How Has the Economic Well-Being of the Middle-Class (< $85,000/yr.) Fared from 1971 to 2007?

Two topics are covered in this blog. One is our financial system harming the middleclass and the other is that our politicians are ignoring the real wishes of the American People. Jim

Professor Elizabeth Warren of Harvard co-author of "The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers & Fathers are Going Broke" and "The Big Squeeze" Tough Times for the American Worker," Steven Greenhouse of the NY Times delineate how the Republicans changed the equality game starting with Nixon who put in place our current healthcare system where corporations make money by denying expensive care. Corporate Healthcare wanted even more so they started denying routine tests, but the consumer storm made then back-off.

The Republican Congress passed the bills to essentially strip any protections for consumers and placed either lobbyists and incompetents in the SEC and other regulating agencies such as the Federal Reserve. The start of the new season of Damages staring Glenn Close is a must see at the beginning of the new season, a superb actor, a strong supporting cast,at 10 and 11 PM ET/PT on FX cable, tackles the complexities of the Madoff billions of dollars fraud. It is Law & Order that goes a whole season to resolve itself so it goes into complexities that Law & Order cannot handle in one episode. I caught it last season in the middle so I had to really think hard to find out what was really happening. Don't Miss !!.

The result of Republican congress since 1994, bad filibuster rule requiring 60 votes in the senate to vote on any bill, made President Clinton weak, Bill Clinton's staff effectively shut out the influence of Hillary Clinton by not telling her about crucial meetings and the extraordinary influence of his financial advisors Summers, Rubin of Goldman Sachs, and weekly meetings with Alan Greenspan made it possible to dispose of the regulatory Glass-Steagal Act passed during the Great Depression to prevent financial manipulations.

When Bill Clinton at the behest of Hillary Clinton vetoed the Bank enrichment bill, wealth and power including the New York Times started putting false scandals such as Whitewater and used the Lewinsky sex scandal to give him a message not to double-cross wealth and power! The greatly weakened Bill Clinton sign the Glass-Steagal Act and more bank deregulation bills that allowed banks to merge with investment banks and insurance companies. These Republican bills that started us on the road to financial armageddon. Super fast computers such as the one by Goldman Sachs makes individual investors and even Mutual Funds at peril.

Investments: Growth is going to be slow in the USA as long as a decade because of the financial harm these crooked bankers and hedge funds did to our economy which was largely a Financial Economy. History shows us that financial economies always fail as the greed meter gets higher and higher. See Niall Ferguson's book "The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World," or the PBS.org tape that you can buy.

What we all need to do is invest all over the world and de-emphasize the USA. A top thinker on investments appeared on Consuelo Mack http:wealthtrack.com last week. On this week’s Consuelo Mack WealthTrack: successfully navigating Wall Street, investment strategy and stock picking with a man who has mastered all three. Consuelo goes in depth with “Financial Thought Leader” Bob Doll, BlackRock’s Vice Chairman, Global Chief Investment Officer, and manager of three highly respected large cap funds. http://wealthtrack.com/previous.php

He favors emerging markets index which I recently cut back on after 90% gains and investments largely outside the USA. He does not Real Estate. I increased my index holdings emphasizing office space recently too. My belief is that the major advisors tells us to invest in things they would like to unload. Otherwise for the next ten years or more, investments outside the USA is where the growth is. I would advise gradually increasing your overseas holdings and how gradual depends on you. It will be hard so if you can get an advisor to do it for you, you are probably better off. Avoid those who promise too much like Madoff did.

Remember it pays to be contrary but also riding out things when ordinary investors pile in when it is near the top based on what TV advisors are telling them! About 25 percent of my holdings are still in the USA in value stock indexes, but my advisor rebalances every quarter so I don't get the maximum uptick, but I increase safety. I tend to tolerate risk more than my advisors so I made up my own system of index funds.

You might consider the Vanguard world index where they do rebalance for you in investments all over the world or use ETF index funds to invest all over the world. Pros trade in these a lot so expect sharp upticks and downticks. Just stay in. But in the end, you need to read books as the ones by John C. Bogle, a former Vanguard chairman, "Enough: True Measures of Money, Business, and Life and "Unconventional Success" by David F. Swensen, the top Yale Fund advisor is quite good. Vanguard Funds are owned by the investors so fees are low, a very important consideration for a slow growth economy.

Elizabeth Warren of Harvard compiled some data of interest to everyone on Inflation Adjusted status of the Middleclass which I saw on the Dylan Ratigan show. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31510813/#35019924 Watch the whole show! Some of the Financial stars of CNBC won't appear on Ratigan's show because he knows too much and asks tough questions.

What happened between 1971 to 2007 to the Middleclass in Inflation Adjusted Dollars?

Inflation adjusted numbers show the tough time the Middleclass is having. With even more outrageous interest rates and minimum payments on credit cards, it is a wonder that we are surviving.

We pay 80% more on housing! (Borrowed so much on house equity that many more homeowners are in trouble.)

We pay 75% more on Health Insurance.

We pay 60% more on Automobiles.

We went from 50% on Fixed Expenses which are unavoidable to 75% to leave us with less disposable income!

