Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Poverty Breeds Healthcare Expenses



Written by Mark Taliano



The corporatist narrative informs us that freedom is blind attachment to the dictates of opaque supranational stealth agreements that supersede and obviate national legislation, rules, and regulations.

It tells us that tribunals outside of the reach of Canada's judiciary are to be trusted, and that investor-rights, even when the investor is a foreign country, are more important than national rights.
Totalitarian corruption from above, free from the shackles of democracy, is the new theology as Canadians are taught to blindly trust the benevolent corporatocracy, secure in the knowledge that what is good for corporate globalization must also be good for us.

When we are told that de-regulation is good for us, we believe it, even as tragedies such as the Lac Megantic inferno are fresh in our minds.

Destruction of the public sphere is also thought to be good, as are corporate in-roads into previously sacrosanct domains that were once thought to be emblematic of Canada.
It comes as no surprise, then, that many Canadians support the accelerating corporatization of universal healthcare. It's the (only) answer to the demands of an aging population, we are told, and what is best for the corporation is best for us.

Opposition is somehow treasonous, a socialist plot, and anathema to freedom loving peoples.
Consequently, sacrosanct investor-rights agreements -- such as the Comprehensive and Economic Trade Agreement (CETA) and the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) -- are deemed necessary to lock in protections for free-ranging, transnational corporations, even as they shackle national economies and neuter democratic decision-making.

People blindly accept the co-option of human rights terminology that disguises the secret powers from above: "free trade" will liberate us; globalization is good, and Canada is open for business.
Once we remove our blinders, we see that the corrupting lies from above are disguising an anti-democratic system of governance that is impoverishing us, eroding our economy, and destroying any notions of universality or common good.

The irony is rich. The dismantling of our emblematic health care system is happening beneath our very noses. We are assured that it is in or best interests, and that corporate, multi-tiered health care, like corporate globalization, is inevitable. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Each promise about corporate healthcare is false. Comprehensive documentation shows that a "two tier" (it's actually a multitude of tiers) system is inferior to a universal publicly funded system, by any measure.

Not only is corporate health care bad for the collective health of a country's population, but it also cripples national economies. Ted Wagoner, former CEO of General Motors, recognized in 2008 that high healthcare costs reduce General Motor's competitiveness. Wagoner noted in "G.M C.E.O: Serious Health Care Reform 'Undoubtedly Would Help Level The Playing Field'" that his company spent over $103 billion over fifteen years on pensions and post-retirement health care benefits, and that, "Obviously if we had the $103 billion and could use it for other things, it would enable us to be even farther ahead on technology or newer equipment in our plants or whatever." The article further explains that Japan's universal health system ensures that Toyota "paid $1,400 less per vehicle on health care' and makes $2,400 more per car than American manufacturers."
Everything from bloated administrative costs, to the high cost of medical procedures, and the exorbitant cost of medications, to name just a few, make the US corporate healthcare model less efficient and more expensive than universal models, and the extra costs do not lead to better outcomes.

National health care programs, on the other hand, save money and improve outcomes. Bulk buying of medications improve patient accessibility to care, reduce costs to patients, and improve local and national economies.

Additionally, as the public system is further eroded by parallel corporate systems, other variables, such as wait times, also increase for most people.
Given the comprehensive evidence that illustrates the weakness of corporatized health care systems, this option should not even be on the table.

What, then, are productive solutions to Canada's current heath care woes?
Dr. Danielle Martin, family physician, V.P of Medical Affairs and Health Systems Solutions at Women's College Hospital, and Assistant Professor in Medicine and Health Policy at the University of Toronto, offers steps that could be implemented immediately to improve the health of all Canadians AND strengthen our economy.

Step one is "20 Drugs To Save A Nation." Bulk buying of medications through a public drug plan would reduce costs substantially. We could start now by bulk-buying 20 selected drugs, and eventually create a national pharmacare program which would save us as much as $10.7 billion per year.
Step two, "Less Is More" involves changing the culture of medical tests. We could improve health outcomes and save money by avoiding unnecessary testing and procedures.

The internet site www.choosingwiselycanada.org identifies the problems and dangers associated with unnecessary testing, and it explains "When you need them -- and when you don't."
Step three, "Sick With Poverty," is likely the most controversial, but it too would offer tremendous savings, as well as better health (and economic) outcomes.

Canada would save $7.6 billion per year on reduced health care costs alone if the crisis of poverty was responsibly addressed by discarding the current welfare system, and replacing it with a Guaranteed Annual Income system.

Evidence shouts that we could improve our collective health, and our economy, by improving, rather than rejecting universal healthcare -- and by shredding some of these corporate rights deals while we're at it.

All we need now is the collective will to make the right choices.

