAL SECURITY PART 9	Mar. 01, 2011
SOCIAL SECURITY PART 10	Mar. 07, 2011
SS & MORE PART 1	Mar. 14, 2011
SS & MORE PART 1A	Mar. 21, 2011
SS & MORE PART 2	Mar. 25, 2011
SS & MORE PART 3	Mar. 29, 2011
SS & MORE PART 4	Apr. 04, 2011
SS & MORE PART 5	Apr. 11, 2011
SS & MORE PART 6	Apr. 18, 2011
SS & MORE PART 7	Apr. 25, 2011
SS & MORE PART 7A	Apr. 29, 2011
SS & MORE PART 8	May 02, 2011
SS & MORE PART 9	May 09, 2011
SS & MORE PART 10	May 16, 2011
SS & MORE PART 11	May 24, 2011
SS & MORE PART 12	Jun. 06, 2011
SS & MORE PART 13	Jun. 20, 2011
SS & MORE PART 14	July 05, 2011
SS & MORE PART 14A	July 18, 2011
SS & MORE PART 15	July 19, 2011
SS & MORE PART 16	Aug. 03, 2011
SS & MORE PART 17	Aug. 15, 2011
SS & MORE PART 18	Aug. 29, 2011
SS & MORE PART 19	Sept. 12, 2011
SS & MORE PART 20	Sept. 26, 2011
SS & MORE PART 21	Oct. 10, 2011
SS & MORE PART 22	Oct. 24, 2011
SS & MORE PART 22 EXTRA	Nov. 04, 2011
SS & MORE PART 23	Nov. 07, 2011
SS & MORE PART 24	Nov. 21, 2011
SS & MORE PART 25	Dec. 05, 2011
SS & MORE PART 26	Dec. 19, 2011
SS & MORE PART 27	JAN. 03, 2012
SS & MORE PART 27A	JAN. 05, 2012
SS & MORE PART 28	JAN. 17, 2012
SS & MORE PART 29	JAN. 31, 2012
SS & MORE PART 30	Feb. 14, 2012
SS & MORE PART CL1	Feb. 21, 2012
SS & MORE PART 30 EXTRA	Feb. 23, 2012
SS & MORE PART 31	Feb. 28, 2012
SS & MORE PART CL2 - 59	Mar. 06, 2012
SS & MORE PART 31 EXTRA	Mar. 07, 2012
SS & MORE PART 32	Mar. 13, 2012
SS & MORE PART CL3 - 1	Mar. 20, 2012
SS & MORE PART 32 EXTRA	Mar. 24, 2012
SS & MORE PART 33	Apr. 10, 2012
SS & MORE PART CL 4 - 2	Apr. 17, 2012
SS & MORE PART 34	Apr. 24, 2012
SS & MORE PART CL5 - 49	May 01, 2012
SS & MORE PART 35	May 09, 2012
SS & MORE PART CL6 - 19	May 15, 2012
SS & MORE PART 35 EXTRA	May 18, 2012
SS & MORE PART 36	May 22, 2012
SS & MORE PART 36 EXTRA	May 25, 2012
SS & MORE PART 36
EXTRA II	June 01, 2012
SS & MORE PART 37	June 05. 2012
SS & MORE PART 37 EXTRA	June 07, 2012
SS & MORE PART 38	June 12, 2012
SS & MORE PART 39	June 19, 2012
SS & MORE PART 40	June 26, 2012
SS & MORE PART 41	July 03, 2012
SS & MORE PART 42	July 10, 2012
SS & MORE PART 43	July 17, 2012

IN THIS ISSUE

1. Opening comments.

2. "We know we can do better." This is an absolute must read.

3. President Obama talks at Roanoke, Virginia.

4. Hey Congress, what about the "Doug Jones average?"

5. Essay from the book "Contemplating Life." #16.

6. Parting thought.

~~~

"VOTE, AN EDUCATED VOTE"

What is an educated vote? It is one that has been made with as much knowledge, based on facts, not misinformation, that an individual can obtain.

~~~

OPENING COMMENTS

I am quite sure I am going to be posting an EXTRA a little later this week. There are quite a few matters that you may or may not know about or some viewpoints that you hadn't thought about.

Also, I want mention that this first article is the very best on the subject that I have come across and it has been written by a Physician, who apparently, knows what he is talking about from both sides of the subject.

Finally, I am not an investigative reporter. I review a great deal of material that others have investigated and written about, and sometimes I through in my opinion. Anyone can do what I do, but it takes lots of time that maybe you don't have.