Top One Percent got 24% of all income in the USA or 3 million or assuming four in a family, 750,000 families.

50% of total income in the bottom 50% of Americans or 150 million people., 37 million families.

Wall Street Profits: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31510813/#35019924

Jim Kawakami, Jan 25, 2010, http://jimboguy.blogspot.com

What's the Matter With the Democrats? Post-Massachusetts Reflections on Popular Resentment, the Liberal-Left Vacuum, and Right Comeback

January 25, 2010

By Paul Street

... Last November 3rd, the Republicans took all of the top elected offices in Virginia's off-year election. The GOP expelled Democratic governor Jon Corzine in New Jersey. It repealed a gay marriage law in Maine.

And through it all the ratings of hard-right "paranoid-style"[1] radio and television personalities like Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and other demagogues of the FOX News variety have been sky high. The vapid and vicious proto-fascistic former Alaska governor Sarah Palin retains a fierce and stubborn base of support among millions of Americans who believe that Obama is advancing a "secret" socialist agenda and that the corporate media is owned and run by (of all things) "the left."

Meanwhile, the Anti-Defamation League reports that the number of right-wing paramilitary militias operating in the U.S. rose from 50 to 200 between 2007 and 2010.[2]

MSNBC talk show hosts Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann might portray the American right as a marginal collection of goofy tea-party kooks whose main role is to provide laughs for all-knowing liberals, but there is something much more significant going on.

THE MATERIAL BASIS OF MASS RESENTMENT

How did this happen? How could the seemingly discredited and even laughable right get so rejuvenated so quickly in the first year of the "liberal" Obama presidency?

There is deep and widespread anger and resentment across the land, There's nothing mysterious about the material basis of what the establishment media arrogantly dismisses as "populist rage." The official U.S. unemployment measure is over 10 percent, terrible enough though the real joblessness rate (including involuntarily part-time workers and the many millions of workers who have given up on the quest for employment) is over 17 percent.[3] One in four U.S. children now relies on Food Stamps. The foreclosure crisis continues, feeding mass homelessness.

There's nowhere to make an honest, family-supporting living for millions of U.S. (ex-) workers, stuck in a former manufacturing superpower whose corporate overlords have moved the lion's share of production offshore.(To give just one example among many: U.S. luggage producers account for less than 1 percent of the U.S. market, yet nearly every U.S. resident owns luggage[4]).

The top 1 percent of the U.S. population owns more than 40 percent of the nation's total net worth and closer to two thirds of its financial assets.

At least 92 million people - close to a third of the U.S. population - lives at less than 200 percent of the notoriously inadequate federal poverty level (currently $21,834 for a family of four).

Forty-five thousand Americans die each year in connection with their inability to obtain health insurance [5]- a curious commentary on life and death in "the world's greatest democracy," the only "modern" industrial-service economy state not to guarantee health care to its broad populace.

And while economic destitution and its terrible consequences (rising crime, incarceration, suicide, family dissolution and more) stalk the "homeland" even as television pundits speak positively of a Wall Street "recovery," the leading financial firms that caused the economic meltdown of 2008-2009 have benefited from massive federal bailouts to the degree that they have resumed giant, multi-billion dollar bonus packages. The federal government offers relatively little to ordinary working people but has recently passed the largest Pentagon budget (funded at more than $ 1 trillion per year) - a giant subsidy to the high tech corporate sector - in history and is presiding over an expensive five-front terror war in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Somalia, and Yemen.

In December, the nation's commander- in-chief announced (sounding amazingly Bush-like in West Point) that he will be deepening the country's massive and apparently endless investment in the unpopular "Af-Pak" quagmire. His "homeland" economic team is quarterbacked by the arrogant and authoritarian arch-neoliberal Larry Summers, a Goldman Sachs veteran and former Harvard president who callously privileges global finance capital's bottom line over and above job creation and manufacturing within the U.S.[6]

Noam Chomsky rightly sees this as a confirmation of the 18th century economist and philosopher Adam Smith's warning that "the architects of policy protect their own interests, no matter how grievous the effect on others." "And they are the architects of policy," Chomsky ads. "Obama made sure to staff his economic team with advisors from [the financial] sector."[7]

(Note Republicans make selective quotes for Smith's "Wealth of Nations", but ignore some extremely important caveats about uncontrolled Capitalism and free transfer of capital. The world trades 4 Trillion Dollars Daily with only 1 percent on commerce. Currency manipulation can be extremely lucrative. I hope President Obama has the guts to try to place a small tax on these transaction which would really help our deficits. Jim)

THE NOT-SO REACTIONARY PEOPLE

All of this is grossly contrary to the policy and social preferences of the majority of U.S. citizens, identical with the U.S. government in quaint democratic theory. The American people are nowhere nearly as reactionary as many middle class liberals I know insist. For what its worth (not all that much in America's corporate managed dollar democracy), popular U.S. attitudes on key policies and values have long stood well to the left of both of the two dominant U.S. political parties, the investor class, and the nation's "mainstream" (corporate) media. Contrary to pundits' routine description of the U.S. as a "center-right nation:"

* 71 percent of Americans think that taxes on corporations are too low (Gallup Poll, April 2007), 66 percent of Americans think taxes on upper-income people are too low (Gallup Poll, April 2007) and 62 percent believe corporations make too much profit (Pew Survey 2004).