Written by Mark Taliano


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Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Christy Clark Wants Your Teenage Children Walking The Streets

Picture is of Christy Clark pandering and politicking at Seaspan Shipyards in 2011...remember Stephen Harper`s grand ship building contract, all that money...it was 2011...it is now 2014..still no ships under construction, same con job at the Irving shipyards in Halifax.....I`ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today, or a vote...sigh!





Written by Grant G



I`m not sure what has disgraced our province more, Christy Clark as the leader and face of British Columbia or a corporate media that cheerleads failure.....?

Would you eat at a restaurant(again) where you previously berated the waiter, the waitress, returned your food and refused to pay, cussed out the management and spit on the floor..

Would you trust having your vehicle serviced at a garage where you previously bounced checks, called into doubt the mechanic`s credentials, made rude and derogatory comments towards the garage....?

Probably not...there are plenty of other restaurants and service garages seemingly on every corner, water under the bridge, move on and spend your dollars elsewhere, however, public education isn`t everywhere, one place, one group, one set of teachers tasked to care for and teach your most valued asset, ......The Child.

Sign a labour contract, dot the I(s) and cross the T(s) and all is back to normal.....And all is back to normal...? really, just like that, happy smiling teachers, really, ...Teachers with no memories, no feelings, no remorse, no regrets just happy smiling teachers ready to teach little Billy and Sally, what grudges, what get-even thoughts, it doesn`t matter if teachers are now looking at PAY-UP notices coming through their mail slot, matters not that 1000s of teachers cancelled well-needed summer vacations, ......

Money, it`s one thing not to get more money it`s quite another to have dependable money stolen away, Christy Clark by taking monies away from teachers in her ongoing vendetta against teachers and her late dad has done more harm than can be imagined..

It will take years and years for the stench to fade, how motivated would you be to teach those BC Liberal parent`s kids, teachers can do their job, or they can do their job, must teachers be upbeat, motivated, ready and willing to work their butts off preparing your child for the future, or they can just do the minimum, score exams and hand out assignments...

Christy Clark is toxic sludge and no teacher settlement negotiated or otherwise can put broken and busted up Humpty Dumpty back together again....

Public education will never be the same again in British Columbia and you can thank Christy Clark for that....

$40 dollar per day childcare payments, for the littler ones, the bigger students get nothing....

You know what they say about idle hands....1000`s of teenage boys n girls fending for themselves, nothing to do, no money just time, time to smoke dope, time to drink, time to steal, commit crimes, time to have sex with each other while parent(s) are working, or perhaps time to have sex with adult men, that as a means to get cash, cash for dope, booze..

Will you Christy Clark take personal responsibility for anyone`s child who becomes incarcerated, drug addicted, working the streets, in jail or worse, will you Christy Clark take responsibility for those teenage children who die on weekday afternoons?

Parents know all too well that children, especially teenagers need organized structure to keep them out of trouble, teenagers need walking around money...

How come you Christy Clark want older teenage children wandering the streets without a penny(nickel) in their pocket..?

Besides scarring public education Christy Clark .......There will be dead children as a result of your actions...furthermore, every teenage child should receive the same $40 dollars per day...call it walking around money.

__________

There is no money, no money for kids, teachers, no money for seniors, no money for government oversight into mining, resource extraction, no money for anything, our province British Columbia has been brought to its knees because Christy Clark`s Liberal gang of incompetents have bankrupted our province, our provincial debt not counting BC Hydro debt, BC Ferry debt, IPP contractual debt and PPP debt stands at $75 billion dollars up from $28 billion in 2001...

There are no unicorns, no fairy godmother, no magic gold pixie dust just staggering debt, courtesy of fiscal criminality orchestrated by the BC Liberals....and there is no LNG riches coming our way....

I mentioned atop this post, who has disgraced us more, Christy Clark or our media and the answer is...

Corporate media....

"We are in a horserace with other countries, .....A trillion dollar once in a lifetime opportunity.....100,000 s of LNG jobs...revenue streams for northern communities, for First Nations.....Elimination of sales tax, ....our BC debt eliminated and a $100 billion dollar prosperity fund..."

Christy Clark promised British Columbia everything mentioned above for the last 3 years and during the 2013 election writ.....and guess what we as a province will be receiving?......NOTHING!

16 months since the election and LNG died.......Every project is dead except for the PETRONAS bid, that project involves giving away our finite resources to 5 national foreign governments...British Columbians are unaware that the PETRONAS project is not private industry, ...5 foreign governments involved...Malaysia...Japan...Brunei....China and India....not Shell..not Chevron, not Exxon Mobile, not Progress energy or Apache Energy...5 foreign Governments with equity shares...Hey Christy Clark...do you not realize that equity partners pay wholesale not retail.....


http://powellriverpersuader.blogspot.ca/2013/11/christy-clarks-preposterous-lng-fantasy.html

Christy Clark`s and Rich Coleman`s LNG tax framework has now been pushed to the end of the year 2014(or later), the LNG export tax framework was initially promised for September 2013..been delayed, stalled and now...

