Capitalism 7 Ways to Read 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism Ha-Joon Chang

Tags: Capitalism Understanding Common Sense 23 Things You Are Not Told Ha-Joon Chang, Cambridge U Free Market Construct Based Political Ideology

Capitalism 7 Ways to Read 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism Ha-Joon Chang

Conclusion: How to rebuild the world economy

“Introduction: The global economy lies in tatters. While fiscal and monetary stimulus of unprecedented scale has prevented the financial melt-down of 2008 from turning into a total collapse of the global economy …

In the absence of financial reforms (March 2010), even as some people declare the end of the recession a sustained recovery is by no means certain. In the absence financial reforms, loose monetary and fiscal policies have led to new financial bubbles, while the real economy is starved of money. …

This catastrophe has ultimately been created by the free-market ideology that has ruled the world since the 1980s. …

(Greenspan admits he was wrong. GE’s Welch also admits he was wrong, corporate policies should not be based on Investor interests.

Stop assuming our common sense is inferior to the ideologically persuaded brainy economists. Common sense and some knowledge about what is really happening to us will be enough to understand 95% of economics without the math needed to manipulate economic data. Just look at what makes up our GDP reflecting our economy and who is making the money. Last year 63% of GDP was in the Financial Sector!

Ideology controls what numbers they come out than the truth as we had seen in the Bush 8 Years of disasters for the bottom 90 percent of Americans and Nirvana for the top one percent. Remember Free Markets is a political construct and varies from nation to nation. Our rich believe in the idea of what is yours is mine and what’s mine should not be taxed. The developed countries force their will on less developed ones except for China which requires both a transfer of technology and a 50 percent ownership of a profit center.

Chang points out that cut back of spending in Britain and Ireland has only depressed their economy because the economy comes from the people, not the bankers. Ireland got rid of all the safety nets for her people. Show that if the citizen don’t pay attention to politics, they can get hurt badly.

That is what has happened to America where knowledge comes in inaccurate soundbites and ingrained in our psyche with constant repetition. Yes, they are propagandizing us! Yes, we need to pay attention to politics very carefully because current and future lives of us, our children, and our future generations may grow up in a system of being poor all their lives no matter whether they went to college or not because of huge debts and poor paying jobs. Capitalism Uber Alles similar to the Nazi theme and just as destructive. Jim)

Kindle Edition:

Way 1. If you are not even sure what capitalism is, read: Things 1,2,5,8, 13, 16, 19, 20, 22

Way 2. If you think politics is a waste of time, read: Things 1, 5, 7, 12, 16, 18, 19, 21, and 23

Way 3. If you have been wondering why your life does not seem to get better despite ever-rising income and ever-advancing technologies, read: Things 2,4,6, 8, 9, 10, 17, 18, abd 22

Way 4. If you think some people are richer than others because they are more capable, better educated and more enterprising, read: Things 3, 10, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 20, and 21

Way 5. If you want to know why poor countries are poor and how they can become richer, read: Things 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 20, and 21

Way 6. If you think the world is an unfair place but there is nothing much you can do about it, read: Things 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 11, 13, 14, 15, 20, and 21

Way 7. Read the whole thing in the following order …

Introduction:

Thing 1 There is no such thing as a free market

Thing 2 Companies should not be run in the interest of their owners

Thing 3 Most people in rich countries are paid more than they should be

Thing 4 The washing machine has changed the world more than the internet has

Thing 5 Assume the worse about people and you get the worst

Thing 6 Greater macroeconomic stability has not made the world economy more stable

Thing 7 Free-market policies rarely make poor countries rich

Thing 8 Capital has a nationality

Thing 9 We do not live in a post-industrial world

Thing 10 The US does not have the highest living standard in the world

Thing 11 Africa is not destined for underdevelopment

Thing 12 Governments can pick winners

Thing 13 Making rich people richer doesn’t make the rest of us richer

Thing 14 US managers are over-priced

Thing 15 People in poor countries are more entrepreneurial than people in rich countries

Thing 16 We are not smart enough to leave things to the market

Thing 17 More education in itself is not going to make a country richer

Thing 18 What is good for General Motors is not necessarily good for the United States

Thing 19 Despite the fall of communism, we are still living in planned economies

Thing 20 Equality of Opportunity may not be fair

Thing 21 Big Government makes people more open to change

Thing 22 Financial markets need to become less, not more, efficient

Thing 23 Good economic policy does not require good economists

Fukuyama Origins of Political Order European Model Better Form of Democracy

Tags: Fukuyama Origins Political Order Governments Power Control China Europe USA Not Democracy Catholic Church Responsible for Killing Nepotism via Celibacy Policy Bishops Priests Reducing Corruption European Model Now Provides More Upward Mobility than USA Are We Becoming Mimics of China with Corporations Now in Power?

As I mentioned in the past a number of times, I try to read every spectrum of serious political thought because each provides information that helps me understand why others think differently than I do now and helps me formulate my current thoughts and actions.

Nicholas Wade, March 7, 2011, the head of the Science Section of the NY Times, has written a particular good review of Francis Fukuyama’s book. His latest book which I have just downloaded for my Kindle, The Origins of Political Order, after his talk at Politics & Prose Book Store on C-Span 2. Marvelous! When I heard his talk at UCLA on his book about biotechnology and his statement that perhaps we should not try to find a way to prolong our lives forever, I became an instant fan spite of his radical view of politics. Since that period he said he has evolved after a few years as a professor at John Hopkins which tends to error on the side of conservative thought. Fukuyama is now at Stanford as a research fellow.

