February 14, 2015 Buried on the back pages of the business sections of leading newspapers is a high stakes poker game that will soon migrate to the front page – an attempt by the newly-elected Greek government to renegotiate the terms of its recent bail out. Greece is a member of the European Union; a collection of European countries that banded together recently, scraped their national currencies, and formed a common currency called the Euro. The problem with such an arrangement was that member countries could borrow money from the European Union in the form of bonds. The value of these bonds varies to some extent with the perceived probability they will maintain interest payments and whether to full value will be remunerated on their due date. In the summer of 2010 several countries, Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain, had difficulty maintaining the interest payments on their respective bonds. This led to a financial crisis and credit crunch that culminated in a grand agreement whereby the European Central Bank, European Union and IMF (International Monetary Fund) promised to back their bonds as long as these countries agreed to austerity … [Read more...]
Taxpayers Shouldn’t Have to Bail Out Financial Elite
I’ll never forget the grim visage on the face of my patient who had just lost his job of 28 years. He successfully fought back the tears as he described how he had no chance of finding another job that paid close to his previous salary level, even though he had two kids in college. This patient comes to mind as we are about to witness the fourth taxpayer bailout of American’s financial elite in the past 15 years. Nobody bails out the middle class and working poor when they lose their jobs. They are forced to fend for themselves, competing for jobs that pay $8 an hour without pension or health benefits. But now a coalition of brokerage houses and international banking conglomerates – the financial elite – is asking our politicians to lend money to failing Asian economies to rescue their bad investments. Asian politicians have made the same discovery as American politicians: The best way to remain in power is to fulfill today’s promises by handing down debts to future generations in the form of bonds. The financial elite have invested heavily in these bonds. The problem is the over speculated Asian countries are unable to pay these bonds back. Enter the International … [Read more...]
The Crazy Corporate Cannibalization of Health Care
Major financial interests, in their never-ending quest to plunder the middle class, have now turned their attention to health care. In fact, the for-profit HMOs (health maintenance organizations), according to a recent Wall Street Journal article, have a problem. They cannot figure out what to do with all the money they are making. Some analysts believe they will buy more hospitals, others suggest they will give larger dividends to shareholders, but my bet is that executives will simply take $50 million in salaries. It never ceases to amaze me how an immigrant can arrive on our shores not knowing a word of English and unable to distinguish George Washington from John Travolta, and still receive totally free health care courtesy of the American taxpayer. Yet laid-off workers from Pratt, whose mothers are members of the Daughters of the American Revolution, live in fear that a bicycle accident by one of their children could cost them their life's savings. Why is the United States the only Western country to allow this situation to exist? The answer is that our populus has been led to believe that any further government intervention in health care is tantamount to … [Read more...]