Now it has been all but scuttled, been notified that the new number, (the old number bandied about last year was a 7% LNG export tax) is less than 1% ..higher than 0% but less than 1%...

So why isn`t the media reporting this, this LNG taxation won`t be a secret very long, there is no reason to withhold this information from the public, these aren`t trade secrets or Colonel Sanders recipes, it won`t affect other countries vying for LNG investment, you can`t beat 0%....

Even at 0% taxation the margins are thin, too thin thus these companies are going elsewhere, they need a country with no environmental rules or enforcement, they need a country where the local populous can be used and abused, modern day servitude disguised as progress...

Even with that the PETRONAS bid is not a for sure, still in doubt.....

Here is how the announcement of the LNG taxation framework will go down, what I`ve been told....

The LNG taxation framework will not be announced UNTIL there is a final investment decision, meaning if PETRONAS delays their FID announcement the LNG taxation framework will be delayed right along with it.....

Assuming PETRONAS does commit to a LNG plant(If Canadian bankers lend them the money on very long-term conditions).....

What is currently planned is a big press conference featuring the head of PETRONAS and Christy Clark, the talk will be of $billions and billions in investment, they will talk hyper exaggerated job numbers and how great this will be for British Columbia.....And we still won`t know the LNG taxation framework....Christy Clark will saunter of the stage and leave the questions for Rich Coleman...

Only after all the balloons, all the media perks have been handed out, only after the public fanfare will Rich Coleman deliver the bad news, ...How times had changed, how the parameters were moved, new playing field in a tough global economy....Only after all that is said will Rich Coleman tell BCers that their proposed export tax is gone!....  7% to 0%..

And if it isn`t 0% PETRONAS too will not build....Cue the media, they have no shame and Keith Baldrey will help sell this pig n a poke, in fact Keith Baldrey already knows about the double shuffle two step bullshit being planned for British Columbia....Vancouver Sun will promote the new deal as will the Globe n Mail...And if you have any doubt...

Check out the pre disappointment shilling being done....

http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2014/08/22/New-BC-Think-Tank/


http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Cayo+Vancouver+biggest+winner+when+forests+farms+mines+well/9720865/story.html


The "new" government funded think tank claims that city folk are the big winners in resource extraction, all those new lawyers and finance people required, all the goods and services, all multiplying and doubling, tripling, spinning, churning, there is even a video where think tank spokeboob explains in a Martian/Greek/Geek dialect how raping our province is good for Vancouver.....It will even pay for teachers wage demands....oh the humanity...

Desperate days for Christy Clark....

And now for the Glob n Pale......

They published today pure tripe, unseasoned tripe, no orange sauce, no wild rice just plain tripe that stunk up my computer screen.....

What next Globe n Mail?......Are you going to start selling special edition Christy Clark underwear or are you going to declare your allegiance to idiot writing shills?

Absolute pathetic writing and shilling finding press pages, I`ll let one commenter from the Glob N Pale sum up the article...



With eyes on LNG boom, demand for construction workers in B.C. to rise

KFB in B.C. wrote, and I quote.....


"What drivel! The globe should be ashamed for letting this bovine generated waste to be published. There is not one lng project on the go and is in all likely hood never will be. This is just cheap Schilling for a totally corrupt government. Shame."
What drivel! The globe should be ashamed for letting this bovine generated waste to be published. There is not one lng project on the go and is in all likely hood never will be. This is just cheap Schilling for a totally corrupt government. Shame.

With eyes on LNG boom, demand for construction workers in B.C. to rise


http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/with-eyes-on-lng-boom-demand-for-construction-workers-to-rise/article20187870/


I couldn`t have said it better KFB.....


Our media, Canada`s media has turned into a moral disgrace, worse than the politicians, worse than Christy Clark, controlled by corporate means...

You Christy Clark deserve to be recalled, or jailed, a useless uneducated bitch.......See you in hell Christy Clark..

http://www.change.org/p/bc-citizens-recall-premier-christy-clark


Written by Grant G


P.S.....Well folks I`ve done it....cut the cable, no more cable TV, no more mainstream media...I`m strictly on line, internet only....no Global, no CTV, no CKNW...I feel like I have been cleansed....Join me...it`s the only way the media will get the message....CUT the CABLEVISION



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Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Lie Big or Go Home

  
     Written By Mark Taliano    People are disinclined to believe monstrous crimes, especially since monstrous crimes are usually camouflaged by Big Lies. Hitler knew about the value of the Big Lie, and he wrote about it in
Mein HYPERLINK "http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/kampf.html"Kampf.