I would very much appreciate it, if you could spread the word about "opinions Based On Facts." I, so much, want to expand my readers. I am getting about 160 hits a month, but I would sure like to get to more people. I try to post information that you might not have had time to see and that is important to all our lives. Thank you.

Floyd

~~~

Michael Maxwell M.D. : "We know we can do better. This law is a good start."

By MICHAEL MAXWELL, M.D.

Published: 7/14/2012

in The Tulsa World

Michael Maxwell M.D., FACP, is an internist

in the OMNI Medical Group in Tulsa.

This article is the most unbiased, clear, and honest thinking I have seen yet, regarding the Affordable Care Act. Read this again, and again, and let it soak in. This one really makes sense.

Floyd

As a physician with a large primary care practice in midtown, I hear the anxiety and anger over the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) from my patients on a daily basis. So much so, I wouldn't be surprised to see a new diagnosis labeling this phenomenon soon in the psychiatry literature.

Since the Supreme Court pronounced the Affordable Care Act constitutional, the local media have presented a balanced account for what this means to all stakeholders. I must admit I delayed my own education on this topic until the Supreme Court acted.

As a physician, my focus is on caring for people, with little energy left over for policy and politics. However, witnessing the public angst over this law compels me to speak out.

So far, most of the media coverage has centered on the payment methods for this law, the individual mandate, the expansion of Medicaid and the implementation of health insurance exchanges. What I hear from patients though are mostly poorly informed opinions and vaguely articulated fears. These concerns are all fueled by political agendas and rhetoric.

While the strategy for insuring those without health insurance may not be perfect, it is a smart, logical place to start. As with everything, we learn as we go, and I have yet to hear of any reasonable alternative. What has gone completely under-reported has been the Affordable Care Act's strategy for improving the quality of health care in our country.

The opening line of the executive summary of the Report to Congress, March 2011 reads, "The Affordable Care Act seeks to increase access to high-quality, affordable health care for all Americans." It goes on to outline its three broad aims of focus: better care for the individual, the community, and making it all more affordable. It then sets the specific early priorities and strategies for pulling this off.

Now, how do we argue with those goals? Enthusiasm and momentum for quality improvement in health care in our region has been building for years. The Affordable Care Act as well as the involvement of many local people and organizations are accelerating this agenda.

The alliance between The University of Tulsa and The University of Oklahoma with their School of Community Medicine will make great strides toward enhancing care for underserved areas.

The MyHealth Access Network has built a health information exchange tying together all of the information technology systems in the region with the proven goal of improving the quality of health care and reducing costs through the sharing of information.

The Oklahoma Center for Healthcare Improvement is bringing together leaders in health care from across the northeast Oklahoma region to educate them on aspects of the national quality agenda. The OCHI also sponsors collaborative meetings among doctors to share information and experiences on lessons learned from the front lines of primary care.

The large medical groups across Tulsa are developing innovative ways to implement many new standards of care mandated in the new health care laws. I have already seen a tremendous improvement in immunization rates, cancer screening and chronic disease management in my own practice.

I believe this is a direct result of the self-evaluation required to improve quality - all mandated by the new laws.

We hear so much noise from our political leaders, most of which seems to be self-serving, politically driven misinformation, that truth is difficult to know when we hear it. What we do know is that those of us with insurance pay for those without; access to care in many areas of our country, even some areas of the Tulsa region, is no better than that in Third World countries; the quality of care is widely variable throughout the country.

We know we can do better. This law is a good start. Now if we can get out of our own way by fostering a spirit of cooperation, collaboration and innovation, we can pull off something great.

~~~

PRESIDENT OBAMA TALKS

"TOGETHERNESS" AT

ROANOKE VIRGINIA.

Did President Obama tell business owners they didn't build their businesses? That's what the entire right-wing media machine is saying he said. What did he really say?

Drudge Report headline: "Obama Goes Wild: 'If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen'..."

Drudge links to the Washington Times, which writes, "President Barack Obama addressed supporters in Roanoke, Virginia on Friday afternoon and took a shot at the business community. President Obama dismissed any credit business owners give themselves for their success:"

Heritage Foundation: Obama Tells Entrepreneurs "You Didn't Build" your business

Heritage writes: "That sound you hear is silence—as millions of small business owners and entrepreneurs were left speechless this weekend from President Obama's latest insult."

What Did He Really Say?

President Obama pointed out that businesses did not build the roads and bridges that help them get their products to markets. He said that in the United States we succeed together. Here is the full quote:

"There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me -- because they want to give something back. They know they didn’t -- look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there." (Applause.)