Unlike many neocons educated at Harvard under Huntington, I saw that he had a flexible mind, and has since evolved into a better thinker than he was in the past. Zakaria was also educated under Huntington at Harvard. Keep that in mind when you listen to what he thinks. http://www.booktv.org/search.aspx?For=Fukuyama It is not on video. It will be aired next Saturday.

Francis Fukuyama Origins of Political Order European Model Better Form of Democracy, NY Times, Nicolas Wade, March 7, 2011, ... Dr. Fukuyama, a political scientist, is concerned mostly with the cultural, not biological, aspects of human society. But he explicitly assumes that human social nature is universal and is built around certain evolved behaviors like favoring relatives, reciprocal altruism, creating and following rules, and a propensity for warfare.

Because of this shared human nature, with its biological foundation, “human politics is subject to certain recurring patterns of behavior across time and across cultures,” he writes. It is these worldwide patterns he seeks to describe in an analysis that stretches from prehistoric times to the French Revolution.

Previous attempts to write grand analyses of human development have tended to focus on a single causal explanation, like economics or warfare, or, as with Jared Diamond’s “Guns, Germs and Steel,” on geography. Dr. Fukuyama’s is unusual in that he considers several factors, including warfare, religion, and in particular human social behaviors like favoring kin.

Few people have yet read the book, but it has created a considerable stir in universities where he has talked about it. “You have to be bowled over by the extraordinary breadth of approach,” said Arthur Melzer, a political scientist at Michigan State University who invited Dr. Fukuyama to give lectures on the book. “It’s definitely a magnum opus.”

Dr. Melzer praised Dr. Fukuyama’s view that societies develop politically in several different ways, followed by selection of the more successful, rather than marching along a single road to political development. “It’s the kind of theory situated between the hyper-theory of Marx or Hegel and the thick description that certain anthropologists and historians aim at,” he said.

Georg Sorensen, a political scientist at the University of Aarhus in Denmark, also called the book a magnum opus, saying that it provides “a new foundation for understanding political development.” It is neither Eurocentric nor monocausal, but provides a complex, multifactor explanation of political development, Dr. Sorensen said. “In terms of discussing political order this will be a new classic,” he said. … http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/08/science/08fukuyama.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&hpw

Jim Kawakami, May 7, 2011, http://jimboguy.blogspot.com

Financial Crisis More than Finance, Staggering Lack of Knowledge by Investors

Tags: Financial Crisis Crucial Facts Hidden from Investors Deregulation Greenspan Ideology 20 Years of Dismantling Safeguards for Investors

Financial Crisis More than Finance, Staggering Lack of Knowledge by Investors

Lies and deceptions by Wall Street Bankers and everyone else in the Financial chain has led to the phenomena of no one trusting anyone else which has essentially stunted long term investments and any loans by many banks. As David Brooks explained why all the brains including himself could not save Russia form its financial crisis and may have actually caused it was due to a lack of trust and information which led to oligarchs to stealing Russia blind of perhaps trillions of dollars sent overseas. In any top down dictatorial system as in the Soviet Union, no independent financial system and its safeguards were developed. Such is the case in China now.

European stocks may be a safer place to bet on the Emerging Markets because they are heavily involved there in a more balanced manner than here.

In the last 20-30 years, these safeguard systems were systematically dismantled in the USA and Europe, especially when President Clinton in the mist of the sex scandals, signed the Republican bills in 1999 and 2000 and specific policies instituted by Bush and lobbying by Paulson of Goldman Sachs and a friendly SEC run by people who hated regulations. The same Paulson as Secretary of Treasury under Bush decided to ignore congress and use to $700 Billion to enrich the banks instead of getting rid of the derivatives which the banks still hold secretly. No one really knows how much each bank has.

So the Federal Reserve printing machine provided unlimited amounts of money for the top banks and wealthy patrons. Yes, they made up all their loses and more!

How about the rest of us? We all have uncertain futures and have no idea whether another financial collapse will occur and when it will occur.

Even a wide majority American bankers did not know the extent these derivatives on derivatives were spread throughout the world financial system without accountability. Only Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan Chase Banks knew!

Both the Clinton administration and especially the Bush Administration with considerable leadership or lack thereof of Alan Greenspan whose Ayn Rand Ideology was so deeply ingrained that given the facts as early as 2001 showed his ideology was wrong and the financial markets must have strong rules to keep it on an even keel. Especially allowing financial institutions and corporations to hide what they were actually doing led to the Enron, and other collapses. Even with that Greenspan's ideology prevented him from acting.

It takes someone with credentials to say something that most investors with common sense figured out a long time ago. Keeping secrets whether by governments or corporations or Wall Street bankers is not the way to go to maintain stability in society or the financial markets.

Sure most of us knew something will go wrong, but i had no idea that these unreported secret derivatives where spread all over the world, but especially in America and Europe. We are still seeing the ramifications in Iceland, Ireland, Greece, Portugal, Spain, and who knows where else.

Hernando de Soto argues for much stronger regulation that cannot be easily changed from administration to administration.

So far not much has said about President Obama very risky move to kill Bin Laden and getting computer information about Al Qaeda operation, and verifying that Bin Laden was indeed dead. Terrorists often have explosives on their body so when Bin Laden ran toward them although apparently unarmed, he had to be killed to prevent him from activating a possible bomb.