* 77 percent of Americans think there is too much power concentrated in the hands of a few big companies (Pew Survey 2004), 84 percent think that big companies have too much power in Washington (Harris Poll 2007), and two-thirds think that "big business and big government work together against the people's interests" (Rasmussen Reports, 2009).

*A majority of American voters think that the United States' "most urgent moral question" is either "greed and materialism" (33 percent) or "poverty and economic injustice" (31 percent). Just 16 percent identify abortion and 12 percent pick gay marriage as the nation's "most urgent moral question" (Zogby, 2004). Thus, nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of the population think that injustice and inequality are the nation's leading "moral issues" (Katherine Adams and Charles Derber, The New Feminized Majority [Paradigm, 2008], p.72).

* Just 29 percent of Americans support the expansion of government spending on "defense." By contrast, 79 percent support increased spending on health care, 69 percent support increased spending on education, and 69 percent support increased spending on Social Security (Chicago Council on Foreign Relations [hereafter "CCFR"], "Global Views,"2004).

* 69 percent of Americans think it is the responsibility of the federal government to provide health coverage to all U.S. citizens (Gallup Poll, 2006) and 67 percent "think it's a good idea [for government] to guarantee health care for all U.S. citizens, as Canada and Britain do, with just 27 percent dissenting" (Business Week, 2005).

* 59 percent of Americans support a single-payer health insurance system (CBS/New York Times poll, January 2009) and 65 percent of Americans respond affirmatively to the following question: "Would you favor the government offering everyone a government-administered health insurance plan - something like the Medicare coverage that people 65 and over get - that would compete with private health insurance plans?" (CBS-New York Times, September 23, 2009)

From the polling data I've seen and from numerous heartland "voter contacts" and conversations I've had with "ordinary Americans" over the last few years. I suspect that a majority - or very close to it - of U.S. citizens would significantly agree with much of what Iraq occupation veteran Mike Prsyner recently said in a remarkable speech to Iraq Veterans Against the War:

"I threw families on to the street in Iraq only to come home and see families thrown on to the street in this county in this tragic, tragic and unnecessary foreclosure crisis. I mean to wake up and realize that our real enemies are not in some distant land. They're not people whose names we don't know and whose culture we don't understand. The enemy is people we know very well and people we can identify. The enemy is a system that wages war when it's profitable. The enemy is the CEOs who lay us off from our jobs when it's profitable. It's the insurance companies who deny us health care when it's profitable. It's the banks who take away our homes when it's profitable. Our enemy is not 5000 miles away. They are right here at home. If we organize with our sisters and brothers we can stop this war. We can stop this government. And we can create a better world." [8] ... http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/23720

Volcker Trumps Geithner's and Summers' Approach by Looking to Future Needs in Financial Regulation

President Obama's prudent choices of common sense/experienced Vice President Biden and choosing advisors with opposing views made prove to be the elixir to a successful presidency. I suspect both Geithner and Summers will leave the administration after losing their top dog status and take advantage of the riches provided by Bankers/Wall Street and/or lobbying firms.

Just like the New York Times, their online version of news order of priority is to put the newest stuff first and sometimes busy readers will miss the most important news. This morning Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) quoted extensively about the opposition to Bernanke as the next Fed Chairman. So far Bernanke can squeak through with some Republican help, but they need sixty senators to allow a vote because one or more senators have placed a hold which requires 60 votes to overcome. That is why The Transportation Security head dropped out of consideration for the job of securing airports because one Senator from South Carolina, a far right senator DeMint (R-SC) put a hold on it because he claimed he supports unionization of its members even though a search of his records indicates he did not.

These senate rules were put in place to make the senate a body that stops bills more than passes bills. In 2007 and 2008, the Republicans stopped 80 bills by March of 2008 by the Democrats, more than double the two year record in 2007 alone! In 2009, Republicans stopped almost all the bills. Unlike the Democratic senators who are rewarded for resistance of voting for a bill, Republicans are punished for voting for a bill. Bush was able to pass many bills with only a 50 Republicans!

We need a more warrior mentality in the Democrats. If you cross the majority without good reason, you will be punished. Pelosi who grew up steeped in politics knows this and she has a remarkable record of getting the votes to pass a bill out of the House in spite of over 50 conservative Blue Dog members from the South and Midwest. If she is able to get the House to pass the Senate Healthcare Bill, then President Obama will sign the bill without any interference from the Senators.

Knowing and acting on politics which is not a dirty word but something all humans practice all their lives to survive and thrive. Do what is in your interest, but you need to know the facts first and not what you see in corporate and special interest political ads on television. You cannot use your gut feel without knowing much. In the book "Blink" many people who read the book miss the point that art experts have the best intuitive feel for fake art, but still use science to confirm the gut feel!

