Exclusion and Depletion of Goods

Going global - Photo: Ileana Johnson

Keynesian economists talk about market failures such as public goods and private goods. Public goods are, in their description, “socially valuable commodities” which cannot be financed by private enterprise because the prices would not be “socially desirable.” (read that as very expensive)

It is their opinion that the “government must pay for public goods.” Examples of public goods they give include “everything from national defense to coastal lighthouses.”

Public goods are identified as any goods that cannot be depleted by the users or that can exclude people from using them. Spraying an area for mosquitoes that cause malaria and other diseases benefits everyone and so does clearing a street of snow.

“If a country provides a strong military, every citizen receives its protection, even persons who do not want it.”

Foolishly rejecting border protection (public good) from illegal and dangerous intruders at the border, some of whom may harbor illnesses of public concern, falls under the category of irrational behavior of those who reject such protection for all but lock their own homes, surround them with fences, and have guns.

Non-paying users of public goods cannot be excluded from enjoying such goods, not to mention that it would be difficult to collect fees for the benefits public goods provide. That is what Keynesian economists call “free-rider problem.”

Illegal aliens, non-paying users of public goods, enjoy our roads, public parks, frolic disrespectfully in pools designed as memorials to our WWI and WWII veterans, and send their children to public schools.

Additionally, they receive Social Security Income even though they’ve never paid into the trust fund and collect earned income tax credits for their children although they seldom pay income taxes to the IRS. They do pay sales taxes. They also have free medical care through Medicaid and Medicare, depending on age, police protection, fire protection, and can use public libraries.

Would people pay, let’s say $10,000 a year each, to support national defense?  Without government involvement, such a public good would not be provided, argue Keynesian economists. Would it not? What about mercenary soldiers?

Another misleading implication is that the supply of a public good is not depleted by an additional user and thus the marginal opportunity cost of serving an additional user is zero. It is certainly true in some instances.

But is that true if an additional illegal alien child is added to a classroom and he/she does not speak English, needs translators, specialized teachers, specialized textbooks, tutoring, religious accommodations, and are carriers of diseases such as measles, TB, hepatitis, Chagas disease, Honduran flu, just to name a few?

What about public health providers in counties’ health departments who become overwhelmed with non-paying customers who take advantage of “free” services? What about ER rooms in many hospitals, flooded with non-paying illegal alien customers?

Who pays the bill for these public goods? Does an additional user of free medical care or welfare programs cost the generous society at large zero? One could argue that by treating them for free, we prevent further spread of disease and it is thus a necessary cost to society.

Do illegal aliens who use state parks and public beaches really cost society nothing for its use? Ask the people who must clean behind their picnics on the beach or at the park. And how much damage do they really do to the environment? Does that bear no additional cost to society?

A private good is explained by Keynesian economists as depletable and excludable – depletable as in ‘used up’ when someone consumes it and excludable when someone who does not pay for it can be kept from enjoying it.

This is certainly abomination to leftist collectivism where everyone should “share” everything.  (the Latin word “communis” means “shared, common”). In the reality of collectivism, the communists pay lip service to “everyone owns everything” but nobody can lay claim to anything, not even an apple picked off a tree from a large orchard if one is hungry. There are harsh legal penalties for picking food or for taking anything from the collectivist farm or factory for one’s personal use.

Keynesian economists agree that “communities” have devoted a large proportion of government expenditures and of municipal budgets to finance public goods because they “generate substantial external benefits,” i.e. national defense, public health, police and fire protection, and research.

It appears that the sanctuary state of California is now devoting large expenditures to providing free medical care and insurance to “low income illegal aliens” (if they are in our country illegally, how do they know their income is low?) while American veterans are homeless, cannot find the promised medical care they need in VA hospitals, or are paying doctors in cash for visits, tests, and procedures because they cannot afford medical insurance premiums.

Collectivist economists view private goods with a jaundiced eye as people who cannot pay for private goods are being kept from enjoying them: a fancy yacht, a private airplane, membership in a private club, a golf club, or the country club.