The media does not talk about the whole implications of this brave decision by Obama on his public perception by more conservative voters based on what happened to President Carter and Clinton when helicopter raids became disastrous in rescuing hostages and the Black Hawk Down incident respectively.

The White men who invariably favor Republicans in every election were concerned whether Obama had the cajones to do to brave things. Obama's political compromises made him look weak. If he continues to do bold things, he will perhaps allow the Democrats to take back the House and gain in the Senate in spite of the Republican unlimited corporate and billionaire secret donations in 2012 to saturate the political ads on television.

Obama will not be able raise close to what the Republicans can raise, but it has to be enough so he is not shut out of the television necessary market. Remember both the House and Senate are needed for Obama to be effective, but even a majority does not guarantee success because of rules of the Senate force compromise because even one senator can stop or delay legislation.

Jim Kawakami, May 4, 2011, http://jimboguy.blogspot.com

Financial Crisis Wall Street Crucial Facts Hidden to Investors Needed To Access Risk, Bloomberg Business Week, April 28, 2011, http://www.businessweek.com Renounced Economist Hernando de Soto, What was Missing, http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_19/b4227060634112.htm

During the second half of the 19th century, the world's biggest economies endured a series of brutal recessions. At the time, most forms of reliable economic knowledge were organized within feudal, patrimonial, and tribal relationships. If you wanted to know who owned land or owed a debt, it was a fact recorded locally—and most likely shielded from outsiders. At the same time, the world was expanding. Travel between cities and countries became more common and global trade increased. The result was a huge rift between the old, fragmented social order and the needs of a rising, globalizing market economy.

To prevent the breakdown of industrial and commercial progress, hundreds of creative reformers concluded that the world needed a shared set of facts. Knowledge had to be gathered, organized, standardized, recorded, continually updated, and easily accessible—so that all players in the world's widening markets could, in the words of France's free-banking champion Charles Coquelin, "pick up the thousands of filaments that businesses are creating between themselves."

The result was the invention of the first massive "public memory systems" to record and classify—in rule-bound, certified, and publicly accessible registries, titles, balance sheets, and statements of account—all the relevant knowledge available, whether intangible (stocks, commercial paper, deeds, ledgers, contracts, patents, companies, and promissory notes), or tangible (land, buildings, boats, machines, etc.). Knowing who owned and owed, and fixing that information in public records, made it possible for investors to infer value, take risks, and track results. The final product was a revolutionary form of knowledge: "economic facts."

Over the past 20 years, Americans and Europeans have quietly gone about destroying these facts. The very systems that could have provided markets and governments with the means to understand the global financial crisis—and to prevent another one—are being eroded. Governments have allowed shadow markets to develop and reach a size beyond comprehension. Mortgages have been granted and recorded with such inattention that homeowners and banks often don't know and can't prove who owns their homes. In a few short decades the West undercut 150 years of legal reforms that made the global economy possible.

The results are hardly surprising. In the U.S., trust has broken down between banks and subprime mortgage holders; between foreclosing agents and courts; between banks and their investors—even between banks and other banks. Overall, credit (from the Latin for "trust") continues to flow steadily, but closer examination shows that nongovernment credit has contracted. Private lending has dropped 21 percent since 2007. Outstanding loans to small businesses dropped more than 6 percent over the past year, while lending to large businesses, measured in commercial loans of more than $1 million, fell nearly 9 percent. ... For 8 page article, link at top of article.

Sunscreen Oxybenzone Melanoma Statins Your Brain Antioxidants Meat Cancer

Tags: Cancer Less Chinese Vegetarianism Film Antioxidants LDL Heart Disease Alzheimer's Fructose Aging Financial Crisis Climate Change Deniers Nuclear Scientists

Remember anything you do inside your body in excess is likely harmful. That is why I never believed all the myths about antioxidants increasing our lifespans when used in excess. Monkey studies show that supplements, except for vitamin D3, does not improve the health or life of these closely related mammals at the Oregon and Wisconsin Primate study research labs.

We need low density lipoproteins to build cell walls and replace neurons in our brain and likely needed for other brain chemicals inhibited by Statins. Even vitamin D3 produced from sun is based on cholesterol! I am sure many are suffering from dementia from statins, but most do not notice in the Republican Stupidity Century. Creativity has gone down twenty percent according to scientists appearing on Charlie Rose. www.charlierose.com

Excess consumption of all sugars, but especially the widely used high fructose corn syrup in almost all our prepared foods to enhance the flavor of tasteless genetically modified corn and soybeans made in depleted soils. These same type of products are used to feed cows, cattle, pigs, and chickens which are also fed cow waste products. Sugars also accelerates aging by a crosslinking process which also is the same process that alcohol and all sugars have in the cirrhosis of the liver. Alcohol is really a sugar product and acts in a similar manner.

Alcohol can also help our health by reducing the stress encountered in our competitive and frustrating lives which does not reward accomplishments except at the top. Stress produces cortisone type products which is not good for our health in excess.

Although rarely discussed, cows fed milk enhancing hormones caused cows to always be hungry so they were even fed cardboard! Because this type of milk has a hormone similar to growth hormone in mother's baby milk, it may have caused an increase in breast cancer in adults. Now Monsanto is trying to get the FDA to approve GMO breast milk!