Stalin too was aware of the power of monstrous crimes. He is said to have observed that "when one man dies it is tragedy, when thousands die HYPERLINK "http://books.google.de/books?id=8fp1A2s6aQwC&pg=PA510&dq"it'sHYPERLINK "http://books.google.de/books?id=8fp1A2s6aQwC&pg=PA510&dq" statistics."

People are even less inclined to believe that their own country perpetuates these crimes. On a subterranean level, people associate the search for truth as being somehow unpatriotic, even as the search for truth means a search for freedom from the totalitarian shackles of undemocratic governance that advances secret agendas through its manipulation of the masses. Silence in the face of the lies of totalitarianism is a form of complicity.

Humanity’s inclination to accept monstrous crimes and the lies that camouflage them means that the crimes are perpetuated, time and again, throughout history. Those responsible for engineering the crimes are aware of this.

We now know, for example, that Bush and his aides lied
935 times in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq, and that they provided false evidence as a pretext for the illegal invasion of Iraq. Despite the fact that about one million people have already died as a result of this massive criminal enterprise, the public somehow remains delusional and ready to accept the next big crime and the next batch of lies.

The open-ended War On Terror is yet another Big Lie. It is used as a cover for on-going imperialism, not only in Afghanistan and Iraq, but also in the Ukraine, Syria, and Palestine. Those who oppose Empire are said to be terrorists, and the monstrous crimes are continue unabated. The most recent culprit is Israel, -- thought to be an appendage (or driver?) of the U.S empire -- which is currently committing genocide in Palestine. Predictably, much of the world is looking away, apparently lulled by the lies and distortions of the corporate media echo chambers.

In order to break this toxic cycle of delusions and crimes, we need to dig deep, find the truth behind the crimes, and the money behind the lies.

The foundational catalyst for the fraudulent "War On Terror" is 9/11, yet, unsurprisingly, investigations into this monstrous crime have so far been inadequate. As David Ray Griffith argues in The New Pearl Harbour: Disturbing Questions About The Bush Administration And 9/11, the conclusions of the political investigations: the 9/11 Joint Congressional Inquiry (of which 28 pages remain redacted), and the 9/11 Independent Commission, need to be re-examined by a sweeping juridical investigation, free from political interference and hasty presuppositions.

It is, for example, unacceptable, that the head of the 9/11 Commission,
Philip HYPERLINK "http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/09/20/142478/"Zelikow, was appointed by Bush administration, just as it is unacceptable that both the Joint Congressional hearings and the 9/11 Commission hearings were restricted by presuppositions that the crime was the result of breakdowns -- including incompetence, poor communication, and ignorance -- rather than official complicity.

 

 

At the very least,
prima facie incidents which point to official complicity should be re-examined. Griffith identifies, in detail, 40 such "smoking guns" that have not been adequately investigated. Three of the more compelling ones are listed below:

Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) to intercept hijacked airlines were not followed on September 11, 2001 only.
Forensic evidence – steel from the collapsed World Trade Center – was quickly removed, and shipped overseas, before it could be examined.
Local Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents were prevented from professionally performing their duties by FBI headquarters.

A better appreciation of the "money behind the lies" adds urgency to the need for a judicial investigation into the terror of 9/11 that killed
2,996 people immediately, and launched (previously-planned) invasions overseas, all under the cover of the on-going and patently fraudulent War On Terror.

The Bush Administration, the Pentagon, the CIA, the FBI, the military-industrial complex, and the oil industry all benefit from the 9/11 crimes:
Bush’s plans to enlarge the US Empire, and expand its globalized model of predatory economics were accelerated and advanced.
$48 billion was added to the Pentagon budget.
CIA funding was increased by 42%.
Imperial conquests, starting with Afghanistan and Iraq, are now disguised as legitimate, and even "self-defence".
Legislation to dominate and oppress civilians (i.e the Patriot Act, Homeland Security) continues to flourish.
Security, policing, and military complexes continue to benefit from more funding and power.
Oil companies continue to profit and expand in new areas of US control.
 

Polities that benefit from a crime are not necessarily guilty of the crime; however, it is still reasonable to ask whether they contributed to the crime or whether they were simply unwitting "beneficiaries."

Justice and freedom demand that we ask these questions in the context of a wide-sweeping judicial investigation. Failing that, we should pay heed to George Orwell’s assertion: "To be corrupted by totalitarianism, one does not have to live in a totalitarian country."

 

By Mark Taliano


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