Investing in ignorance will cause all of us to panic. By knowing more, I am much more calm in crisis. In the past I really knew very little and paid the price. No can do anything about the Financial Melt Down, but if you paid attention, you would know it had to come at some time, but I did not know when. I also knew that if I sold everything in panic, I would be in much worse shape than I am now. Markets go up and down. It is going down now, 6-7% drop in the large financial banks, affects sentiment of the whole market. No one can predict which way it would go. The emotions of ignorant investors in mutual funds lead to panics so it is hard to decide which way the market will go eventually.

The Financial Times in London tends to be more accurate and not agenda driven as the American newspapers and television. You need to know which writers in the New York Times to trust more than others. That is up to you. I dropped my subscription to the Wall Street Journal because I know Murdock (FOX News) to well. He murdered the superb newspaper the London Times and doing the same to the Wall Street Journal and cable television where FOX allows fake news to dominate.

Jim Kawakami, Jan 22, 2010, http://jimboguy.blogspot.com

Volcker Trumps Geithner's and Summers' Approach by Looking to Future Needs in Regulation

By David Cho and Binyamin Appelbaum

Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 22, 2010 (page 1 of the Post in today's paper below the fold)

Excerpt: ... But after the House passed a regulatory reform bill on Dec. 11 that was largely based on the Geithner's vision, the administration began to warm to Volcker's ideas, which had the political value of seeming tough on Wall Street, said sources in contact with the Treasury and White House.

At the time, administration officials were growing concerned that government guarantees designed to spur lending by letting banks borrow cheaply were instead funding banks' speculative investments and fueling soaring profits, said Austan Goolsbee, a member of the president's Council of Economic Advisers.

"We started coming out of the rescue and you saw some of the biggest financial institutions . . . who had access to cheap financing . . . use that money without lending or anything, just doing their own investments," he said. "That clearly started putting [the issue] on the radar screen for us."

Goolsbee said that Vice President Biden became a particular advocate for Volcker's approach.

In mid-December, the president formally endorsed Volcker's approach and asked Geithner and Lawrence H. Summers, the director of the National Economic Council, to work closely with the former Fed chairman to develop proposals that could be sent to Capitol Hill. The three men had long discussions about the idea, including a lengthy one-on-one lunch between Geithner and Volcker on Christmas Eve.

Summers and Geithner had been reluctant to take on battles that weren't at the heart of the problem that fueled the crisis. But ultimately, an administration official said, the two men concluded that reform needs to be about more than just fighting the last war -- it needs to address sources of future risk as well. ...

_______________________________________________

Obesity Uncommon in Past, So Our Modern Diet Caused Obesity Due to More Efficient Gut Bacteria

Tags: High Sugar, Salt, Fat, More Efficient Gut Bacteria Based on Our Diet, Diet Books, Never Go Hungry Diet, Eating Every 2 to 3 Hours, Scientific Proof Type of Major Bacteria in Gut Leads to Obesity

It is ironic that many commercial diets seem to lead to obesity. It is no accident that following the model that government is bad as espoused by Reagan and followed through with a vengeance Even though I do not expect you to understand all the words in this excerpted five page article below at www.Medscape.com for doctors, you will understand the concept of what you eat matters a lot. A starvation diet never works because our system produces a hormone which activates your hunger response so if you want to lose weight long-term, never go hungry and change what you eat.

Avoid like a plaque any White Bread, White Flour based foods, and eat whole wheat and brown instead of white rice. There are many kinds of brown rice which maintains its fiber which helps you avoid the immediate high sugar level in your blood which converts to fat and over works the pancreas. Potato, especially with its skin, yams, and the like provide your carbohydrates.

Two new books on diet based on the latest scientific experiments are easy to read with "You on a Diet: Owner's Manual for Waist Management" the http://doctoroz.com team, Michael F. Roizen, MD, and Mehmet C. OZ, MD, the better one than the excellent "The Mayo Clinic Diet: Eat Well, Enjoy life, Lose Weight" Both are about $15 at Costco.

The excerpted article below based on scientific evidence and not error prone anecdotal diet suggestions. The bottom line is that the bacteria in our gut determines whether we are fat and obese rather than normal because of the higher efficiency in converting food in our gut to increased fat and weight (energy) than other major bacteria in our gut.

That is why white bread and flour which are high sources of sugar in our diet favors the bacteria that gets us to eat more so obesity must thrive. Saturated fats also must be controlled so greatly reducing meat, cheese, and other saturated fat sources is necessary. A combination of saturated fat, salt, and sugar is essentially in all Fast Foods because our bacteria craves these high calorie foods and our brain goes into ecstasy!

Jim Kawakami, Jan 19m 2010, http://jimboguy.blogspot.com

From Current Opinion in Gastroenterology

Obesity and the Human Microbiome

Ruth E. Ley …

Summary Large-scale alterations of the gut microbiota and its microbiome (gene content) are associated with obesity and are responsive to weight loss. Gut microbes can impact host metabolism via signaling pathways in the gut, with effects on inflammation, insulin resistance, and deposition of energy in fat stores. Restoration of the gut microbiota to a healthy state may ameliorate the conditions associated with obesity and help maintain a healthy weight.

