Taxes

I don't believe we're right now in a downward spiraling financial fiasco. We've been in a downward spiraling financial fiasco for 3 years but most intensely for about 10 months now.

It's not just the oil crisis.

It's not just the credit crisis.

It's not just the foreclosure orgy.

It's not just the financial burden of the Iraq War.

It really wasn't 9/11 either.

Yes, all of these have accelerated the crisis. Yet the crisis was here all along.

It is called Trickle Down Economics:

H/T to Craig Newmark via ProgressiveAccountability.com:

• 95 percent of the time McCain voted with George W. Bush in 2007. 
• 100 percent of the time McCain voted with George W. Bush in 2008 so far. 
• 164 lobbyists McCain enlisted to set policy and raise money for his campaign. 
• 100 years - the time John McCain thinks U.S. forces must stay in Iraq. 

I cannot lie : I can't understand the whole concept of prostitution.

I can't understand why I woman would want to get paid by 2, 3, 6, 10 guys (or gals) a night to make rent. I can't understand how people can use their bodies as a tool or an instrument in that fashion.

I can't understand either why a guy would want to pay for sex. Yes, I know, I've heard about the whole "it's about having control and power and no string attached" spiel. Yet whereas many people see that as an exploitative act that gives men an unlimited amount of power, I see it more as a sign of weakness and even impotence. A guy that has to pay for it can't get it any other way and paying it for it is just part of the thrill.

Yet just because I don't understand the psychological dynamics of prostitution does it mean that it should be outlawed. On the contrary, just as with most drugs, I believe that we should follow Holland's lead and legalize prostitution.

Banning prostitution is not going to make it go away. On the contrary, the allure of breaking the taboo would be even stronger. If women and men want to turn sex into a transaction then, by all means, make it safe and make it fair.

Prostitution should be taxed and considered labor.

Prostitutes should be certified by the board of health.

Prostitution houses ought to be licensed and provide security services, along with health benefits and other labor benefits, to all their workers.

No, really, I want my money back.

About $10 billion has been squandered by the U.S. government on Iraq reconstruction aid because of contractor overcharges and unsupported expenses, and federal investigators warned Thursday that significantly more taxpayer money is at risk.

The three top auditors overseeing work in Iraq told a House committee their review of $57 billion in Iraq contracts found that Defense and State department officials condoned or allowed repeated work delays, bloated expenses and payments for shoddy work or work never done.

More than one in six dollars charged by U.S. contractors were questionable or unsupported, nearly triple the amount of waste the Government Accountability Office estimated last fall.

source: Auditors: Billions squandered in Iraq

$10 billion. Think about it folks. This is what it looks like with its "wheels" on: $10,000,000,000. The Bush administration has already spent $350,000,000,000 on this fiasco and is passing the golden gallon-sized chalice, looking for an additional handout in the amount of $100,000,000: of your money. My money. Our money.

Maybe it's unseemly to speak in terms of "wasted" lives--3,000-plus, not counting the destroyed and devastated lives of family members now grieving those fallen, not counting the lives that will never be, uh, "quite the same" (read the War Amputees Blog lately?). PTSD? Put The Sonsabitches on Depakot!

When it comes to the wounded-or shall we just call them the "walking dead"? (oh, I guess that doesn't work either, cause too many of them can't even walk)--we really have no idea how many lives are involved because the U.S. lacks mechanism to accurately track troops wounded in Iraq. What the hell else does the U.S. lack? Universal health care. Adequate funding for public schools. A social safety net to bring anywhere from 2.3 to 3.5 million homeless people in from the cold.

And the civilian body count? By the time I am finished typing this sentence, the stats will already be "dated," so you may as well just see for yourself, here: "We don't do body counts,"-so sayeth CentCom. 

Photo courtsey Puerto Rico IndyMedia

Puerto Rico is thorn in my heart because it took more than twenty years for this collapse to happen; meaning, more than half my lifetime. I left the island 20 years ago this September because I saw no future in the banana republicanism, corruption and cronyism that has been the norm in la isla del encanto.

The collapse of Puerto Rico's economy has been in the making since the Reagan presidency. When Reaganomics hit us, it was like a tsunami. The island went into a recession that lasted almost 10 years. That's because Southern-strategy Republicans and Republicrats saw fit to do away not only with federal tax incentives for business development in the island; but to kill small business and family farming programs as well. The Republicrats went with the blessing of the Great Communciator and they did everything they could to wipe out what they saw as the competition to their beloved yet economically depressed South.

Did Puerto Ricans do anything to avert the crisis? Of course not. Because the island's economy was predicated on not taxing businesses --big business that is--, once the US decided that US businesses in the island had to start paying federal taxes, the island's government did everything they could to avoid doing the same. Puerto Rican's pay one of the highest personal income taxes in the US.

Michael Bouldin's piece about healthcare reminded me of a piece I wrote in December for my newsletter. I think it makes a good followup to Michael's piece, so I reprint it here.

Health insurance. Joy and I were discussing health insurance after hearing a NewYork 1 report that uninsured people were more likely to be turned away from an emergency room and sent to a clinic than insured people. Now, hospitals who DO turn away patients based on insurance rather than severity of the injury are liable to law suits, but we all know that the chances of a law suit changing things are small since those who don’t have insurance are unlikely to have much legal counsel.

What is wrong with our insurance system? Too many people are uninsured and because of that do not have adequate health care available to them. But, that is only one part of the problem. What about those who ARE insured? There are long waiting times to get an appointment. Often you don’t get to choose your physician. You often don’t have a primary care physician who follows you through the years and knows you. Care is determined based on a business model where profit (or at least minimal cost) takes precedence over what the physician and patient want or the injury requires.