There are “clubs” which exclude others for economic and non-economic motives. These “clubs” or “organizations” exclude others for reasons such as:

-          Pettiness (good ole boys’ and girls’ clubs)

-          Desire to control an issue(s) and outcome(s)

-          Greed (controlling seats on the exchange and Wall Street for example)

-          Specialty guilds for status, perceived skill, nobility, influence, and wealth

-          Vaunted academia membership and tenure for lefties

-          Economic exclusion to maintain high demand and earnings (lawyers, doctors, and others by limiting licensing)

-          Alumni and big donor clubs to sport teams

-          Influential church membership exclusions

-          World stage political exclusion (limiting membership)

-          Award winner’s member clubs

-          Peace, literature, art, film, and science prizes reserved almost exclusively for the political left

The most vociferous complainers about the existence of private goods and the dearth of public goods are lefties. Yet the left controls and “owns” the entire education system, most of the mainstream media, technology, social media, Wall Street, the justice system, the entertainment industry, most government departments, and the military industrial complex. Yet they keep whining in front of microphones and cameras that the downtrodden and illegals are abused and economically oppressed by capitalism and therefore socialism is a much better alternative. But none of them are in a hurry to move to Cuba and other socialist paradis they idolize.

I do not see any bleeding-heart lefties giving up their private goods to redress their constant complaints against capitalism.

Easy-Cheesy Socialist and Free College Degrees

“It is a socialist idea that making profits is a vice. I consider the real vice is making losses.”
– Winston Churchill

Because I lived the utopian nightmare of socialism/communism, I think I am qualified to explain the big lie to the young men and women who dreamily and robotically applaud the socialist candidate, Bernie Sanders, for his promise of handouts and especially of free college education.

I am sure, the young  Americans, many with worthless easy-cheesy  social work and racial/gender studies degrees and some with worthy college degrees, who find themselves unemployed, will be happy to know that, under Bernie’s mega trillions economic plan, they will find themselves unemployed for free, no college debt. They will “Feel the Bern” of socialism and rejoice in it.

Education, like medical care, was free, but it came with huge strings attached and it was not worth much because the pay was equal, regardless of effort. And you had to go where the government decided to send you in order to pay back your indebtedness to government. Nothing was free, just because they said it was free, it was basic economics, even though socialists called it something else.

If you were an educator, you had to teach in a small and remote village without roads, running water, and electricity, housed in some primitive home with a thatched roof. If you were a doctor, you had to practice for years in a far-away community who had never seen a nurse in their lives or the inside of a hospital.

To get to your assigned post, you had to travel the last leg of your trip in an oxen-pulled wagon.  If you were an engineer, you had to go by train to different locations around the country where the dear leader was building his latest megalomaniacal projects. Nobody ate for free! You had to work, even if it was just sweeping streets, planting trees, weeding the fields, gathering crops, or digging ditches. Nobody was too educated for menial labor.

Before you were able to enter the university, you had to pass the muster of many examination boards, starting in middle school and college. If your grades were good, that was not enough; your communist pedigree and activism had to equally match your academic performance. If your parents were not members in good standing with the communist party and licked their boots, it did not matter how smart you were or how perfect your grades were. Your chance of getting in was slim to none. On the other hand, students who barely passed in high school but were children of prominent communist party leaders got in first. Membership in the communist elite had its privileges.

Free Castro-style medical care was one of the staples of socialism but it came with rationing of care, unqualified personnel, bribes to be seen on time or first, rationing of drugs, empty pharmacy shelves, and early and unnecessary death at the hands of uncaring and half-baked doctors and atrocious hospital conditions.

You should ask yourselves, if socialist health care is so great, why do Hollywood elites and wealthy foreigners seek treatment for their serious illnesses at the best hospitals money can buy in the United States? Why are they not going to Cuba? Michael Moore spoke non-stop about the superiority of Castro’s medical care when compared to our evil capitalist healthcare.

Did we get free cable? Not really, we got two channels daily and one educational channel at certain hours. And we had to pay every month voluntarily. Inspectors would show up unannounced randomly to check our passbook to make sure all the payment stamps were in order for both TV and radio subscriptions. Nobody got to listen to the dear leader’s Pinocchio speeches for free or to classical music.

We did get subsidized housing because salaries were so equally low. It wasn’t much space, 300-400 square feet, the size of a nice hotel room today, but it was in brand-new, concrete block apartments, with wonderful stairs we had to take turns to sweep and mop, and no elevators. The proletariat needed a good workout every day, going up and down.