Introduction

Up until the last few decades, obesity has been a rare physiological state. Now however, the number of obese or overweight humans has come to outnumber those suffering from malnutrition.[1] This is an unprecedented state for our species, resulting from a mismatch between our evolutionary biology and our modern environment. The human body is a complex system, made all the more complex through its interactions with the trillions of microorganisms that coat the body surface and densely populate the gut. Recent work has shown that the microbes of the gut may play a role in human metabolism and adiposity. Because they are environmentally acquired, microbes constitute one part of our environment that may contribute to the obese state. This review discusses the most recent findings and insights into the relationship between the human microbiota, obesity, and obesity-associated diseases. …

shotgun sequencing of the microbial community DNA, showed an enrichment in genes involved in energy extraction from food in the obese host's microbiome relative to that of the lean host's microbiome. A microbiota with greater energy extraction efficiency resulted in less energy left over in feces and greater levels of short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) in the cecum. Furthermore, when the luminal contents from the ceca of obese or lean mice were provided to lean germ-free recipients, the mice receiving the microbes from the obese donors gained more weight over a 2-week period than recipients of the lean microbes, despite equivalent food intake.[3] In a study extending these observations to humans, 12 obese participants were randomly assigned to either carbohydrate-restricted or fat-restricted diets, and on average, the proportion of Bacteroidetes bacteria enumerated via 16S rRNA gene sequencing increased over time, mirroring reductions in host weight but not changes in diet.[4] Together these studies showed that the gut microbiota was generally altered in the obese host and could contribute to host adiposity in humans and mice.

Metagenomics and Obesity

A subsequent and much larger study of the microbiome associated with obesity conducted with humans also showed that obesity was associated with a depletion of Bacteroidetes, together with an enrichment in carbohydrate and lipid-utilizing genes in the microbiome as a whole. Turnbaugh et al.[5••] focused on twins to assess the gut microbiota's relationship to host weight. The fecal microbial communities of young adult female monozygotic (n = 31) and dizygotic (n = 23) twin pairs concordant for either leanness or obesity were compared, along with those of their mothers (n = 46), using a combination of traditional 16S rRNA gene clone libraries and high-throughput metagenomic analyses of the microbiome. Fecal samples were obtained from the majority of participants at an initial time point and then again 2 months later. Comparisons between all 154 participants showed obesity to be associated with reduced bacterial diversity and reduced representation of the Bacteroidetes. Furthermore, the microbiome differed between obese and lean hosts in much the same way it had in the obese mouse model, with obese host microbiomes enriched in gene categories involved in carbohydrate and lipid metabolism. …

Conclusion

An increasing number of studies relate imbalances in the composition of the gut microbiota to obesity and its associated diseases. The approaches used to characterize gut microbiotas vary widely, which might explain in part why the specific alterations in the microbiota associated with excess body fat, or weight loss, can also vary between studies. To compare studies will require some standardization of approaches or use of a variety of approaches within single studies. However, irrespective of the specific changes observed in microbial communities with respect to body fat, evidence suggests that microbes do indeed respond and contribute to host energy balance. They may do this using a number of different and possibly interactive signaling mechanisms involving innate immune responses, endocrine cells, and epithelial cells. An integration of mechanistically based investigations and microbial ecology studies using high-throughput sequencing will provide insights into how best to reshape host-microbial interactions to promote health. http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/714569

Tags: H1N1 Mutations, For Profit and Non-Profit Govt Healthcare, Seasonal Flu, Cancer Spread from Injury

I have to congratulate the President Obama administration for their successful efforts in combating the Swine Flu. They get good marks from almost everyone. Imagine what would have happened if the incompetent who ran the CDC was still in charge? The Republicans not only kept cutting money for Medicare, but severely cut the CDC budget and did not budget to study the Bird Flu in Asia!

About half the doctors used cortical steroids to ramp down the immune response so may have saved the lives of many children and young who have an over-active immune response producing more Cytokines which increases inflammation. Young persons did to react badly to flu because often the Cytokine Storm which increases inflammation in the lungs increases the chance for secondary infections of pneumonia.

Everytime there is an injury to tissue in the body, the body's immune response is activated by Cytokine detected by the C-Reactive Protein Test and young persons have a much stronger response and often leads to death among young children because the kidneys are shut down from 0157-H7 deadly E-Coli in hamburgers which are prepared from scraps from all over the world.

Although we already have 300 mutations of HIN1 Swine, Bird, Human Flu, certain surface proteins involved in attachment to the surface of cells has not mutated, indicating that we can exploit this weakness. Does explain why older people did not get this very contagious flu. The primary source of Swine Flu came from a Pig Factory Farm in Wisconsin, not Mexico.

Authorities are scared that this virus may incubate in pigs with other deadly viruses to produce a much more lethal virus. Viruses break up into eight segments when they reproduce and they reproduce extremely fast. For example Indonesia has the greatest number of very deadly Bird Flu which is able to attach to tissues and human to human transfer occurs due to genetic reasons. If this flu virus combines with our Swine Flu virus, a deadly combination results.

The reason that Pandemics of flu does not extend for years is that rapid mutations can change the surface attachment structure to human lungs so it no longer becomes infectious. But the opposite can happen if this flu virus incubates in a pig and combines with a deadlier flu as we observed in 1918 which occurred in two steps. A milder flu first and then the killer by mutating further in Pigs. PBS had a special on this and the sorrow and photos of a huge number of children getting sick and dying. This one had what is called the death gene!