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don’t do on our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires.

This is not insulting, it is just the way it is."

PS, Heritage then goes seriously off the deep end:

Obama pushed his policy goals of infrastructure (aka stimulus) spending and "government research" as part of a collectivist utopia "doing things together." It's simply stunning that he would tell Americans, "If you've got a business—you didn't build that."

Heritage mocks the idea that government should maintain our country's infrastructure -- internal improvements? Heritage says infrastructure and research and "doing things together" are part of a "collectivist utopia?" Deep end, people, deep end. Get back in the children's pool.

Wealthy individuals and corporations want us to believe they've made it on their own, without the help of government or the American people. Billionaire financier Sanford Weill blustered, "We didn't rely on somebody else to build what we built." He was echoing the words of his famous predecessor, the formidable financier J. P. Morgan, who spouted, "I owe the public nothing."

That's the bull of Wall Street. There are at least five good reasons why the wealthiest Americans need government as much as the rest of us, and probably more.

1. Security

In his "People's History," Howard Zinn described colonial opposition to inequality in 1765: "A shoemaker named Ebenezer Macintosh led a mob in destroying the house of a rich Boston merchant named Andrew Oliver. Two weeks later, the crowd turned to the home of Thomas Hutchinson, symbol of the rich elite who ruled the colonies in the name of England. They smashed up his house with axes, drank the wine in his wine cellar, and looted the house of its furniture and other objects. A report by colony officials to England said that this was part of a larger scheme in which the houses of fifteen rich people were to be destroyed, as part of 'a war of plunder, of general leveling and taking away the distinction of rich and poor.'"

That doesn't happen much anymore. Of course, the super-rich aren't taking any chances, with panic shelters and James Bond cars and personal surveillance drones. But the U.S. government will be helping them by spending $55 billion on Homeland Security next year, in addition to $673 billion for the military. The police, emergency services, and National Guard are trained to focus on crimes against wealth.

In the cities, business interests keep the police focused on the homeless and unemployed. And on drug users. A "Broken Windows" mentality, which promotes quick fixes of minor damage to discourage large-scale destruction, is being applied to human beings. Wealthy Americans can rest better at night knowing that the police are "stopping and frisking" in the streets of the poor neighborhoods.

2. Laws and Deregulations

The wealthiest Americans are the main beneficiaries of tax laws, property rights, zoning rules, patent and copyright provisions, trade pacts, antitrust legislation, and contract regulations. Tax loopholes allow them to store over $1 trillion in assets overseas.

Their companies benefit, despite any publicly voiced objections to regulatory agencies, from SBA and SEC guidelines that generally favor business, and from FDA and USDA quality control measures that minimize consumer complaints and product recalls.

The growing numbers of financial industry executives have profited from 30 years of deregulation, most notably the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act. Lobbying by the financial industry has prolonged the absurdity of a zero sales tax on financial transactions.

Big advantages accrue for multinational corporations from trade agreements like NAFTA, with international disputes resolved by the business-friendly World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and World Trade Organization. Federal judicial law protects our biggest companies from foreign infringement. The proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership would put governments around the world at the mercy of corporate decision-makers.

The euphemistically named "JOBS Act" further empowers business, exempting startups from regulatory accounting requirements.

There are even anti-antitrust measures, such as the licensing rules that allow the American Medical Association to restrict the number of doctors in the U.S., thereby keeping doctor salaries artificially high. Can't have a free market if it hurts business.

3. Research and Infrastructure

A publicly supported communications infrastructure allows the richest 10% of Americans to manipulate their 80% share of the stock market. CEOs rely on roads and seaports and airports to ship their products, the FAA and TSA and Coast Guard and Department of Transportation to safeguard them, a nationwide energy grid to power their factories, and communications towers and satellites to conduct online business. Private jets use 16 percent of air traffic control resources while paying only 3% of the bill.

Perhaps most important to business, even as it focuses on short-term profits, is the long-term basic research that is largely conducted with government money. Especially for the tech industry. Taxpayer-funded research at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (the Internet) and the National Science Foundation (the Digital Library Initiative) has laid a half-century foundation for technological product development. Well into the 1980s, as companies like Apple and Google and Microsoft and Oracle and Cisco profited from the fastest-growing product revolution in American history, the U.S. Government was still providing half the research funds. Even today 60% of university research is government-supported.

Public schools have helped to train the chemists, physicists, chip designers, programmers, engineers, production line workers, market analysts, and testers who create modern technological devices. They, in turn, can't succeed without public layers of medical support and security. All of them contribute to the final product.