Doctor Oz www.doctoroz.com reported on a new film made in China where they looked at Chinese who rarely get cancer because they eat a vegetarian diet. What they found is that meat, chicken, and fish protein caused cancer in people to grow and when eliminated the cancer retreated. The current treatment for cancer is to get as much protein as possible into our cancer patients!

This explains why a physician at the University of Pennsylvania had terminal prostate cancer with cancer already spread to his bones and brain survived by going on a diet avoiding proteins from meat, chicken, and fish. He was dying according to his doctors. One day he got a ride from a young man who told him about a Japanese Diet called Macrobiotics run by a Japanese who the doctor spoke to. He was ordered to stop all proteins from non-vegetable sources. He had trouble eating the food he cooked, so he had volunteers from the Macrobiotic institute cook for him.

His prostate cancer started to recede fairly quickly and in about 3 months he was pain free and in one year they could detect no cancer. Three years later I read his book which was quite convincing, so I stopped eating big steaks. This was 20-25 years ago. I have been almost completely vegetarian except for dairy products the last seven years which really improved my health.

The Dr. Oz film makers said even dairy is bad for us! I drink Costco 1 percent organic milk to keep my uric acid level down which increases my blood pressure and inflames my blood vessels which can increase heart disease due to plaque deposition!

I need to examine how they did their work to see if the effects are real. It is really hard to get the real truth from people in such studies. They tell the researchers what they want to hear often about their diet. It is hard to do a double or triple blind study. Many times other factors may invalidate their results. However, based on my own experience, it sounds reasonable.

Dr. Oz got a group from the audience who tried a vegetarian diet. Some quit the first day and only a few lasted one week. One woman seemed to like the taste lost weight for the first time without being hungry. First step to weight loss. Change your diet, but never go hungry.

My philosophy is that meals are increasingly becoming one of the few sources of pleasure in our corrupt society and people so like most people, when my life depended on it, I changed. I now really enjoy the taste of organic vegetables which are not grown in depleted soil.

I could not watch the show on the Corrupt Popes on Showtime even though it is well done because they were the original Mafia, but without moral restraints. I have not watched one Godfather or related movies.

Sunscreen Oxybenzone

Oxybenzone or benzophenone can block the longer wavelength UVA so even though it has been in sunscreens for a long time, it has been given permission to claim UVA protection. However, it does not protect the lower more powerful UVA skin penetrating radiation from the sun. It has long been thought to cause cancer and only recently have the establishment start to make the case for it.

Similar sounding names such as Avobenzone are apparently safe.

But as I said before the safety issues in many sunscreens are actually not known for long-term effects such as with the newer nano (ultra-microscopic) particles of titanium oxide TiO2 and Zinc Oxide. So when you use the spray on you face, put it on your hands then apply to your face. Breathing when spraying is hazardous and preferably done outdoors.

I have a friend who lives in Miami that had cataracts in both eyes. I was fairly sure that the plastic used in contact lens for a long time does not have good UVA protection compared to polycarbonate used in plastic lens for regular glasses.

If you drive without sunscreen or sunscreens without UVA protection, glass is transparent to UVA and American drivers who drive on the left get melanoma on the left side of the body while Europeans get it on the right. You get tans from UVA even on cloudy days in the summer. The water in clouds absorbs UVB and infrared rays from the sun so we feel cooler.

For white skin in summer high sun, you make 1,000 IU of vitamin D3 per minute. This happens in the summer in Sweden. Dark skin people take 6 minutes to make the same amount. So if we make as much as ten thousand IU of vitamin D3 in ten minutes, why did God or mother nature evolution do this if we did not need lots of vitamin D3?

Dark Somalis in Sweden and Minnesota have a high rate of Autism. Babies from affluent and wealthy families also have a high rate of Autism. Young women from affluent and wealthy families also have a high rate of melanoma too. Make you own decision on whether vitamin D3 is necessary or not.

Do you believe some Dermatologists connected with Big Pharma or do you believe the scientists who are not connected with Big Pharma who make sunscreens? If I knew that UVA caused melanoma in the 1980s, why have all the compromised experts said it does not? Why is Big Pharma so concerned about vitamin D3? It will eliminate the huge osteoporosis business with bone making drugs which I am sure they know will result in the fracture of the spine, hip, or femur because no bone is replaced. It stops bone replacement! It just keeps adding bone! So any defects in our bones is not fixed from all the stresses our bones naturally encounter in daily activities.

Since we are all highly concerned about our looks, using sunscreen with UVB and UVA protection for you face, ears, and neck and beautiful or masculine hats are wise. Although not usually recommended, hands reflect age so why not use it there too. Expose the other parts of your body as much as you can without burn to get enough vitamin D3 from the sun and supplement it with vitamin D3 pills which are now available up to 5,000 IU per pill.

My Springfield, OR Peace Health hospital in its newspaper ads put 45 nanograms/ml as the appropriate level in our blood. That level helps prevent cancer in senior according to a recent study done by the University of California, San Diego on several thousand seniors in Texas. Even there most were deficient in 25 hydroxy vitamin D metabolite. Seniors cannot make as much in the sun, possibly because they are taking statins. Only those in the sun during the day while working had adequate levels to prevent cancer.