A record number of people got the seasonal flu vaccine this year in Oregon. The vaccine is the same as last year, but everyone who took it last year should take it again to boost its effectiveness. The Obama administration has done what should have been done before by doubling the dose of seasonal flu next year. The seasonal flu vaccine also protected people from the HIN1 flu virus!

They have also approved a batch process for making vaccine, a process which greatly improves the amount of vaccine produced.

Elderly people over 65 overwhelmingly die from flu because their weak immune response does not allow the vaccine to work well. However, a doubling of the dose next year will help a lot helping reduce the criticism that the vaccine does not work.

This Cytokine test can also detect the injury caused by cancer and heart disease. Unfortunately the Sixty Seven Percent high rate of obesity and to a lesser extent overweight Americans makes it very difficult to avoid inflammation making them more likely to get diabetes and cancer. Fat increases estrogen which accelerates breast cancers.

Not well publicized yet, but animal and human cell studies show clearly that injury to tissue surrounding a cancer tumor causes it to spread. Injecting cancer cells into mice cause it to spread rapidly. However the same cancer cells introduced into the blood stream without tissue injury, did not spread. Exploratory surgery to find cancers may not always be a good idea. It has been known for more than a few years that cancer cells spread to an injured site. It is normally difficult for cancer cells to spread and normally they won't be fatal unless they spread. Probably the operation to remove cancer cells from Senator Kennedy's brain caused it to spread more rapidly.

Autopsies of people who died and did not have visible cancer invariably had cancer tumors. So just about every has small tumors such as in prostate cancer. It is very slow growing but can spread more rapidly for a number of unknown reasons except the presence of testosterone. I have observed that aggressive men with high testosterone such as politicians, football players, and military men seem to get more than their share of prostate cancer.

We found the government cannot control the cost of Medicare and Medicaid because politics is involved. Rationing is possible in the Private sector for profits. The best medical facilities have lower cost such as the Mayo Clinic because unnecessary procedures and tests are not done. Allen,Texas has Medicare costs double the national average even though they have a relatively healthy population.

The healthcare corporations tried to cut costs by excluding ineffective procedures and tests, but because of the uproar, decided to cut life-saving procedures and highly selective elimination of sicker patients by raising their insurance until the companies had to drop health insurance. Only Regulations and an advisory panel in the current Senate bill will help prevent this. Read the book Healthcare, Guaranteed by Ezekiel Emanuel, Rahm Emanuel's older brother.

Jim Kawakami, Jan 6, 2010, http://jimboguy.blogspot.com

Flu increasing nationally, but not in Oregon

Weekly influenza update for Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2010

Date: Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2010
Media questions: Alissa Bateman-Robbins, 503-490-6590, alissa.bateman-robbins@state.or.us

Influenza disease activity increased nationally during the week of Dec. 20-26, 2009, after eight consecutive weeks of decline. Oregon, however, is in one of two out of 10 national regions where current activity is considered “normal” instead of “elevated” for this time of year.

“January is often when seasonal flu spreads, but we know a record number of people have already received a seasonal flu shot. H1N1 vaccination is the best way to keep flu activity from increasing in Oregon,” says Mel Kohn, MD, MPH, Oregon Public Health director.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the national percentage of people who visited the doctor for influenza-like illness increased during the week of Dec. 20-26, possibly because fewer people schedule routine doctor visits during the holidays. Overall hospitalization rates remained unchanged from the previous week, but the proportion of deaths attributed to influenza increased.

Since September 1, 2009, 1,303 people in Oregon have been hospitalized from the flu and 63 people have died.

“Flu illness is holding steady in Oregon. The likelihood of flu activity remaining steady increases as more people get vaccinated against H1N1 flu,” says Kohn.

Kohn says January is a good time to get an H1N1 vaccine to help prevent increased flu activity in Oregon this winter and spring. “It’s also a great time for smokers to quit smoking, which will decrease their chances of complications from the flu or any illness,” he says.

For more information, visit www.flu.oregon.gov. Beginning Jan 16, the Oregon Public Health Flu Hotline (800-978-3040) will change its hours to 8 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon.-Fri., and 9 a.m.-noon weekends and holidays.

Re: Glad to Hear Your Son is got well from flu and pneumonia! Injuries Spread Cancers

Glad to hear your son is OK! Make sure he gets the pneumonia vaccine. About 30 percent of H1N1 deaths were attributable to pneumonia. A large majority of flu deaths happen from bacterial infections when the lungs are inflamed due to our body'a Cytokine reactions to the virus infection. About half the doctors used prednisone to prevent the sick person's body from over-reacting to the infection and producing a Cytokine Protein storm which can even destroy our organs. Tamiflu and the excellent approach taken by the Obama Administration according to most experts helped save many lives even with inadequate hospitals and critical care units.

I again emphasize that you and your family should get the H1N1 vaccine because it will protect you partly or completely from mutated Swine Flu virus and the pneumonia vaccine which should strongly protect a young person more than the elderly. The seasonal flu vaccine will be twice as strong to allow seniors with a weak immune system to more likely develop an immune response. A single dose does not seem to work as well for seniors who never got flu vaccinations in the past. There would not have been a shortage of H1N1 vaccine because growth promoters were not used which would have increased the supply by a factor of three!