Not only will you not get a free Prius or Smart Car, you will be lucky to ride the public transportation for a subsidized fee. We got to ride on buses with subsidized fares or we could walk as far as our feet could carry us. Biking was a daredevil’s adventure – many riders and pedestrians were run over by cars and buses. Life was pretty worthless in those times. Offenders still went to jail though.  And bikes disappeared before you could say “stolen.”

Dormitories looked like army barracks, with walls peeling paint like a bad manicure, and furnished with WWII-like era beds with chicken wire. University cafeterias served the standard fare, cabbage or soup with a few pieces of meat floating on top and plenty of cooking rapeseed oil and garlic to drown the lack of taste. Bread was plentiful, hard as a rock, and difficult to chew.

We got to go to the movies in a large group for one leu a viewing because we were so poor. It was the commie’s way to pacify the oppressed and throw them a bone once in a while in the form of subsidized movies, a concert, or a play. Only the elites could afford such entertainment on a regular basis.

For those of you young and entitled Americans who like the idea of anything free, especially marijuana clinics, rest-assured that, under communism, you will be put in jail for any drug use and they will lose the key forever.

There was plenty of booze and cigarettes but income was so equally low, you had to give up other important staples in order to buy them. You could drown your miserable life and sorrow in cheap vodka or home-made “tzuica” and darken your lungs with economical “Marasesti” cigarettes. It is still quite fashionable to smoke all over Europe today. You cannot look cool and sophisticated without a lit cigarette and a cup of very bitter and thick coffee.

But don’t take my word for it, vote for Bernie Sanders or his Democrat Alinsky-style adversary, and you shall “Feel the Bern” while you stand in line in sub-zero temperatures to get your “free” welfare rations.

For all my “free” education I received under communism, I had to pay the state back the sum they decided it was worth, once I left the country to live free in the United States. Why should the “capitalist pigs and spies” benefit from my excellent communist education?

Freedom has a heavy price but young people are mesmerized by the empty words of current communists because they never studied their history or forgot what little they did know and are now going to repeat it, with disastrous results.

And those of you who are so accustomed to smart phones, iPad, iPhone, blackberries, laptops, and other gadgets, Smart Cars, your expensive bikes, remember that equal and meager pay will not buy you such luxuries. And, if you are on welfare and the government is providing them, they can be taken away just as easily as they are given.

Look at the “free” healthcare you are now getting under Obamacare for a hefty monthly premium, huge deductions, and large fines for non-compliance (in 2016, $695 or 2.5% of income, whichever is greater), if you are lucky to find a physician who will accept your worthless government insurance, or find a qualified specialist within your area. Stories of the victims of such socialist healthcare are beginning to filter through the Internet.

The fact that Stalinists, Leninists, and Bolsheviks cannot possibly deliver on any of their promises is exemplified by Dr. Aurel Mircea, a medical doctor, who grew up under communism and eventually fled to freedom in the United States.

“The founders of European Socialism, the Marxist-Leninist scholars, all a bunch of ideologues without the slightest experience in job-creation, advocated free education from k-12 and college. When the communist economies held a tight grip on the people’s lives, the slogan promulgated all over was “Social Equality.” Sure, by then, everybody was equally miserable and poor. As far as the education was concerned, everyone was equally brainwashed and forced to accept revised history, junk science, fabricated political data, and submission to the rules of the Proletarian Dictatorship. The trend still continues to this day, all over the word, shrewdly disguised as new democracies and social justice.”

 

Death Panels and the Progressive War on Menopausal Women

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected that ten years after Obamacare will be fully implemented, more than 30 million Americans will still be without health insurance. Not to worry, there won’t be enough doctors to deliver proper care or much care at all if you do have insurance. And the dreaded Death Panel that Sarah Palin was disparaged over will also be in full operation.

The Independent Panel Advisory Board (IPAB) is Obamacare’s 15-member board of unelected, unaccountable to the public bureaucrats whose function is to make cuts in order to keep Medicare spending within certain parameters. These limits, starting in 2018, will consist of the rate of economic growth per capita plus one percentage point.

Since economic growth has been very sluggish due to a relatively deep recession, and the size of the economy has been shrinking, with higher unemployment and more discouraged workers than actually reported, Medicare spending will likely be lower, denying patients their much needed care. Additionally, Medicare is being stripped of $719 billion over a ten-year period in order to fund Obamacare.