As I told a close friend years ago Statins which slow cholesterol formation in the liver which are needed for both your body and your brain, it is best to keep it low dose and use diet to lower your cholesterol levels. The HDL/Triglyceride ratio is a better estimate of your heart and brain health. Triglycerides from sugar, especially high fructose Corn Syrup in all prepared foods. The triglycerides give us low density lipoproteins and the very deadly very low density lipoproteins. Unlike the experts, I have concluded that both early and late onset Alzheimer's is due the same forces causing heart disease. Recent studies seem to start to agree with what I think.

I plan to write about how a small group of ideological famous nuclear physicists who muddied up the Climate Change fact by causing doubt. Most Americans do not know that science does not give us God given power over the truth. All scientists can do is with the evidence available, this is what we think. Science is not absolute, but very useful. Proof is never absolute. That is why scientists tend to talk in a wishy washy manner while the doubters such as Lundberg talk with confidence. His book makes comments that come from the opinion pages and not science.

Remember whenever anyone talks very well such as good salespersons, I put up my skeptic antenna even with Harvard scientists. There is no correlation with gift of gab and believability. The latter contradicted the Minnesota study about Oats lowering cholesterol. The Minnesota study was done much better so I agreed with it. The Harvard study was later retracted. Yes, crooks reside at Harvard too! The financial crisis heavily involved economists at Harvard, Columbia, and the University of Chicago. They largely refused to answer questions by the producer of the documentary such as Feldstein at Harvard. Inside Job! It is a marvelous film you can get at Netflix.

Even the Newton gravity theory and mathematics helped a lot. His theory about the movement of the planets, however, was flawed. Einstein came along centuries later and proved that he was wrong! Without Einstein we could not have explored space.

These corporate/military scientists were also involved in mudding up and created doubt about the toxicity of tobacco.

Even though I have talked about this a number of times, your responses indicate that most of you do not understand how science works. I will try to clear that up in the near future.

I tend to be too verbose so you good writers out there are welcome to offer me suggestions on how i could improve my communication skills. As a scientist I had to be verbose to cover all angles which I know is too much for almost all of you.

Just like what these same guys did to kill millions of Americans and people around the world when they stopped the regulation of tobacco for decades, they are now doing the same to our country and states which will experience unpredictable increasing floods, violent storms, snow, and droughts. Rare storms such as tornadoes are becoming much more common as we saw in the tragic deaths in Alabama. Instead of flying overhead only that Bush did after Katrina, President Obama showed his humanity by going and talking and hugging Alabamans who lost everything and gave them hope even though they did not vote for him.

If any of you have studied climate models, you would know the earth is one system and even very small changes in ocean temperature will greatly change the jet streams, currents, and moisture in the air because so much of earth is made up of ocean waters. So the oceans in Southeast Asia gave our East Coast warmer waters which sucked in the Arctic cold winds and dropped rain and snow. There were a number of explanations, but I found this one the most accurate unlike some of the reports in the opinion page of the New York Times.

For example, when the currents are warm adjacent to the Galapagos Islands off Ecuador, their is drought because of the wind patterns and when the currents are cool, sea life become abundant again, and there is plenty of rain. That is why there is a huge variation in the the population of small beak birds verses long beak ones. One thrives in raining seasons when vegetation and food is greatly available and the other when food is scarce. You can guess which.

How does consensus come about in science. Naomi Oreskes, University of California, San Diego, Provost, Ph.D. Geology, Professor History of Science.

http://climateprogress.org/2010/03/07/naomi-oreskes-book-talk-merchants-of-doubt-how-a-handful-of-scientists-obscure-the-truth-about-climate-change/

The book catalog explains:

The U.S. scientific community has long led the world in research on such areas as public health, environmental science, and issues affecting quality of life. Our scientists have produced landmark studies on the dangers of DDT, tobacco smoke, acid rain, and global warming. But at the same time, a small yet potent subset of this community leads the world in vehement denial of these dangers.

Merchants of Doubt tells the story of how a loose-knit group of high-level scientists and scientific advisers, with deep connections in politics and industry, ran effective campaigns to mislead the public and deny well-established scientific knowledge over four decades. Remarkably, the same individuals surface repeatedly—some of the same figures who have claimed that the science of global warming is “not settled” denied the truth of studies linking smoking to lung cancer, coal smoke to acid rain, and CFCs to the ozone hole. “Doubt is our product,” wrote one tobacco executive. These “experts” supplied it. ...

Jim Kawakami, May 2, 2011, http://jimboguy.blogspot.com

Issue: November 2007

UV - BLOCKING CONTACT LENSES

A Closer Look at UV-Blocking Contact Lenses

Clinicians discuss the different levels of UV protection, the need to create demand for UV-blocking lenses and how to identify the best candidates.

Dr. Cohen: Because doctors commonly prescribe eyeglasses that have built-in ultraviolet (UV) light protection, one would think they'd do the same when it comes to contact lenses. Why is this not the case?

LENS DIFFERENCES

Dr. Nichols: Most ophthalmic and optical materials used for eyeglasses offer significant protection against UV radiation. CR39 has a cut-off at 350 nanometers, completely protecting against UVB and, to some extent, UVA rays.¹ Polycarbonate completely protects the patient from all UV radiation, regardless of whether a tint is used. Contact lenses are different. Some offer little to no UV-radiation protection, while others provide adequate additional protection as a supplement/compliment to sunglasses. Contact lenses that offer protection are labeled as Class 1 and Class 2. The different classes indicate the level of UV protection. However, only three lenses are Class 1 (ACUVUE^® OASYS™, ACUVUE^® ADVANCE™ and ACUVUE^®ADVANCE™ for ASTIGMATISM), and only a handful of others are Class 2. Class 1 lenses block 96% of UVA rays and 100% of UVB rays. Class 2 lenses block 70% of UVA and 95% of UVB radiation. ... http://www.clspectrum.com/article.aspx?article=101123

Supreme Court 5-4 Approves AT&T Phone Contracts No Class Action Suits Allowed

Tags: Corporate Supreme Court Allows AT&T Forbid Class Action Suits from Customers Essentially Eliminates All Class Action Suits Even Deadly New Drugs?