H1N1 victims who die seem to get better until they take showers and have a relapse! A young actress is probably the latest victim who died or got ill in the shower. Many people keep shower water tank at much lower temperatures so bacteria can grow. My father complained of getting sick whenever he took a bath so he stopped for a while. I increased the water tank temperature to above 120 degrees which helped.

Take up to 2,000 international units of vitamin D3 and not less than 1,000. I take 3500 units daily since I moved out of Los Angeles. The decreased stress in Eugene help me gain ten pounds a few years ago from my weight in LA with even with a more vegetarian diet! Vitamin D may also help with allergies even though I never saw anyone publish this. It does help reduce colds and increase your immunity to diseases from cancer to osteoporosis to Autism during the birth and baby growth process. In order to get through the birth canal, the baby's brain size is about half of its final size. Incredible growth occurs in the first few years and synaptic connections form. Autism is thought to be due to faulty synaptic connections. The lack of enough vitamin D in curing osteoporosis even with vitamin D with calcium supplements is likely due to our body grabbing the vitamin D for essential other tissues in our body. Kidney dialysis and transplant patients should get lots of vitamin D because they are often likely to suffer osteoporosis.

CANCER GROWTH CAUSE! My aunt and a close friend's cancer spread much more rapidly when she had exploratory surgery to find out why she had pain and difficulty in eating. That thought came to me immediately more than a dozen years ago and seemed logical to me. The surgery must have caused her cancer to spread fast, but I could not find any research confirming my suspicion.

Just a few days ago an article appeared in Science Daily which proved that any injury to cells around a cancer tumor will likely cause it metastasize or spread fast. Biopsies may help spread cancer, but so far no definitive data because no one thought about this until now. That is why when my close friend in New Jersey operated twice on a tumor in her hip, her cancer must have spread rapidly because she died so quickly that I had to go there immediately to see her and luckily I did not wait because she died shortly after I visited. Her chronic pain was horrendous even with pain killers such as morphine. Perhaps the new approach to killing severe chronic pain which was in the November 2009 Scientific American with some already approved drugs for other treatments can be used in cancer cases at the option of the physician and the patient.

Keep Well in 2010! Jan 2, 2010

Jim Kawakami, Jan 2, 2009, http://jimboguy.blogspot.com

Christopher's pneumonia finally responded to antibiotic - I thought it might be viral since 90 percent of orange county flu was H1N1. This is second time his flu turned to pneumonia. I had so many people staying at my house -thank goodness no one else got sick. Most already had their bout with flu. I just keep resting so I do not succumb -haha. Have a great new year - I hope 2010 will be better for so many people.

Corporate Rule, Propaganda, Scots, Scots-Irish, Halberstam, Income Inequality, Predator State, Sharp Increase in Inequality

All of us often make the mistake that very smart people have good judgement too. Read "The Best and the Brightest" by David Halberstam. Very smart people also work for our CIA, NSA, and State Department. Think about how many mistakes they have made in the last quarter century!

History also teaches us that no matter how mighty, guerilla warfare is extremely difficult to overcome, especially since our behavioral norms, do not permit killing whole populations to kill a few. Small bands of guerillas throughout history do not defeat large armies, but they persist until the large armies retreat. That is why I disagree with the Afghan war continuing. The best we can do is to not permit them to spread. Give Northeast Pakistan to the Pashtun tribes there! That is what Pakistan did but we circumvented the wishes of Pakistan and spread the guerilla wars.

In about 1995, Al Gore, who has 15 more IQ points than J. F. Kennedy, convene a conference to protect us from terrorism. They then concluded that since we cannot fight them easily since they have access to powerful weapons helped greatly by "loans," drug money, and corruption. Improvised Explosive Devices IED are killing Americans every day, much more than bullets.

The top arms dealers are the United States, Israel, China and Europe. Banks are also involved because debt payments give them great incentive to loan money to terrorists in Africa and places around the world. A good movie, The International, two stars, starring Clive Owen on STRZ repeats Sunday morning Jan 3 and late afternoon in Oregon and probably later in the week shows how banks may even resort to murder to increase profits. Arms sales from China

The Romans, Normans, The Low Land Scots or more correctly Scots-Irish along with other tribes held off the Roman Army and the English for a thousand years! In books such as How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe's Poorest Nation Created Our World & Everything in It by Arthur Herman (Paperback - Sep 24, 2002) and Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America by James Webb (Paperback - Oct 11, 2005), we discover that a lot of modern American success and political bent as trumpeted by the Republican Party came from these people. In fact extended wars of greed and religion have shaped much of human history.

But not usually mentioned in many commentaries, is that the ones who actually transformed Scotland into the modern world were Irish invaders of northern Scotland mentioned in passing by James Webb in his book. Much of The Scots-Irish in Belfast were from Southwest Scotland, the territory often used by invaders.