As the super-rich ride in their military-designed armored cars to a financial center globally connected by public fiber optics networks to make a trade guided by publicly funded data mining and artificial intelligence software, they might stop and re-think the old Horatio Alger myth.

4. Subsidies

The traditional image of 'welfare' pales in comparison to corporate welfare and millionaire welfare. Whereas over 90% of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families goes to the elderly, the disabled, or working households, most of the annual $1.3 trillion in "tax expenditures" (tax subsidies from special deductions, exemptions, exclusions, credits, and loopholes) goes to the top quintile of taxpayers. One estimate is $250 billion a year just to the richest 1%.

Senator Tom Coburn's website reports that mortgage interest and rental expense deductions alone return almost $100 billion a year to millionaires.

The most profitable corporations get the biggest subsidies. The Federal Reserve provided more than $16 trillion in financial assistance to financial institutions and corporations. According toCitizens for Tax Justice, 280 profitable Fortune 500 companies, which together paid only half of the maximum 35 percent corporate tax rate, received $223 billion in tax subsidies.

Even the conservative Cato Institute admitted that the U.S. federal government spent $92 billion on corporate welfare during fiscal year 2006. Recipients included Boeing, Xerox, IBM, Motorola, Dow Chemical, and General Electric.

In agriculture, most of the funding for commodity programs goes to large agribusiness corporations such as Archer Daniels Midland. For the oil industry, estimates of subsidy payments range from $10 to $50 billion per year.

5. Disaster Costs

Exxon spokesperson Ken Cohen once said: "Any claim we don't pay taxes is absurd...ExxonMobil is a leading U.S. taxpayer." Added Chevron CEO John Watson: "The oil and gas industry pays its fair share in taxes" But SEC documents show that Exxon paid 2% in U.S. federal taxes from 2008 to 2010, Chevron 4.8%.

As if to double up on the insult, the petroleum industry readily takes public money for oil spills. Cleanups cost much more than the fines imposed on the companies. Government costs can run into the billions, or even tens of billions, of dollars.

Another disaster-prone industry is finance, from which came the encouraging words of Goldman Sachs chairman Lloyd Blankfein: "Everybody should be, frankly, happy...the financial system led us into the crisis and it will lead us out."

Estimates for bailout funds from the Treasury and the Federal Reserve range between $3 trillion and $5 trillion. That's enough to pay off both the deficit and next year's entitlement costs. All because of the irresponsibility of the super-salaried CEOs of our most profitable corporations.

Common Sense

Patriotic Millionaires recently addressed the President and Congress: "Given the dire state of our economy, it is absurd that one-quarter of all millionaires pay a lower tax rate than millions of working, middle-class American families...Please do the right thing for our country. Raise our taxes."