This corrupt Decision by the corporate Supreme Court will have Devastating Consequences for Consumer’s Civil Rights and Consumer Protection. These results should have been anticipated if Senators in the Judiciary Committee and the Senate got enough Democrats to join in the approval of Roberts and Alito, two well known Corporate Judges who unfairly stacked the odds against lawsuits of consumers against Consumers.

Even on the Supreme Court, Justice Alito is still giving the corporate side suggestions to make their arguments stronger as recently heard on a voice transcript on www.C-Span.org The both said under oath that they will not be inclined to change long held Precedents in Supreme Court decisions. They have done this time after time and in the Citizen United case which had 100 years of support by the Supreme Court where money given for elections can be limited.

In a recent program, Rachel Maddow, http://maddowblog.msnbc.com , compared the Democrats verses Republicans money for ads to oppose or support the House bill that is designed to destroy Medicare and Medicaid in five years and increasing the cost to Seniors by $6,000 by providing inadequate vouchers to pay for senior healthcare proposed by the Republicans. I don’t recall the exact numbers, but the secret Republican money used in the ads supporting their bill so far about $700,000 verses about $100,000 for poorer people ads which have to be disclosed.

Now you could go to Google, TV networks, and blogs supporting the Republican proposal. Today Bloomberg had the gall to completely distort what is really happening. Even MSNBC where reporters were forced to say what they did not believe from their expressions when they said that strong support for the Republican budget bill at the meetings.

Rachel Maddow, Ed Schultz, and others in the commentary part showed video that shows the opposite where senior are really angry and know the facts! Today I looked up how much propaganda and lies about Rachel Maddow appeared on a Google search. All sorts of websites on the most popular list are lying or distorting how many people are watching Rachel and Ed Schultz. Reliable sources show that record audiences are now being achieved approaching the most popular FOX show. They are also comparing news analysis shows with entertainment shows on CNN. It is sickening.

The consequence of the Supreme Court unconstitutionally stopping the Florida State Supreme Court recount of the extremely close election after Gore’s 5 percent normally very accurate exit poll count which is within one percent or less from the final count.

The crooked court violated the Tenth Amendment which stipulates “The powers not delegated to the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Supreme Court Justice Scalia knew when he ordered the stopping of the recount that it was illegal when he used the equal rights Section I. Fifteenth Amendment which says “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”

Every state in the Union runs elections in a similar manner so Justice Scalia said this decision applies only to Florida and we will not put this in print to define a law or apply a decision that applies to any other state!

Gore won the election, but did not become President, and I supported him and a Democratic House member even though I normally always voted Republican in the past. That is how bad Bush was for our country. We should impeach the Supreme Court justices for lying under oath to the Senate Judiciary Committee. This includes Roberts and Alito and impeach Scalia for violating the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution. Court rules should make recusal for conflicts of interest mandatory. It’s common sense.

George W. Bush’s previous history in Texas as CEO of failed oil companies and the way he unlawfully acquired land by removing Latino home owners to expand his ball park showed his penchant to use power, legal or not, to do what he wants. This proved to be correct.

Jim Kawakami, April 29, 2011, http://jimboguy.blogspot.com

Corporate Supreme Court Justices Approves AT&T Phone Contract Including No Class Action Suits Requirement for Customers, David Arkush, Director Public Citizen Congress Watch Division, Huffington Post, April 28, 2011, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-arkush/us-supreme-court-to-major_b_854714.html On Wednesday the U.S. Supreme Court sided with AT&T in AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion -- a decision with devastating consequences for consumer protection and civil rights. In essence, AT&T asked the court to allow it to use the fine print of contracts to eliminate class actions, a practice that flouts the laws of 20 states. In a 5-4 decision, the court granted AT&T's request.

The case's potential impact is breathtaking. Corporations can now prevent consumers and small business owners from exercising what is often their only real option for challenging companies that defraud them by millions or even billions of dollars: banding together to file class action lawsuits. The case could be equally devastating to millions of non-union employees, who need class actions to challenge systemic discrimination by their employers. The Supreme Court has given major corporations the green light to engage in nearly limitless wrongdoing against others, so long as they do it in relatively small dollar amounts, which ensures that no one can afford to challenge the misconduct without a class action.

A sudden demise of class actions will shock the markets and the legal system. It will dramatically increase the market power of major corporations over ordinary Americans and small business owners, who are already outmatched. Innumerable laws that protect the public will become irrelevant because few people can enforce them. …

Money Why Americans Have So Little? Money Needed Win Elections on Television

Tags: Orwell's Animal Farm Power Money Cocaine Politics Economy Wages Repubs Dems Supreme Court Rachel Ed Krugman High Taxes Fixes Deficits Economy Middleclass Poor Top 20% Think They are In Top One Percent Actually Incomes Over $500,000 and Climbing

Most of you don’t have the time or desire to read about politics even though it influences directly or indirectly a large part of whether you and your future generations will survive economically.