Webb, a former marine, does mention that the Scots-Irish permeate our military as well as the Catholic Irish. In the same ways minorities have transformed the world's progress such as the ancient Sumerians did in Iraq and possibly Southern India, Jews our scientific, arts and financial systems, and increasingly women, East Asians, and South Asians has made a considerable impact on our scientific knowledge and progress.

Based on this history, I am inclined to conclude that our trend of developing into a feudal system of the wealthy and elites getting most of the fruits of our labor, our best schools, training, and opportunities, our country will likely decay into oblivion in the 21st Century. Why do I think that we made incredible progress after World War II? The GI Bill allowed many more to go to college from all classes and our elementary and high schools got enough money to get the best teachers, many of them women. California had the best educational system in the 1970s in the USA, but Proposition 13 and Reagan's tax cuts for the rich and corporations and budget cuts in education, allowing a high influx of Illegal immigrants into California, an act benefiting corporations greatly with cheap labor and as President making them citizens lowered the wages of working Americans severely.

But the Reagan Revolution destroyed equal opportunity which made me especially fearful that the rich and the elites who support them will use our army and police to protect their wealth and make running for the Congress, the Senate, and the President into a run of candidates for the status quo to maintain their power. His legacy and the Republican Party will be looked on by historians in a manner which history has been recorded. The winners write history and controls our future.

Even Some Conservatives are Worried About Income Inequality Between the Rich and 90% of Americans

By Chrystia Freeland, US Managing Editor and Often on MSNBC's Morning Meeting http://dylan.msnbc.com

Freeland The Financial Times (Jan 2, 2010)

Jim Manzi, Manhattan Institute, ... "If we let inequality and its underlying causes grow unchecked, we will allow out the middle class threatening social cohesion and eventually surrendering our international position." ...

He fears that the current system of income inequality has created a severe social and cultural gap between the highly educated elites and everyone else. What Manzi and Freeland do not mention is the financial power of corporate elites and the wealthy is used to gain use of our tax dollars to enrich themselves! Former reporter David Cay Johnston, writes about his in his book "Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You with the Bill)" Steven Greenhouse who is probably a former New York Times reporter wrote The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Workers explained in the titles of some of his chapters: Worked Over and Overworked, Workplace Hell, Downright Dickensian, The Not-So-Golden Years, And The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers & Fathers are Going Broke by Elizabeth Warren of Harvard (Current Oversight of TARP Funds) and Amelia Warren Tyagi, her daughter James K. Galbraith in The Predator State: How Conservatives Abandoned the Free Market and Why Liberals Should Too In Part II The Simple Economics of Predator and Prey

In chapter 7 "What the Rise of Inequality is Really About" Surveys indicate that the Danish people are the happiest in the world. Republicans tend to call them Socialists, but the Danish approach has a low degree of inequality which maintains the human need for a hierarchical system which has been found to be reconciled with an efficient, advanced, and wealthy system. In our current system most workers really hate their jobs, but rarely express it in surveys.

That is why Americans spend so much time in distractions, often at the job if they have a computer. Wal-Mart tries to control their workers by not allowing them to speak to each other unless monitored and even once had a policy of locking night workers so they could not leave even during medical emergencies. Monitoring of employees is more the rule than an exception. Now corporations are trying to monitor texting by employees from their cell phones during work and possibly secretly all the time. It is up for review by the Conservative Majority Supreme Court! Almost all corporate rulings helping corporations have been affirmative. The coercion

In contrast, chapter ten, The Rise of the Predator State discusses the corporate takeover of government under the second Bush Administration. That is why I often mention the fact that so many things were done by many former CEOs (dictator run government) with only corporate profits a concern that so far only a small part of what the Bush Gang screwed us will be found even in the next eight years.

Current history is also controlled by the elite via propaganda often seen on television by advertising and what they shows they allow to be shown. Of course, it would be too obvious if only one point of view by so-called supporting "facts", but propaganda is always a mix of truth, but propaganda is usually the most emphasized as we see in the front page of most major newspapers in the Headlines and First Few Paragraphs to Frame and Issue. Some Headlines could be deceptive as the one put on after the recount of the 2000 election Recount in Florida. The Times had in very large type on the Florida election that Bush Would Have Won Anyway.

After my reading the jump pages I found that the truthful headline should have been Gore Won in Any Version of the Recount! Gore was 5 percent ahead according to exit polls. Gore would have won by many more votes if Governor Jeb Bush, GW Bush's brother, did not remove 100,000 Democrats from voting by deleting them from their registration using false felons allegations. This was admitted by the Computer company that removed the votes, but GW Bush did nothing!

Also the Supreme Court violated the Tenth Amendment and Florida State Voting Laws by trumping the Florida Supreme Court.

There is still time, but all of us must pay attention and act. Kick out the radical Republican Party and maintain strong pressure on the Democrats to do what is best for most of us and our country. Now very few members of one class advance to another, but many have dropped down one or two class levels in our society. Only two percent of the bottom 25% finish college although the current grading system is a joke.

With the advance in weapons and money, it would be very difficult to have another French Revolution, but terrorism against the elites and wealthy is likely. The History Channel's "French Revolution" documentary has been well received by critics.

Jim Kawakami, Jan 2, 2010, Blogging at http://jimboguy.blogspot.com