It's good to know somebody gets it right. Taxes, for the most part, are not unfair. They represent payment for society's many benefits, which get bigger and better as people get richer.

~~~

HEY CONGRESS, WHAT ABOUT THE

"DOUG JONES AVERAGE?"

by Jim Hightower

Published Wednesday

27 June, 2012

“Foreclosures, lost jobs, wage declines and other reductions (combined with rising costs of everything from gasoline to child care) have become the norm, even shoving many proud middle-classers onto food stamp rolls.”

To report on how our economy is doing, media outlets keep a constant eye on the Dow Jones Average. But they're like cats watching the wrong mouse hole, for the great majority of Americans have between zero and next-to-nothing in the stock market.

The economic measure that matters most to most folks is the Doug Jones Average. The Doug is concerned about such key indicators as the pump price on a gallon of regular, the subprime value of today's seven-and-a-quarter minimum wage and the impact of global inflationary pressures on the cost of a six-pack.

So, how're Doug and Dottie Jones doing? Not well, report the number-crunchers at the Federal Reserve. In the latest Survey of Consumer Finances, Fed economists found that from 2007 through 2010, all but the wealthiest 10 percent of American households have been downwardly mobile, with the median net worth of U.S. households tumbling by a startling 39 percent, falling to the lowest level in 20 years.

In short, Americans are not merely feeling poorer — they are. Foreclosures, lost jobs, wage declines and other reductions (combined with rising costs of everything from gasoline to child care) have become the norm, even shoving many proud middle-classers onto food stamp rolls. Yet Washington remains fixated on propping up Wall Street's moneyed elites.

Congressional Republicans are actually clamoring for more financial deregulation and tax giveaways to coddle Wall Streeters (the same disastrous approach that caused the mess we're in) while also voting to slash funding for the food stamp program that more and more people need.

To keep a mighty tree, alive you must nourish the grassroots, not just spritz the few leaves at the top. But Washington has become a town of leaf-spritzers, ignoring the massive housing crunch, ongoing joblessness and mounting consumer debt. Indeed, three-fourths of Americans today have more invested in their aging cars and trucks than in stocks (and, by the way, those vehicles — which are the chief asset for millions of people — now average 11 years old). To know which way the economic winds are blowing, lawmakers could simply check the daily newspaper headlines: "Underemployed and Underpaid," "Shrinking Consumers" and "Economy Leaving Lost Generation."

Winds of hurricane force are knocking down the Joneses — America's workaday majority.

This is not the natural workings of inscrutable market forces, as the financial elite want us to believe, but a direct hit from the ethos of plutocratic greed that now prevails among of our country's corporate and governmental decision-makers. They keep putting the short-term selfish interests of the few over the future well-being of America's many — national interest be damned.

Another headline offers a galling example of this: "China Takes Tech Tips From Silicon Valley." The story behind the headline is that Chinese officials intend to zoom their country ahead of ours as leader of the world's "knowledge economy." Who's helping them make this Great Leap Forward over the U.S.A.? Our own venture capitalists, corporate executives and university officials. Already, the prestigious college of engineering at UC Berkeley is opening a multimillion-dollar research and instructional school in Shanghai to teach "Silicon Valley 101" to the next generation of Chinese. It was paid for and built by the Chinese. As a Berkeley research dean explained, "The bottom line is, if there are resources in China, we would be foolish not to go there."

But whose bottom line is being served — and who is being played for a fool? Only a dozen years ago, America's middle-class workers were told not to fight the offshoring of their good-paying manufacturing jobs because their future lay in the sparkling, new knowledge-based economy. But we now see Silicon Valley itself hightailing it to China, transferring America's technical knowledge, competitive edge and middle-class future nearly 7,000 miles away.

Incredibly, this crass betrayal of America's workaday majority is not even being talked about in this year's elections. To force the issue of middle-class decline to the top of Washington's agenda, We the People must raise some serious hell at the grassroots level. We must become less timid and start getting in the face of our own congress-critters, because they're failing us. The demise of the middle class is the demise of America itself. We can't be silent about that.

~~~

AN ESSAY FROM THE BOOK

"CONTEMPLATING LIFE"

Allen W. Smith Ph.D.

“There is no limit to the good a man can do if he doesn’t care who gets the credit.”—Judson B. Branch

A truly good person wants to do everything in his or her power to make the world a better place. Such people do good deeds simply because they want to do something to help others. It doesn’t matter to such people whether or not others know about their actions, because they are not seeking credit or praise. On the other hand, some people seem to be so obsessed with getting credit, that they will not do anything to help others unless they can reasonably expect to receive recognition for their actions.

If the only reason we express generosity toward others is to get credit and praise, then our motives are selfish, and our deeds are not truly good. At our places of employment, we rightfully expect to get credit and pay for whatever we do for our employer. However, in our everyday interaction with family, friends, neighbors, and even strangers, we should engage in acts of kindness on the basis that we want to help others. Many people, out of the goodness of their hearts, spend their entire lives doing whatever they can to help others with no thought given to receiving credit for their actions. Others see no reason to do good deeds unless they get credit.

When a large business corporation announces that it is giving a substantial amount of money to a particular cause, it is appropriate to ask whether the true motive is generosity or public relations. In other words, if the announcement of the gift causes more people to buy the company’s products, then the gift serves the same purpose as a paid advertisement. We can’t generalize, and the motives of most philanthropists are probably good. However, it is rare for a major charitable gift to come from an anonymous person or company.

There is nothing wrong with receiving recognition for our good deeds so long as our action was not motivated by a desire to gain such recognition. However, if we do good deeds only when we know someone is looking, our motives are wrong. If we see an unsightly piece of litter, it will benefit both ourselves and others if we clean up the litter. Although nobody may know of our action, people benefit just the same. The world is full of litter and suffering. If we all did everything in our power to clean up the litter and to relieve the suffering, without caring who got the credit, what a wonderful world it would be.

~~~

PARTING THOUGHT.

Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

Muriel Strode

~~~

If the good Lord is willing and the creek don't rise, I'll talk with you again on Tuesday July 24, 2012, if not before.

"GOD BLESS YOU ALL

GOD BLESS THE UNITED STATES of AMERICA"

Floyd

Opinions Based on Facts

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

OBOF SS & MORE PART 43

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