So you might ask, “Is there one very short book I could read to understand our political-economic system of power and greed?” The books 1984 and Animal Farm by George Orwell are perfect, but if you don’t have time to read 300 pages, Animal Farm with only 139 pages would be perfect if you think while you read. It is about high minded and smart pigs who take power away from humans and soon become corrupted with absolute power and become just like many Republican politicians now. Screw the people for their benefit.

That is starting to happen in the power grab in the Midwest and Florida by Republican governors and legislatures. Even the news portion of MSNBC distorted what is happening there.

The only way we can restore a fair economic system where people can go up in class, something that is becoming almost impossible now, is for every American to know and understand what our political system is doing to their family and future generations. It is a fable passed on by politicians, but the numbers show that only one percent of those in the bottom quarter ever get out now. Before the 1980s, poor and lower middle class families such as mine had a chance to get educated or start a company and succeed is becoming close to impossible now. I doubt Obama would have succeeded. Republicans want to eliminate Pell Grants for college.

Why bother to know about politics? If we are ignorant, fear is used very effectively during the election campaign by the Republicans especially skillfully because all of our so-called rational decisions are made with a good dose of emotion. Democrats don’t have a consistent message so they are not so good at the propaganda message. Only when the Republicans steal and change laws that make it obvious that they are screwing us, do Americans revolt.

The Hedge Funds CEOs who had favored Democrats in the past with names like Loeb and Cohen, who previously have donated generously to President Obama’s campaign in 2008, now give huge sums to the Republican Party with the Billionaire Oil Magnets, the Koch Brothers at the top, giving millions of dollars at a clip.

The House Bill by the Republican House getting rid of Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security has upset even Republican seniors as some TV stations such as MSNBC in the commentary and not news section gave us a better understanding of it.

The night sessions (ET) such as Maddow http://maddowblog.msnbc.com or http://rachel.msnbc.com 9 PM EDT and 6 PM PDT and Ed Schultz http://ed.msnbc.com are probably the best for most of you. Keith Olbermann will be staring his program in June on Al Gore’s channel.

The article below shows a strong correlation between tax cuts for the rich without paying for it and our current deficits and slower growing economy and stagnant wages since the 1970s. Adjusted for inflation, the wages of most Americans have not increased since then even though our productivity has increased over ten fold and profits have increased sharply. The Republicans have been very successful in economic growth in other countries but not here. China and India are prime examples.

Money is like Cocaine, It Stimulates Our Brain’s Pleasure Button, the More We Have the More We Want. The more sugar we eat, the more we want. The more we need something, the less likely we will give it away to others. What’s Mine is Mine and What’s Yours is Negotiable? The Midas Complex with gold is such an example.

This is strongly shows that Power Corrupts. The comment, “Power Corrupts and Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely,” originated due to the absolute corruption of the Renaissance Popes, now a series on Showtime with the Borgia Family starring. Yes, they had many sex parties including giving dispensations to the rich for “donations.” That is when the Priest Celibacy Laws were first put in place to get the money from rich families who put their kids in the Priesthood such as the Borgia Family.

Democrats cannot do as much damage to us because their voters tend to be less affluent or poorer and more liberal. Unfortunately since Reagan trashed labor union members, by ignoring the Wagner Act passed in the 1930s by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to protect workers.

Republicans are trying to wipe out government unions such as in Wisconsin, Ohio, and Michigan and other states where they have the governorship and the legislature, the only place Democrats can get adequate funding and organized people to help get the vote out.

Rachel Maddow, http://maddowblog.msnbc.com tells us that among the top ten large donors to the parties only 3 government unions are Democrats and 7 top donors for the Republicans are the wealthy individuals and corporations.

I expect the next election due the illegal change by the corporate minded Supreme Court where corporate and religious conservative Chief Justice Roberts, Justices Scalia, Thomas, Kennedy, and Alito make up a majority. Why did they reject a fast hearing of anti-Healthcare Virginia bill? No one tells us why, but I can easily guess that Corporate Healthcare and Big Pharma don’t want the whole bill to be destroyed because it will include big profits with many more customers because everyone has to join. Many of these tend to be younger, so less likely to become sick and those with prior illnesses can be charged up to three times more money for coverage.

Some Corporate Democrats along with all Republican Senators approved Roberts and Alito which gave them the power to pass any laws they wanted no matter how much it violated what previous justices ruled for 100 years in the ruling that made corporations people in the 1890s and the one Citizens United ironically named bill that gave power to the rich and ideological. President Obama voted against both Roberts and Alito because he looked into what they did as judges. Both Alito and Roberts lied under oath about how they will conduct the court decisions. Thomas were nominated by the other older Bush and Kennedy and Scalia by Reagan.

Jim Kawakami, April 28, 2011, http://jimboguy.blogspot.com

14 Ways A 90 Percent Top Tax Rate Fixes Our Economy And Our Country

http://www.ourfuture.org/ http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2010041625/13-ways-90-percent-top-tax-rate-fixes-economy A return to Eisenhower-era 90% top tax rates helps fix our economy in several ways:

1. It makes it take longer to end up with a fortune. In fact it makes people build and earn a fortune, instead of shooting for quick windfalls. This forces long-term thinking and planning instead of short-term scheming and scamming. If grabbing everything in sight and running doesn’t pay off anymore, you have to change your strategy.