These faceless omnipotent IPAB bureaucrats appointed by the President with the approval of the Senate will have unaccountable reign over your health. If your medical care or tests are denied, nobody will know if it is because there is no effective treatment for your illness or because one of those 15 people have decided that your life is not worth saving.

Ferrara wrote that “Obamacare requires IPAB to produce proposals to slow the growth in national health expenditures and non-federal health care programs. He continued, “This is a clear mandate to reduce both government and private sector health care spending.” If medical spending is limited even in the private sector, that is a deliberate form of health care rationing. http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/01/how_the_obamacare_death_panel_defies_the_constitution.html

Doctors will be overridden in their medical decisions by people with no medical training and patients may or may not get their needed tests or operations. Whether doctors will be at peace or in agreement with violating their Hippocratic Oath remains to be seen.

Many doctors will have been driven out of business by the low reimbursement rates from Medicaid and Medicare, will have retired, or will have switched to a different field entirely. Hospitals will also have been driven out of business by the massive debt amassed from servicing non-paying illegal aliens, impossible Obamacare mandates, and by low reimbursement rates from Medicare/Medicaid. Many private insurers will have been bankrupted by the financial expenditures to satisfy the health services mandates of Obamacare.

How many people will then pursue arduous medical school training, invest in human capital, invest in new developments in health care, new drugs, and new life-saving procedures if the return on investment is so low and medical care becomes severely rationed? As it is, there is a shortage of qualified medical personnel, but an augmented supply of millions of patients who are demanding care. What good is it if you have health insurance but cannot find a doctor who will accept you as a new patient, accept your insurance, or who is qualified to treat you?

Many Americans have been receiving letters informing them that doctors they’ve been using for years are no longer in the Obamacare approved exchanges and they must find new doctors. Other Americans enrolled in exchanges have had their plans switched two to three times due to the failure of the non-profit insurers to stay afloat in the face of an onslaught of claims eating away at their revenues and reserves, even with billions in federal grant money. Twenty-five of the 26 non-profit co-ops operating under Obamacare have registered losses so far.

If you are unable to receive the same timely and quality medical care that Americans have been accustomed to, if you are told that you can no longer buy the medicines or tests you need, receive proper cancer treatment to save your life, or see the doctors you’ve known for years and trusted, it is Obamacare mandates and its faceless agents reshaping how long you can live and what quality of life you are going to have.

As Dr. Donna Hurlock, a Board Certified Gynecologist, said, there is a “Medicare war against menopausal women” with its new “anti-estrogen policy that it’s hurting menopausal women.” This new policy is based on a 2002 National Institutes of Health study, Women’s Health Initiative, that claimed that estrogen replacement therapy (ERT) “poses excessive risks to menopausal women.” https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/whi/estro_pro.htm

Dr. Hurlock said that eighty years of estrogen use support the opposite conclusion that women on ERT live longer and better functional lives than women that elect not to replace hormones. Post-menopausal women that do replace their hormones “end up consuming fewer medicines than their peers because they don’t develop the many health problems that result from estrogen deficiency, such as sleep problems, high cholesterol, bone loss, memory issues, dizziness, vaginal dryness, etc.” http://fairfaxfreecitizen.com/2015/02/23/medicares-war-against-menopausal-women/?utm_source=Fairfax+Free+Citizen+Digest&utm_campaign=d97702cff7-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_69cf25d58d-d97702cff7-201781813

Medicare’s new policy as of January 1, 2015 is to deny payment for ERT and to substitute hormone replacement therapy (HRT) with “alternative” drugs such as anti-depressants, neurologic drugs, bone density drugs, and vaginal estrogen creams. Each of these “alternative” drugs have a long list of side-effects, potentially more dangerous and more expensive than hormone replacement therapy (HRT), decreasing the woman’s quality of life. To make matters worse, any HRT that includes testosterone has now been labeled a controlled substance and pharmacists must handle it accordingly. Such prescriptions expire every six months, necessitating repeat visits to the doctor.

Dr. Hurlock explained that many insurers are no longer “covering” her patients’ payments for HRT because “a group of ‘experts’ has decided that HRT becomes dangerous as soon as a woman celebrates her 65^th birthday, despite the plentiful literature to the contrary.” In her opinion, these experts are “clearly not making recommendations in the best interest of the patients based on the entire HRT literature.”