1. It gets rid of the quick-buck-scheme business model. Making people take a longer-term approach to building rather than grabbing a fortune will help reattach businesses to communities by reinforcing interdependence between businesses and their surrounding communities. When it takes owners and executives years to build up a fortune they need solid companies that are around for a long time. This requires the surrounding public infrastructure of roads, schools, police, fire, courts, etc., to be in good shape to provide long-term support for the enterprise. You also want your company to build a solid reputation for serving its customers rather than cheapening the product, pursuing quick-buck scams, cutting customer service, etc. The current Wall Street/private equity business model of looting companies, leaving behind an empty shell, unemployed workers and a surrounding community in devastation will no longer be a viable business strategy.

1. It will lower the executive crime rate. Today it is possible to run scams that let you

pocket huge sums in a single year, and leave behind the mess you make for others to fix. A high top tax rate removes the incentive to lie, cheat and steal to grab every buck you can as fast as you can. This reduces the temptation to be dishonest. If you aren’t going to keep the whole dime, why risk doing the time? When excessive, massive paydays are possible, it opens the door to overwhelming greed and a resulting compromising of principles. Sort of the definition of the decades since Reagan, no?

1. Combined with badly-needed cuts in military spending – we spend more on military than all other countries on earth combined – taxing the wealthy ends budget deficits and starts paying off the massive Reagan/Bush debt. This reduces and ultimately eliminates the share of the budget that goes to pay interest. The United States now has to pay a huge share of its budget just to cover the interest on the borrowing that tax cuts made necessary. Paying off the debt would remove this huge drag on our economy. (Never mind that Alan Greenspan famously called for Bush’s tax cuts by saying it was dangerous to pay off our debt – now that same Alan Greenspan says we need to cut benefits to retired people because our debt is so high.)

1. It will bring in revenue to pay for improvements in infrastructure that then cause the economy to explode for the better. Investing in modern transit systems, smart grid, energy efficiency, fast internet and other improvements leads to a huge payoff of increased prosperity for all of us – especially for those at the top income levels. Infrastructure improvement and maintenance is the “seed corn” of economic growth. We have been eating that seed corn since Reagan’s tax cuts.

6) (related) It will bring in revenue for improving our schools, colleges and universities. Not only will this help our competitiveness, but it will improve each of our lives and level of happiness.

1. It will boost economic growth and rebuild a strong middle class. A consumption-based economy does better when consumers have more to spend. Perhaps not cause-and-effect, though I suspect so, but after FDR raised top tax rates the economy grew dramatically. The 90% top rate years under FDR, Truman, Eisenhower and the beginning of the Kennedy years were the years when we built the middle class. And remember, after Clinton raised top tax rates only modestly the economy grew. How's it been doing since Bush's tax cuts for the rich?

A look at economic growth rate charts shows a steady decline in the decades since top tax rates began to fall. Is it just a coincidence that the economy booms after tax increases that provide revenue to invest in new “seed corn,” and that the economy declines as we reduce taxes?

1. It is good for business because increased revenue will enable increasing government spending for the benefit of regular people. This recirculates money into the economy more productively than the current system of putting huge fortunes into a few hands and hoping for a resulting consumption of high-end goods. The wealthy can only spend so much h so more disposable income in the hands of regular people is good for business. Any business owner will tell you they want customers more than they want tax cuts. (Let’s wait until the top one percent no longer owns most of everything before we talk about whether there is an effect on investment.)

9) It protects working people. Exploiting workers with long hours, low pay or lack of pay increases, lack of worker protections, firing union organizers and schemes that call employees “contractors” will no longer pay off as it does today. The era of extreme union-busting came in at the same time as the tax cuts.

Krugman:

The chart shows the share of the richest 10 percent of the American population in total income – an indicator that closely tracks many other measures of economic inequality – over the past 90 years, as estimated by the economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez.

1. It redistributes income and wealth in ways that help all of us. Currently a few people receive most of the income and own most of everything. A very high top tax rate reduces this concentration of wealth.

1. It fights the political instability that results from concentration of wealth. Great inequality in a society and the resulting loss of opportunity results in political instability that can lead to extreme ideologies, rebellion, etc. We are seeing all the signs of a resurgence of these problems today.

1. It will help rebuild our sense of democracy and belief in equality. As we have seen and are seeing, when too much is in the hands of too few, they have too much power and influence and use it to get even more.

1. It will strengthen the government that We, the People have worked hard to build, and strengthen its ability to enforce the laws and regulations that protect all of us and the resources we hold in common. It will increase its ability to provide all of us equally with the benefits of our joint efforts and our economy.

1. Finally, for good measure, increasing top tax rates will cause those affected to work harder to make up the difference. The Ayn Randians claim the very rich are the “producers” and all the rest of us are just parasites and slackers who feed off their “work.” So it will be very good for our economy to get them working harder by taxing them at 90%! You may have heard about those 25 hedge fund managers who brought in an average of $1 billion each last year – an amount that would have paid for 658,000 teachers -- while the rest of the country suffered through a terrible economy. If we had a top tax rate of 90% they would “only” take home $100 million or so each – in a single year. And we could have 658,000 more teachers. So it’s a win-win.

Taxes are how we all pitch in to enjoy the benefits and protections of modern society. Those benefits and protections are what enable people to become wealthy, and we ask that they give some back so others can prosper as well.