When the individuals, who wrote, publicized, lied about, voted on, and passed Obamacare as a tax, will be long gone from public life and forgotten, millions of Americans are going to suffer needlessly and potentially experience a shorter lifespan.

Liberals have created a faux “war on women.” There is a war, but it is a “war on your health,” a “war on middle aged women,” and a “war on the elderly,” all having a common denominator, rationing of care in order to reduce Medicare spending and to stretch the same health dollars to millions more, some of whom have broken into our country illegally. It is a war promoted by the progressive agenda that wants to fundamentally transform our country. They have succeeded beyond anybody’s dreams, with little resistance.

Copyright: Ileana Johnson 2015

 

 

What Is the Price of War?

Several years ago Mike, a Vietnam veteran, took my Macro and Microeconomics classes. He always came on time, hopping on his crutches with speed, expertly avoiding anything that might trip him. You could tell he was in pain – he winced occasionally and sweated profusely from the effort to stay upright. He was missing his right leg above the knee.

Mike came back from Vietnam physically whole. He lost his leg in a car accident caused by a drunk driver. The mental scars, he said, were impossible to heal. He understood that his country drafted him to fight the spread of communism but he also knew that the industrial military complex had to stay in business profitably.

He described the stifling air in the jungle, so humid that it was hard to breathe and uniforms never dried, crawling on red dirt covered with ants and snakes, digging underground for cover, bitten by snakes and creepy insects the size of a man’s palm, being shot at and not knowing where the enemy was hiding, the Vietnamese watching them and tracking them by their shaving cream.   

Seeing your best friends blown to bits or die in your arms from stray bullets was something Mike could never erase from his mind. When he came home, he was spat at by liberals who were unhappy with the war. They took their hatred and disdain out on the returning countrymen who were drafted to fight a war liberals vehemently opposed from the luxury of their cozy homes and freedoms protected by the very soldiers they were maligning and abusing. Mike was bitter that the faceless bureaucrats who sent them to war were never harmed or blamed. He resented Hollywood and Hanoi Jane (Fonda) for comforting the enemy.

Mike took my classes not because he was hoping to get a better job. Who was going to hire this broken man, he said? He had a thirst for knowledge, he wanted to learn, to continue his schooling that was abruptly interrupted by the draft. He did not have the luxury of refusing the draft or hiding behind a powerful daddy or go to medical school in order to skip the draft.

Being a veteran, Mike had to drive four hours many times each month to seek medical help in the nearest VA hospital. I thought it odd at the time that this man, who served his country in Vietnam and was promised stellar medical care for the rest of his life, could not be seen at the nearest local hospital, ultra-modern, and equipped to handle any health needs Mike might have had. His VA hospital appointments dragged on for months and years before he got his first prosthesis for his missing leg.

Judging by the recent VA scandal, things are a lot worse than Mike had described years ago. Citizens should be outraged that so many veterans died while on the waiting list to be treated at VA hospitals.

Americans should ask the question why are our veterans receiving third world medical care when they have earned and were promised the best of care for the rest of their lives while we give free stellar health care to illegal aliens in California and elsewhere, medical care they are not entitled to and have not earned?

Rationing health care to our heroes is the wrong way to trim the budget and the out of control spending. What happened to the Hippocratic Oath that doctors take when graduating from medical school? Are performance bonuses for rationing care to our needy veterans more important than the oath to do no harm?

A Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll reported that only 8 percent of veterans believe Veteran Affairs is doing an excellent job. Six in ten troops who served in Iraq and Afghanistan believe VA is doing a “less-than-good job of meeting the needs of veterans.”

(Gregg Jaffe, The Washington Post, May 21, 2014)

According to Stars and Stripes, “nearly half of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are filling” disability claims, “a flood of claims that has overwhelmed the VA and generated a backlog of 300,000 cases stuck in processing for more than 125 days. Some have languished for more than a year.” Last year there were 611,000 claims.

“We’re not where we need to be, but we’re making progress,” said our President. It is an understatement to call this debacle a “national embarrassment” and “a mess” when so many lives were lost, the appointment books cooked, and the backlog is huge.

The scars, the constant pain, the missing limbs, the headaches, depression, the numerous surgeries to fix indescribable physical and mental damage to the bodies of those who survived, the frustration, the changed lives, brought out the question posed by doctors in Afghanistan who “had debated whether they should even be saving these troops” who previously, without the advances in combat medicine, would have bled out on the battle field only a few years earlier” – “What kind of lives could they lead?”

Army Staff Sgt. Sam Shockley, who suffered multiple debilitating wounds and 40 surgeries so far after stepping on a buried bomb that blew his legs off, had a simple answer, “I always think that it could be worse.” “I would say I came out of this with my head on my shoulders.” http://www.stripes.com/1.284278

What is the price of war? As Stars and Stripes wrote, “VA calculates war’s true cost, one disabled veteran at a time.” It is hard to account for the actual cost of the war machine and the cost in human lives lost and families destroyed. Pricing a human life, the loss of body parts, of mental acuity, and of lifelong pain and suffering are highly arbitrary.  For a surviving veteran, a lost foot or hand cost $101.50, two missing legs cost $1,000-$1,300, and missing arms cost $1,600-$1,800 a month in disability payments. Those vets who need help around the clock are paid $8,179 a month. Vets would give anything to get their corporal and mental integrity back.

 

You Can Never Have Enough Progressivism

One of the many solicitations I received in the mail today asked for $5 donation in order to meet their modest $15,000 goal. The letter was asking me to help them support the not-so-modest “progressive vision for America.”  Their vision for America was spelled out in the first line:

-          Voting rights (When did we lose the right to vote? We’ve been voting freely for many years, give a few incidents here and there, like the voter intimidation in Philadelphia by the Black Panthers;  even the women’s suffrage was successful in 1920; we are so successful, we allow illegal aliens to vote, and some poll workers in Illinois boast about voting six times. They must be referring to photo IDs. It is so evil to require someone to prove that they are who they say they are; after all, we have to produce photo ID everywhere else in society, why require low information voters to be inconvenienced by a silly photo ID.)

-          Health care (Did our President and the Democrats not passed the Affordable Care Act that nobody can afford? Did they not fundamentally change how our health care will be delivered to all citizens, non-citizens, and illegal aliens? Are they not gutting Medicare and Medicaid as a result of this law? Do we not have to pay now a minimum $20,000 a year premium for the Bronze level insurance and the Supreme Court says it is a tax? Is the IRS not the enforcer and overseer? How much more can we change health care that would satisfy the socialists?)

-          Gun Reform (Are progressives not pleased until everybody is disarmed except the elites in power, Hollywood, and hardcore criminals?)

-          Amnesty (Apparently progressives will not rest until we have open borders to all our enemies and we give blanket amnesty to every unfortunate illiterate immigrant who does not care about America, its values, its language, flag, and Constitution. Who are we to judge that illegal aliens are only interested in our generous welfare system and taking back the lands that have been ‘unjustly’ confiscated from the previous owners by war and purchase; by this definition, nobody has a claim to their country or their borders, so open borders makes sense to generous-with-other-people’s-money liberals.)

-          DOMA (Homosexuals, LGBTs should have the same rights as heterosexuals, they should be allowed to be equally miserable in marriage, divorce, and whatever other rights they do not currently have; at the same time, no child should be allowed the right to feel uncomfortable when children of the opposite sex use their bathrooms, they should definitely be punished if they feel discomfort and complain.)

-          Climate Change (Capitalism is evil and whatever progressives must do to destroy the U.S. economy must be accomplished quickly. The wealth confiscated through carbon swaps, carbon footprint, carbon taxes, and other “green” schemes, must be immediately distributed to third world nations and to Americans who are allergic to work and prefer the safety net of undeserved welfare while the industrious Americans are held slaves to high taxes in order to pay for it all. The unjustified fear mongering of global warming/climate change fits the bill. Low information voters believe whatever misinformation is fed to them, including catastrophic weather events caused by faux man-made global warming. The masses are kept happy with sports, vampires, reality shows, and other trivial Hollywood drivel, the modern day equivalent of bread and circuses.)

The Center for American Progress has a vision for America, a progressive vision. “The president and the public are on our side. With your help, we can make our shared progressive vision a reality.”

The CPA is listed as “an independent nonpartisan (chuckle) educational institute that does not support or oppose candidates or political parties.” (chuckle again) It boasts “ideas for a strong, just, and free America.” Who knew that we were not free? Millions of legal immigrants, who came to America for freedom and opportunity, must have deluded themselves for so long.

To illustrate that the CAP is nonpartisan, the letter I received contains examples of egregious lack of freedom such as “a Tea Party Congressman from Texas who ‘hoped and prayed’ that Congress would reject gun reform legislation to protect the country from Sharia law.”  What was this Congressman thinking? How dare he oppose what CAP promotes?

To show again that CAP does not support or oppose political parties, the letter chastises conservatives – “Just when we thought conservatives had learned their lesson in November, eight more states introduced invasive and medically unnecessary anti-abortion bills.”  The anti-abortion bills are “invasive and medically unnecessary” but the killing of innocent unborn is not invasive and unnecessary. Really?

The ‘nonpartisan’ Center for American Progress (CAP) continues, “A top GOP senator from Iowa – one of 22 Republican male senators who were the lone votes against the Violence Against Women Act – called protecting women from domestic violence “unconstitutional.” Who knew that men in general applauded domestic violence but particularly “evil” men of Republican persuasion?

This letter is so outrageous and disingenuous, only an insane person would take it seriously or contribute money after reading it. I must take an aspirin for my headache. Humanity has sunk to the lowest low in the quest for the end justifies the means of progressive drivel.

 

Radio Chat with Silvio Canto on U.S. Economy

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/cantotalk/2012/12/21/the-us-economy-with-dr-ileana-johnson-paugh

The Unsolicited Opinion April 12, 2012

http://theunsolicitedopinion.com/audio/USO-04-12-12.mp3

My radio commentary on Republic Broadcasting Network. I come on in the second hour.
Topics: European Union, Greece, Obamacare, food supply, ethanol.

Guantanamo Care Trumps ObamaCare

Four hundred air miles from Miami, Florida is the oldest overseas U.S. Naval base in a country with which U.S. does not maintain diplomatic relations, Cuba. In 1903, U.S. leased 45 square miles of land and water at Guantanamo Bay for use as a coaling station and later as a refueling station.

The treaty was ratified and signed by both governments in Havana in December 1903 for $2,000 gold coins per year. In 1934, the lease was renewed by granting Cuba and its trading partners free access through the bay and the payment of $4,085 in actual dollars, not gold. To end the lease, both U.S. and Cuba must agree or the U.S. must abandon the base property.

Relations remained stable until the Cuban revolution in the late 1950’s. Since January 1, 1959, the territory outside the base remains off-limits to civilians and U.S. service members. Official diplomatic relations with Cuba were cut off by President Eisenhower in January1961. Some Cubans sought refuge on the base. Relations have been strained with the Castro government.

Of the original 380 who were allowed to stay and work on the base, there are 30 remaining. Of the 3,500 commuters in 1959 who were allowed to leave communist Cuba each morning and return in the evening through the North East Gate, only two remain today. They take retirement checks each month to the Cubans who retired from the Naval Station.

Thousands of Haitian refugees were processed through the Guantanamo base over the years during the violent coup of 1991 and the earthquake in 2010.  Asylum seekers who make it across the border by land or intercepted at sea by Coast Guard vessels live temporarily in migrant facilities on base until are processed to third-party countries in Latin America.

The Naval Station has a self-sufficient base, which houses 5,337 people, mostly civilians and 2,103 military. A desalination plant produces 1.2 million gallons of water per day and the power plant 350,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity per day.

The Naval Station is separated by Guantanamo Bay and it can be accessed by AMC Rotator flights that land on the Leeward side of the base. The bay can be crossed by utility boat and ferry to the Windward side of the base where the prison is located.

In the wake of 9/11, the base started to incarcerate individuals captured by the U.S. military during execution of the War on Terror. The first prisoners arrived at Guantanamo Bay on January 11, 2002.

The “enemy combatants,” a term coined by the Bush administration, have the legal status of unlawful combatants without protections under the Geneva Conventions. After legal fighting, the DOJ dropped in March 2009 the term “enemy combatant” from its legal lexicon and “established a new criterion for detention that did not rely on the Authorization for the Use of Military Force passed by Congress in September 2001.”

President Obama called for the closure of Guantanamo Bay detention facility and signed an Executive Order that called for closure by January 22, 2010. Many detainees were released to countries like Spain, France, Austria, Tunisia, Portugal, Ireland, Hungary, Germany, Italy, Albania, Latvia, Switzerland, Belgium, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Slovakia.

Controversy over the proper venue to try such individuals captured on the battlefield dragged on. The DOJ wanted the detainees tried in federal court in New York. Congress halted plans to close Guantanamo Bay by giving final approval to a defense-spending bill, which blocked detainees from being transferred to the U.S.  President Obama signed the Ike Skelton National Defense Authorization Act of 2011, which banned the use of funds to transfer Guantanamo detainees into the U.S.

Holder announced that defendants would be tried before a military commission, thus ending in April 2011 Obama’s plan to try the accused 9/11 conspirators in federal courts.

On its tenth anniversary, Guantanamo Bay still houses 171 detainees down from 550 in 2005 and 779 in 2002. The detainees started a hunger strike on January 11, 2012, inspired by U.S. liberal activists with bleeding hearts for terrorists and criminals. Deutsche Welled interviewed the UK based legal group Reprieve, representing 15 detainees, about the “lack of hope that now pervades the camp.”

These are no boy scouts, they range from bomb makers, bridge bombers, terrorist trainers, terrorist financiers, recruiters and facilitators, high value detainees who were Osama Bin Laden’s guards, and at least five who are directly tied to the 9/11 attacks. Some detainees could have been released but no country wanted them. Some who had been released, committed new terrorist acts or returned to the battlefield. According to the Joint Task Force Guantanamo, “detainee assaults on the guard force occur on a regular basis.”

According to the ACLU, our government spends $70 million annually to house the 89 prisoners who have been cleared for release. The Bush administration has released 532 prisoners while the Obama administration only 68. “Six prisoners died in custody by apparent suicide, one as a result of a heart attack, and one died of cancer.”  Military commissions at Gitmo spent $12 million in 2011. (ACLU)

Detainee programs include a social program (recreation, sports, prayers, family phone calls, mail), intellectual stimulation program (books, magazines, puzzles, newspapers, handheld electronic games, movies, satellite television), an instructional program (literacy, second language classes, art classes, computer classes, personal finance and business), a library with more than 25,000 titles, newspapers and magazines in 15 different languages, video games, DVDs, CDs, and a full-time librarian.

Living conditions exceed what is required by the Geneva Convention: Three meals a day that meet cultural dietary conditions and special diets, shelter, clothing, personal hygiene items, prayer beads, rugs, copies of the Quran in the native language of people from 40 countries, and mail. Detainees are visited by the Red Cross quarterly.

The most interesting aspect of the camp is health care. Medical services are available to detainees around the clock, seven days a week. Prisoners are treated in a dedicated medical facility with state-of-the-art equipment and expert medical staff of more than 100 people. There are 20 inpatient beds, physical therapy, pharmacy, radiology, and a single-bed operating room. Intensive care is offered at the Naval Station hospital and specialists can be flown in. A separate facility offers mental health care. Immunizations are given to detainees because none was available in their home countries. Prosthetic limbs are provided and cancerous tumors removed.

As you contemplate the coming rationing of health care in Obamacare, consider Guantanamo care: there is one medical staff for every two detainees and one primary care provider for approximately 45 detainees. The U.S. national average is one primary care provider for every 880 citizens.

As you wait eight hours to see an emergency room doctor, weeks to see a general practitioner, or six months to get an appointment with a specialist, examine Guantanamo Care: 129,000 meds dispensed annually; 4,650 sick call visits; 3,600 provider appointments; TB screenings conducted via the most accurate method available; colon cancer screening; 10 colonoscopies; 370 annual dental procedures; 470 radiology and physical therapy services; numerous consultations in cardiology, gastroenterology, neurology, radiology, urology, dermatology, audiology, orthopedics, ophthalmology, optometry, podiatry, and pulmonology. (Joint Task Force Guantanamo)

Can we afford to keep Guantanamo open? Can we afford to close it? Based on the valuable information obtained from various detainees, details that saved innumerable lives, the nature of the dangerous individuals, and the cost associated with Gitmo’s maintenance, the questions seem difficult to answer.